
If Ryan goes forward with his scheme to gut entitlement and poverty programs, he will meet a wave of public fury that even the tax scam did not trigger.

Flush from ramming through a trillion-dollar Christmas giveaway to wealthy Americans and corporations at the expense of working families, Republicans now seem to think they have a blank check to go after the social safety net.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that in order to fix the massive hole he just blew in the federal budget, he wants to cut Medicaid and welfare programs and food stamps.

But Ryan is running headlong into the will of the American people. If the tax bill was unpopular, this plan will be downright radioactive.


Even Ryan is not stupid enough to go after Medicare. Polls show 94 percent of Democrats and 85 percent of Republicans oppose cutting even a nickel from the program. No doubt, he also has memories of what a political disaster the idea was when he pitched it as Mitt Romney’s running mate.

But he is likely to run into an explosion of opposition from going after Medicaid or welfare, too.

An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll earlier this year found that by a margin of 57 percent to 39 percent, Americans want the federal government to spend more to help them — the biggest margin in two decades.

And that was months before the tax scam was signed into law, which has only further fueled public anger at Republican ideology.

If the GOP goes through with Ryan’s plan, they will have to explain to their voters why they are willing to spend trillions on a massive tax cut for the rich, but not on antipoverty and entitlement programs which are needed and wanted by the majority in this country.

And there is no explanation that can sound credible to working people.