(Larry Downing/Reuters)

Breaking a 26-year policy of exempting basic low-income entitlement programs from across-the-board cuts, both of the House Republican plans — “Cut, Cap, and Balance” Act and Boehner’s debt-ceiling proposal — “drop all of the low-income exemptions that have been part of every previous across-the-board cut mechanism since 1985.[...]

If you need any further proof that Republicans only truly represent the rich, here's what Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling plan would do.

That's right, for a quarter of a century, the nation's most vulnerable citizens have been protected from cuts in "all budget legislation that would trigger across-the-board cuts if Congress fails to meet a fiscal target.[...]" Boehner's plan ends that exemption, forcing unprecedented cuts in entitlements and eviscerating the safety net. That's the only way the kinds of cuts he's talking about could be achieved.

Think Progress's Pat Garofalo takes a look at what these cuts could mean just in Boehner's Ohio district, alone.

[...]Half in Ten’s Melissa Boteach and Jessica Liu found hundreds of thousands of people [in Boehner's district] rely on the social safety net that Boehner wants to eviscerate: – 180,000 people are on Medicare or Medicaid, comprising 27 percent of his district.

– 4,000 households access some form of public housing assistance.

– 90,000 or 13.9 percent of the district lives below the poverty line.

– Approximately 70,000 households receive Social Security benefits.

– Over 30,000 households are eligible for the SNAP (food stamp) program and 20,000 low-income children are eligible for food and nutrition services. “The House plan would result in an enormous increase in poverty and hardship while keeping Congress mired in a never-ending debate over default crises instead of a focus on jobs,” Boteach and Liu wrote.

There's little doubt that the Republicans have no other short-term goal in mind than just that—a "never-ending debate over default crisis." Keeping the country in crisis is their only hope for electoral success in 2012. They don't care who they sacrifice to get there, provided their true constituents—millionaires, oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers—don't have to pay higher taxes.