The GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress have crafted their 2016 budget proposals, newly confident about fulfilling promises to cut spending, reduce taxes and shrink the government. Although inequality has reached Gilded Age levels, austerity continues to dominate their internal debates. Never mind that drastic spending cuts have harmed, not helped, the struggling economies of the eurozone, where mounting evidence eviscerates the theory that austerity can spur growth.

The latest tax reform proposal from Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee is a full-blown version of supply-side economics, to the tune of $4 trillion in revenue loss over a decade that would have to be offset by spending cuts. The plan targets programs that benefit the poor the most: Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps). On all sides and in both chambers, the Republicans appear determined to inflict more painful austerity on those who can least withstand it.

In the near term, the proposed cuts would hurt millions of poor people, a large share of them veterans, children and the elderly. Two other factors guarantee that the pain could get much worse over the next five years: the sequester caps on spending and a plan to convert Medicaid and SNAP into block grants to the states.

The sequester formula, enacted in 2011 by the Budget Control Act, mandates large reductions in discretionary spending over a decade. In 2013, Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act, negotiated by Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan, which eased some damaging effects for 2014 and 2015. Unless another deal is struck, however, the harsh caps will return in 2016, with automatic reductions across the board. Bipartisan solutions are less likely than when the Democrats had a Senate majority. There is much pressure (some bipartisan) to remove only the caps on military spending, which would likely result in even greater cuts to nonmilitary spending. Even under the current formula, discretionary nonmilitary spending is set to fall over the next few years to lows not seen since the early 1960s. Those funds pay for much of the safety net, already much thinner than it used to be or needs to be.

The other worrisome feature of the Republican budget proposals involves turning over funding for Medicaid and SNAP to the states as block grants. Management of the programs and many decisions about services, benefits and eligibility would be handed over to state control.

“It’s just a better way to give flexibility on the ground, where people are at,” said Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Budget Committee. “The more you manage something far away, the more costly and less efficient it becomes.”

Efficiency and democracy — what isn’t to like about this arrangement? Plenty. As Ezra Klein pointed out at Vox recently, “The reality is block grants don’t save money. But they’re routinely used to hide the thing that does save money, which is fixed funding formulas that require huge spending cuts.” The proposed amount for these block grants would increase yearly, based on inflation and population growth, rather than need, which drives the current formula. The Republicans claim this transition would save $700 billion over a decade.