Ryan takes budget to committee; Senate proceeds with short-term spending bill
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, joins with other members of the committee as he departs a press conference at the U.S. Capitol where he unveiled his budget plan on March 12, 2013 in Washington, DC. / Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Despite heated objections to a budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the congressman's controversial economic blueprint moved to the House Budget Committee for a markup today, hours before Senate Democrats are slated to unveil their own budget plan.
The plan, which Ryan unveiled yesterday morning, would balance the federal budget in 10 years and limit future spending growth to 3.4 percent, down from the current rate of 4.9 percent. It would also transform the nation's Medicare system to a voucher-like program for everyone younger than 55, and overhaul the federal tax code.
Ryan, in remarks opening up the committee markup this morning, said he didn't look at budgetary issues "like an accountant" - which he is not - but rather as a "citizen." He argued that balancing the budget is a moral obligation and a "reasonable goal" for the nation.
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"Spending is the problem, and it's more than an economic problem. By living beyond our means we are stealing from our children," he said. Ryan argued that a debt crisis would be "the most predictable disaster in our history," and compared it to the 2008 financial collapse.
"Our debt is a sign of overreach," he argued, contending that balancing the budget "returns government to its proper limit and its proper focus."
President Obama disputed Ryan's claim about a looming debt crisis," countering in an interview on ABC that "we don't have an immediate crisis in terms of debt."
"In fact, for the next 10 years, it's gonna be in a sustainable place," he argued.
Congressional Democrats object fiercely to Ryan's blueprint, as they have to its various past iterations, none of which have passed through the Democrat-led Senate. Speaking on behalf of Democrats on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the committee's ranking member, reiterated his party's complaints that Ryan's "uncompromising approach" to deficit reduction favors the rich while placing undue burden on the middle-class.
"While providing this windfall to the very wealthy, this proposal guts vital investments that are central to shared prosperity, to upward mobility, and to rising middle-class wages," Van Hollen said. "It protects Pentagon spending, but it more than doubles the already deep sequester cuts to non-defense discretionary [spending]."
As for health care, Van Hollen argued, Ryan's plan eliminates Obamacare's benefits while keeping its built-in budget cuts, thereby taking a "wrecking ball" to Medicaid, reopening the prescription drug donut hole, and leaving people under 55 with a system reliant on "voucher, premium support, call it what you want, that declines in value relative to rising health care costs, leaving them to eat the difference."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., echoed similar points on the Senate floor this morning, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reiterated points his own party has made on the subject for years now. Both arguments are familiar from the 2012 election, when Ryan's budget became a point of controversy due to the congressman's place on the ticket alongside former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Democrats, who will unveil their own contentious budget proposal later this afternoon, argue that the intervening difference in this ongoing argument is the fact that Mr. Obama, not Romney, was elected president.
"This is the same budget plan we saw from congressman Ryan last year and the year before that. Even the name is the same. If anything, this new version is even more extreme than the last two Ryan Republican budget proposals, proposals that sought to end Medicare and raise taxes on middle-class families all while handing out more tax breaks to the wealthy," Reid said this morning on the Senate floor. "The Ryan Republican budget is anything but balanced and it reflects the same backward value Americans rejected in November."
Reaching a bipartisan agreement on a full-year budget proposal would, at this point, require unprecedented levels of compromise from a bitterly divided Congress. Barring the unlikely passage of a bipartisan, comprehensive, full-year, fiscal year budget, however, the government will not likely shut down immediately: By the end of the week, the Senate is expected to pass a short-term spending bill aimed at funding the government through September.
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According to CBO, FY-2013 should not be a "trillion dollar annual deficit," but predicted to be at $845 billion, and dropping, with the annualized growth of federal spending the lowest in over 60 years!
A report out today says the housing market is finally recovering after 7 years, and for an industry that has ALWAYS led us out of every post-WWII recession, this is great news that republicans keep dismissing!
Get with the program, and turn off that faux nooz propaganda!
Close some loopholes, trim some spending and close the deficit gap from both sides. Leave the "vision thing" to those with real vision.
NEARL451 replies: SJC......exactly.
I second the second, and agree wholeheartedly with SJC's proposal, which is much more intelligent than balancing the budget on the backs of the middle and lower classes in order to give the wealthy and corporate special interests more tax cuts, repealing the PPACA while leaving the funding mechanisms intact, and using the $716 Billion Medicare savings in the PPACA that romney/ryan attacked endlessly during the 2012 election!
Sorry, but lyin' ryan is a punk following a fictional book, and we need true compromise with a balanced approach of spending cuts and revenue due to closing tax loopholes and deductions that republicans cannot address!
Sadly, it's somewhere between (1) an incredibly expensive, very bad stage production, and (2) poker players who can't bluff and the other players know what's in their hand. Further, some of the players toss in fake chips and everybody else catches the lie. Har!
Didn't say I had an advanced degree, but I'm not the one pretending to have a PhD in economics, and writing a federal budget with merely a bachelor's degree and 4 years of college like the ayn rand puppet -- lyin ryan!
"Your claim is amusing, considering that Ryan's budget assumes $700 billion in cost reductions from ObamaCare! In fact, he admitted this point on a FoxNews interview a few days ago."
Not only that, but his right-wing tea potty budget repeals only part of the PPACA, and leaves all the tax increase funding in place!
So he uses the $716 Billion in Medicare savings that he and romney ran against in 2012, as well as the $800 Billion in increased revenue from the PPACA, to offset his $500 Billion in increased defense spending and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate special interests!
Ryan Doesn't Repeal Obamacare: Maintains Cuts And Taxes, Eliminates Benefits
"The House Budget Chairman, who campaigned against the law so vociferously and voted to rescind it more than once, doesn't get rid of Obamacare in its entirety. Instead, he guts the law's benefit while maintaining its savings and revenue increases, holding on to the $716 billion in Medicare savings and keeping a baseline that includes tax increases from the law."
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/12/1703791/ryan-doesnt-repeal-obamacare-maintains-cuts-and-taxes-eliminates-benefits/
He cannot do it with just spending cuts, and needs revenue also!
Yes, the ayn rand puppet, paul ryan, has a mere bachelors degree, and wrote his tea potty budget based on the fictional writings of a 1950s author, while the moronic republicans treat him as a PhD economist, which he certainly is not! LOL!
BTW, we had a hell of a hole to dig out from, with all economic indicators on Jan. 20, 2009, close to a depression, and most economic indicators are positive today, after 37 straight months of private-sector job growth including 2.2+ million jobs in 2012, and a construction/housing industry primed to move out of the doldrums after 7 years!
As a matter of fact, the budget deficit was already $1.2 Trillion on Jan. 20, 2009, and ended that year at $1.4 Trillion, but this year it is predicted to be $845 Billion, and dropping, with an annualized growth rate of federal spending since 2009 at 2.5%.
Just FYI -- that's the lowest in over 60 years!
Stop your doom and gloom republican propaganda, and get with program to HELP instead of HINDER and OBSTRUCT like the GOP!
"Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Budget Committee, finally released a budget. Year over year, in this proposed budget, spending jumps dramatically.
For instance, from this year's budget to next year's proposed budget, spending would increase by $162 billion. This year, the federal government will spend $3.599 trillion; under Murray's budget, the federal government would be on track to spend even more.
Over the next decade, spending under Murray's budget would increase by 62 percent."
And therein lies the crux of the problem. We do not need idealogues writing budgets or long term spending bills. We need practical budget managers.
The budget is what bills get passed to fund the Federal accounts for the next year. It is all pretty dry stuff. You decide what things should get funded next year and what shouldn't.
The long term vision (10 year plan)is something different and should not be attached to the short term. However, with some vision as to what the US shouldbe investing in long term, and fixes for upcoming funding issues (like continuing to make Medicare solvent) should be part of those bills. But that is NOT the budget.
The exact rouble with Ryan's plan is that is is completelty a campaign vision, not anything practical that can be passed in the Senate.
Moderation, moderation, find some revenue, make some actuarial type choices.