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Republicans set the stage for this spring's fiscal battles by readying the debut of their new budget blueprint on Tuesday, which they said would achieve $4.6 trillion in savings and balance the U.S. budget within a decade.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., argued that his forthcoming budget — the third he's authored as chairman of the House Budget Committee — would be able to achieve a balanced budget by 2023, and boost the gross national product by as much as 1.7 percent in the meanwhile.
The plan is unlikely to ever become law in its entirety; it assumes a repeal of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, and collects no new revenue from taxes, two elements which are unpalatable to Democrats.
But budgets are often more political statements about a party's priorities than a hard governing blueprint. With that in mind, Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, sought to inoculate Republicans from criticism of the budget, and play offense against Democrats' forthcoming budget.
"Our opponents will shout austerity, but let's put this in perspective," Ryan wrote in an op-ed to be published in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. "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."
Ryan was set to detail his full plan in a press conference on Tuesday morning, but his op-ed contained key elements of the budget. Ryan's plan would:
- Achieve a total of $4.6 trillion in savings over the next decade
- Enact tax reform that closes loopholes and deductions, while reducing the number of income brackets to two — one at 10 percent, the other at 25 percent
- Change Medicare to a model in which future retirees would receive "premium supports" (Democrats call them vouchers) to subsidize the purchase of insurance from a menu of options, including traditional Medicare
- Repeal the president's health care reform law
- Approve the proposed Keystone XL transnational oil pipeline
- Enact welfare reforms to give states more flexibility in enforcing the program
There are other aspects of Ryan's plan that the Wisconsin congressman will outline tomorrow. Many elements of the new Ryan budget are familiar Republican proposals, weaved together in a comprehensive statement of governing principles.
The new budget, however, is only the opening salvo in a budget battle that could stretch throughout much of the spring. Congress acted earlier this year to extend the debt limit through mid-May, but only on the condition that the House and the Senate each pass a budget. The Senate budget, authored by Democrats, and their first in years, is also due this week.
And the political fighting over the dueling proposals has already begun.
"I hate to break the suspense, but their budget won't balance—ever," Ryan wrote. "We House Republicans have done our part … Now we invite the president and Senate Democrats to join in the effort."
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Will someone please tell Lyin' Teabagger Ryan to just shut up already! Ryan just supports the Big Health Insurance industry, he don't care about average American families.
Ben -
If Ryan 'supports the Big Health Insurance industry' as you claim, why was that same industry one of the biggest donors to democrats and especially Obama in the last election cycle?
You seem to have missed the recent article about Obama's donors that came out.
If you could actually engage the brain you were given, you would see that Obamacare is nothing but a big giveaway to the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry - given to them on a silver platter by democrats. The republicans weren't even involved in that debacle that should have landed Pelosi, Reid, and Obama in prison for all of the bribes and the like that went on.
Tammy I would be careful implying that Pelosi, Reed and Obama should be in jail when you have the asses of evil Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld who should be in prison for war crimes.
Herman Munster
Stfu,,your a loser
dang fool ... even if he was 100% right on everything...which is doubtful....Why on earth would he not let obama take the hit on this --ie actually do a budget for once or even have harry hoar house read attempt a budget...when neither of these guy has done nothing but bad mouth everyone for 5 years. Dumb Dumb and DUMBER. Also, doesn't he know that the dems have no plan to cut entitlements into a reasonable sanity.. The average medicare recipient pays out 750k and put in 250k. These boomers have no conscience about running this thing into the proverbial debt abyss and leave every generation after holding the bag. Why are you even talking you dork.
Because Obama wouldn't take the hit. He doesn't care about the future of the country. Instead he will ride things for as long as he can until the wheels come off and then hand the keys over to our kids and grandkids.
Or worse....to Joe "Where the hell am I?" Biden
removed
Ryan actually thinks Obama will come up with a budget!!???? Obama isn't interested in a budget!!
Barry asked Michelle to budget and she said "You got enough of the bed Barry, I ain't moving!"
How many effin times do you have to be told Barry Goldwater is dead. No wonder the Rethuglicans are such losers.
Except Obama has submitted a budget every year he has been in office. I know it is a popular republican lie that he hasn't. People who can add and subtract are already laughing at Ryan's latest budget. Medicare vouchers for seniors and the 35th attempt at repealing Obamacare. And the numbers don't add up. It's really pitiful that republicans can't find anybody who can do high school math.
Really, this is all they have to offer? They have been on a mission to destroy the middle class since Ronnie was in office. They keep pulling, tugging, stretching and forcing the gap in income disparity further and further. They only know what their masters teach them, worship the false idols of corporate greed. They are destroying the American Dream for millions upon millions of families and then they wonder why things are getting ugly all over our Country. People will work hard and do the right things if there is hope for a better future, a chance at the dream. But as they remove that hope for more and more people they are creating a cultural cancer that will destroy our society and ultimately take them down as well. All of this is being done out of a greed veiled in righteousness and so called "Christianity". The Holier than thou Paul Ryan is doing Satan's work on Earth. Attempting to take down the most Powerful Force for good the World has ever known, the United States of America. I for one hope he rots in hell with the Koch Brothers by his side. There they can sit for eternity, reading Ayn Rand by the light of the fire they so eagerly serve.
The problem with narrow minded people like this poster is that they can't handle any cuts to the middle class and the poor. Never mind the fact that most of our budget goes to the middle class and the poor, you can't touch it. It doesn't matter to them about common sense, sustainability, or responsibility. It is all about getting as much as they can get and trying to find someone else to pay for it. On top of it all, they criticize "Christians" for not just giving, when they themselves give nothing.
Screw Ryan and the Nazi train he rode in on.
Also ... AS LONG AS CORPORATE AMERICA KEEPS GETTING FREE TAX PAYER MONEY LIKE THE BILLIONS THAT GO TO BIG OIL AND THAT ISN'T CUT FIRST, THE NAZIS OF THE GOPTP BETTER NOT CUT ONE THIN DIME FROM ANY MIDDLE CLASS PROGRAM.
Unless his hate of government handouts ht the rich people who can afford to eat them, he will never get support from anyone except the rich and those people too stupid to realize they are cutting their own throats to make the rich guy richer. Getting and acquiring wealth is a great thing ... an American thing ... but it should never be subsidized by the government and NEVER EVER at the expense of those that bust their butts to make them that rich ... in other words working class Americans.
So you agree that the Billions that went down the "sinkhole" of Solyndra and other "alternative energy" companies was a complete waste of "working class Americans" money?
do you really think these are the only companies to go belly up? Do you really think no companies went belly up under the Bush administration? Geez-where have you been.
Lehman Brothers!
Beware of the Ryan plan. Turning Medicare into a voucher system will be disastrous to the seniors. Not the seniors now-but all you guys moving up in age.
To anyone that has parents still living, think of it. Give seniors a $15,000.00 voucher and when it's gone, then go shop for insurance.
I've worked in the insurance industry for 20 yrs and trust me when I tell you that no insurance company is going to give a 80 yr old person with cancer or a heart condition insurance unless they pay an outrageous premium that most will not be able to afford.
A $15,000.00 voucher is less than would be used for one hospital stay. Get real Ryan you pathetic POS.
Want to save money? Cut the taxpayer paid multibillion dollar subsidies to oil companies that make multibillion dollar profits each quarter. Republicans believe in capitalism? Then let those companies invest their own billions in profits back into their companies and stop sucking on the American taxpayers.
Paul Ryan can go straight to hell.
You don't have a clue about what are talking about. It is a voluntary voucher. They don't have to take the voucher if they do not want to. Obviously, the 80 year old with cancer will opt for the current medicare system.
Sure it is. Riiiight.
I have some great ocean front property in Kansas for sale too..
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if the sequester fully goes in and taxes are returned to the pre-Bush rates, the 2013 deficit will be a VERY manageable $200B. Why screw up the economic recovery now with even more cuts and add more healthcare expenses to Americans from the less-efficient private insurers now?
I am not sure you are accurate on those numbers. Do you have the facts to show it. I would be interested in seen that. I think you are lumping 10 years of cuts or spending increases together and applying to one year's worth of deficit. Adding $85 billion in new taxes and cutting $45 billion will not bring down a $900 billion deficit to $200 billion.
"Enact tax reform that closes loopholes and deductions"
Which loopholes and deductions, those for the 1% or those for the rest of us?
Probably both.
It's time to admit,,Ryan is a loser
as in losing the election, yes he is a loser.
It is also time to admit...Obama is a liar.
The "new and improved" Ryan budget proposals are essentially his original plan on steroids … requiring even more mathematical hand-waving.
On the whole, it would seem that Paul Ryan is less of a budgetary genius and more of a poseur, feigning accounting acumen to further his own political ambitions.
ScienceGuy-356641, Lyin Ryan is not smart enough to understand math as he was an economics major, a social science of guessing what people might do. What a waste of Ohio tax payers dollars to send him to Ohio's flagship public Ivy League school. MU should disown this POS. I know I do.
So where did you get your degree in Economics?
Yep, it doesn't take an accountant to fool republican leadership into buying a rotten plan, so long as it lowers taxes on the extremely wealthy.
What do you consider "extremely wealthy"?
How Come None of These Budget Conscious Dicks Didn't Stop Bush From Spending $2 Trillion on Medicare Drug Plan (drug companies made out like bandits) and Gave Bushole the Green Light for His War In Iraq For Oil?
Fox News -- Greenspan: Oil the PRIME Motive for Iraq War
America's elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
http://tinyurl.com/2726hs
Bush gives NEW reason for Iraq war
Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists
http://tinyurl.com/9l3ru
In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is KEY Issue
U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool
http://tinyurl.com/ygckzh8
THEN they blame Obama/Clinton for Amb. Stevens in Libya... what con artists they are:
House Republican's Killed Funding To Protect Embassy Staff Like Ambassador Stevens
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledged that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010. - http://tinyurl.com/96htgau
ONLY A COMPLETE MORON WOULD BELIEVE ANYTHING FROM THE GOP... who are simply who.res for Wall St.
Heck! Even Wall St. doesn't want to be associated with the republicans.
Conservatives like lower taxes and keeping more of their money...and will telll you they do.
Liberals like lower taxes and keeping more of their money...and will tell you they don't.
I'll take the S.O.B. who's at least honest about it.
Didn't the Catholich church even tell him the last time around that his plan does not follow the Churchs teaching?
What a guy. Remember all those teabagger signs to "keep the gubmints hands off my Medicare" well guess what teabaggers-Ryan wants to put his hands on your Medicare.
With all the sequestration cuts plus the tax increases on upper income folks from the fiscal cliff deal in place, plus the budget caps passed in 2011, the CBO now estimates that GDP growth will rebound from 1.4% GDP growth in 2013 to 3.4% in 2014. They project that in 2014 federal tax revenue will be 18% of GDP and in 2015 about 19% of GDP. That has been the historical average for federal revenue over the last several decades. CBO estimates that federal tax revenue will remain at 19% of GDP through 2023.
The CBO now estimates that federal spending will remain at 22% of GDP from 2013 until 2022 when it will rise to 23% of GDP.
The federal government does not have a revenue problem; it will be back to the recent historical average in another year and remain at that historical average for the next 10 years. Federal spending, however, even with the sequester cuts implemented, will remain well above the historical average for the next 10 years.
WE HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM!
The jack-wagons in the GOP's underlying message to the citizens: "We've got ours! The rest of you little piggies need to figure out how to either root or starve."
While your President golfs with Tiger Woods, sends his wife to Aspen for a week, flies to Vegas for a $2 Million "campaign" speech (after he's won reelection), etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Keep b*tching about the GOP while the emperor tries on new clothes;)
and that has to do with Ryans voucher plan for medicare...............................................how?
I'm still steamed about the 2 trillion tax dollars to kill Saddam. I know he wasn't a nice person but that was excessive. Did they ever find the 10 billion in cash that Bush sent to Iraq but never showed up?
Lyin' Ryan got his a$$ handed to him on a platter in the last election. What the hell, this guy's like the bunny in the Ever Ready battery add. He just keeps going on and on.
Politicians were warned years ago that the boomers would put a strain on the system, republicans and democrats both ignored the warning. They were more worried about their jobs than about the health of the country. Now they are scrambling to correct the system at the most inopportune time when we are drowning in debt and in a slow economy. There should have been more medicare taxes many years ago. Regan cut taxes and railed against govt, then things got somewhat back into balance during Clinton, but he (Clinton) said "wall street is to bogged down in to much regulation, lets free them up so they can go wild", then bush said "the national debt is growing again, why didn't that Regan tax cut thing work"? "why don't we try that again". 2008 arrives and we all discover the national debt is still rising, the tax cut thing failed again, and wall street true to their reputation, went wild and crashed the economy. Now here we are in double trouble with the boomers not having yet peaked, will be looking to medicare and social security for years to come in a broken economy with both parties in their respective corners hugging their ideologies with no reasonable fix on the horizon. I'm afraid we are in for more rising debt and slow economy for some time to come.
Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as ideological discords. Democracy demands a generalized synergism to be greater than the summation of generalization(s). Society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crispy brief, there-in lies the rub of the ideological phraseology biased discord. We must adopt generalities that 'apply in every special case' else we cause self extinction.
The tax code has become unfair since the 1960's. The 1960-63 top rate was 91.5% at $400k and up. Year 2012 and the tax code was inverted with the top earners set at 20%, the commoner top rate 39.6%. Read amendment 16 to understand we have lost constitutional protections "The higher the earnings, the higher the percentage collected from them."
The debt has one cause, the aristocratic view of superiority and exemption to responsibility, aye even subjugation of Christianity itself. They would rather mint Ceasar's denarii and subjugate humanity to a slaves wage. The top quintile income wealth is over 60% of the national income summation. And yet we tax poverty levels to hoard even that last 1% of coin. And tax least at the highest income levels.
The House of Representatives has the authority of taxation and can look no where else to shed it’s purpose. “…that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;…”.
Have a happy day :-).
Meet the new plan, same as the old plan.
Both sides need to take a serious look at spending cuts and revenues as the bipartisan debt commission suggested many moons ago.
Both sides need to recognize the need for universal healthcare. GOP is right their needs to be safe harbors for Doctors to avoid malpractice suits. There needs to be a standard whether regional or national on how much so called non profits can charge. There is ridiculous mark-ups from asprin to miracle drugs. Healthcare Insurance providers need further regulation, and their needs to be transparency in costs on what hospitals pays the pharmas and medical suppliers and what the hospitals charge.
There are some good ideas and real bad ones being presented by both parties in all areas of the budget.
Compromise on what is best for the country and move on
Carolina Kid, you did leave out one major point on the cost of health care and this is the salaries health care organizations VP's are compensated. VP's receive upwards of $3M/year plus a 30% guaranteed bonus, European cars, housing costs and many other perks. These perks are passed on to the consumer too.
My spouse was a payroll director for a large health organization and these numbers are spot on. The Director of HR is compensated ~$1M/year with a guaranteed bonus of 30%! These people are making more than doctors while holding a BA at a minimum. This must be nipped in the bud before anything so as to drive down costs we pay out on our insurance premiums.
Intellect, you are correct. The CEO of Yale Health Systems is paid more than the guy that heads up the campus. And you are correct the compensation for the executive leader ship teams in these so called non profits are paid far more than they are worth, while their employees and departments have to fight and scratch for every dime.
At time's I think the young people don't understand we pay money out of our social security check for medicare. It's somewhere above $90.00 dollars a month. My wife's social security check of $401.00, went to $303.00 at 65.
Guess I should write Ryan and let him know medicare isn't ever a freeby for us old timers.
Anyone in Medicare, whether over 65 or on SSI pays a monthly premium. It ain't free.
You mean like the premium they are paying now or is this a different premium?
Ryan's head is so far up Boehner's ass that he can see his tonsils.
The GOP is always good for a laugh...and the Ryan budget is no exception. What he proposed would take 25 years he wants to do in 10....with no tax increases on the wealthy. The GOP claims that closing loopholes and deductions is the same as raising taxes, but now Ryan says that is exactly what he will do in changing to two tax rates, 10 and 25%. Both parties acknowledge that a small percentage control the economic wealth. If you lower the top level to 25%, and still try and balance the budget with no tax increases on that wealth, the money has to come from somewhere. Who else is left but the poor and middle classes. The man's hypocrisy also knows no bounds when it comes to his revenue. Fought tooth and nail against the tax increases in Dec 2012, now includes that as one of his keystones to balancing the budget. Same with the $700B in Medicare savings. Campaigned with Romney on restoring the cuts as imperative to the life of Medicare, now includes that same amount as "revenue" for his plan. He still wants to voucherize Medicare and says it will not affect anybody now, just those under 55. Well inform a 54 year old that in 20 years, as a 75 year old, that he will be shopping for insurance on the open market... and the government will subsidize a small portion of that, and THEN ask that 54 year old how he likes Ryan's plan. Laughable? Ryan's budget helped cost the GOP the election in 2012. Proposing this will force every GOP rep to vote for it and be on record. 2014 can't come soon enough.
Stupid is as stupid does. $4.6 trillion in 10 years? How about cutting the deficit spending NOW. That $1-2 trillion (depending on who you want to believe) a year that can and should be cut - otherwise we end up like Greece. How man times have voters have to be fooled before they wake up. In the last 20 years, how many time were you told, by BOTH political parties, that the politicians were are going to balance the budget (or reduce spending) TOMORROW? A dozen, two dozen, so many I can't remember the number, can you? And how many times have they kept their word? ZERO!!! This is business as usual for both political parties are you going to buy it? If you and the other voters do: Hello Greece!!!
Then once they learn how to balance the budget, maybe we can hope to teach them how to reduce it.
Stupid as George,,,,
Cut the military industrial complex budget back to pre 9/11 appropriation levels and include inflation costs for starters. This is a no brainer but there again the GOP would not receive their big fat bonus checks from the military contractors.
Ryan is a loser,like mitt,no one will take his third attempt at a voucher budget serious.
Even Fox was giving him a hard time about doing a budget that has no chance.
Here is an idea. Republican members of the house are given a high school math test. The person to do the republican budget next year must score in the top 10. I’ll bet that Ryan wouldn’t be in the top 25. If this test was given to all members of the house, Ryan wouldn’t be in the top 100.