'Scroogy stereotype': Expert warns GOP tax plan uses 'fake math' and 'shanks the poor'

A Washington Post columnist rebuked Republicans on Thursday night over their budget plans, which she said sounded like it was hatched by cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge.

Catherine Rampell, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's economic plans, wrote Thursday that the GOP is eyeing taking food and health care away from the poor to subsidize tax cuts for the rich.

"That might sound like a stale, Scroogy stereotype. But it's not an exaggeration: It's laid out, in black and white, in GOP budget plans released this week," she said.

Republicans have sought for years to shrink government health programs and food supplements, she noted, and now they're "desperate to extend and expand" Trump's 2017 tax cuts. That means they're "especially motivated" this time around to "shred the safety net," as they have to find savings "somewhere," said Rampell.

Given the massive dollar amounts on Trump's economic agenda, his party now must fill a gaping budget hole.

"They claim they'll do it through a combination of fake math, nonbinding promises and shanking the poor," she chided. That includes what the writer called "ludicrous economic assumptions to paper over" the House's massive revenue losses in its budget plan, such as assuming productivity growth will, in the words of Manhattan Institute fellow Jessica Reidl, "magically nearly double" and then remain there forever.

The budget also includes a "wistful throwback" to the Reagan era "magic asterisk," she said, pointing to $3 trillion in "unspecified" savings government-wide.

Rampell called out three pieces specifically and decoded them: Forthcoming cuts by the Agricultural Committee — which oversees food stamps and farm supports — to the tune of $230 billion; looming cuts to Medicaid, included in materials distributed just last month by the GOP's budget committee chair; and planned cuts of $880 billion from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and parts of Medicare.

" Trump has his enemies list, and lawmakers have theirs. The latter might just include your ability to feed your family," she concluded.