House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc, today rolled out the GOP’s budget blueprint, which cuts spending by $5 trillion and balances the budget in ten years. Ryan’s ambitious plan includes repealing President Obama’s signature healthcare law, aka Obamacare, as well as changing Medicare into a voucher system.
“Under our proposal, the government spends no more than it collects in revenue—or 19.1 percent of gross domestic product each year. As a result, we'll spend $4.6 trillion less over the next decade,” Ryan wrote in a Tuesday op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal. “On the current path, we'll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we'll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5 percent each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4 percent. Because the U.S. economy will grow faster than spending, the budget will balance by 2023, and debt held by the public will drop to just over half the size of the economy.” - Read more at The Wall Street Journal
DREAM ON “Put simply, the Ryan budget depends on a bizarro universe in which President Obama ditches his beliefs and converts to a GOP that he roundly defeated in last year’s presidential election,” The Fiscal Times’ Josh Boak and Eric Pianin write. “Repealing Obamacare might rally his caucus and conservative groups such as the Club for Growth, but the chances of the president killing his own landmark bill to help Ryan’s math work are nil.” - Read more at The Fiscal Times
DEMS LAUNCH ANTI-RYAN ADS AHEAD OF BUDGET RELEASE Democrats are on the attack today using social media to blast Ryan's budget. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a petition on Facebook that already has more than 300,000 signatures to "Tell Paul Ryan to stop putting millionaire tax breaks before Medicare." - See the petition here
SENATE TWEAKS SEQUESTER FUNDS The House’s $984 billion spending bill, which received bipartisan support from the Senate Appropriations Committee Monday, keeps the sequester cuts in place, but amends three full appropriation measures. The $20.5 billion agriculture bill-- is an increase from the House’s $19.6 billion, the homeland security bill remains at $39.6 billion, and the commerce, justice and science bill is cut from $52.8 billion to $50.2 billion.
The bill does not contain any new funding to implement provisions under Obamacare or Dodd-Frank, as the administration requested. The Senate will vote today on an amendment to the House-passed continuing resolution that keeps the government funded through September and avoids a government shutdown later this month. - Read the bill summary here
LIBERAL GROUPS FRET OVER CHAINED CPI The AARP and liberal activists are urging the Obama administration not to consider chained CPI as part of a deficit reduction packaged. The Fiscal Times’ Eric Pianin says that groups warned Monday “that reducing the cost of living adjustment – even by as little as a third of percentage point – over time would have a highly detrimental impact on the economic well-being of older and disabled Americans and their families who receive benefits from Social Security.” - Read more at The Fiscal Times
