[mainekitchen] Ryans $5.1 trillion budget cut !
- From: "jim caron" <jcaron16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mainekitchen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 16:52:20 -0400
April 01, 2014, 10:30 am
Ryan's final $5.1T cut
By Russell Berman and Bernie Becker
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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday unveiled a budget that proposes to cut $5.1
trillion over a decade in a bid to erase the federal deficit, while calling
once again for dramatic changes to Medicare, Medicaid and the tax code. [READ
RYAN'S BUDGET PROPOSAL.]
The nearly 100-page blueprint is likely be the last formal budget proposal from
Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, who wants to move
to the more powerful Ways and Means Committee next year.
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While Ryan adheres to a bipartisan budget agreement that set a $1.014 trillion
spending cap for fiscal 2015, he proposes deeper cuts to discretionary accounts
after that in order to keep the GOP’s promise to balance the budget within 10
years. In those out years, defense spending gets a boost by $273 billion over
the level President Obama proposed in his budget last month.
“The Bipartisan Budget Act was a good first step. But we can and must do more,"
Ryan said in a statement, referring to the two-year deal he struck in December
with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.). “As the House majority, we have a
responsibility to lay out a long-term vision for the country, and this budget
shows how we will solve our nation’s biggest challenges. By cutting wasteful
spending, strengthening key priorities, and laying the foundation for a
stronger economy, we have shown the American people there’s a better way
forward.”
House Republicans are having a tougher time finding the votes to pass Ryan’s
plan this year than in previous years, in part because he sticks to that
roughly $1 trillion spending level for 2015 that 62 conservatives opposed in
December. And because of a worsening long-term deficit outlook from the
Congressional Budget Office, Ryan had to cut deeper to achieve balance and, for
the first time, he used a friendlier economic projection method known to some
as “dynamic scoring” to help make the numbers work. That move is likely to draw
criticism from Democrats, who have campaigned against Ryan’s proposal each of
the last three years.
Even so, Ryan's fourth framework as Budget Committee chairman contains broad
similarities to last year's effort to revamp tax-and-spending programs, which
was opposed by 10 House Republicans. The GOP can lose 16 votes this time
around, assuming all Democrats continue to oppose the Ryan budget.
The increases in the defense budget would return Pentagon spending by 2017 to
its level from before sequestration cuts kicked in. That amounts to an increase
of $483 billion over 10 years, which is offset by cuts to non-defense
discretionary spending.
Read more from The Hill:
• Ryan budget repeals ObamaCare
• House GOP budget boosts defense spending
• Ryan budget sets sights on Dodd-Frank
• Ryan budget attacks Obama's climate agenda
• Democrats unload on 'reckless' budget
• Reid: Ryan budget is ‘modern Koch-topia’
• Final budget day for Rep. Ryan
• Document: Ryan's FY 2015 budget proposal
Ryan notes in the budget that spending would continue to increase over the next
10 years under his plan, but at a slower pace than it is currently on. While
current spending is projected to increase annually by 5.2 percent, the Ryan
budget would slow that to 3.5 percent.
The proposal contains Ryan’s now-familiar plans to partially privatize Medicare
through an option premium support system while block-granting Medicaid to the
states. And although the budget again calls for an overhaul of the tax code
that collapses the seven individual income brackets and lowers top rates, Ryan
notably does not endorse a major proposal by Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the Ways
and Means Committee chairman, who announced his retirement on Monday.
Ryan’s latest budget would allow people who turned 55 before this year to
remain on the traditional Medicare. In last year’s budget, people who were
already 54 would see no changes in their Medicare.
In effect, that means that the latest Ryan budget affects the same group of
people as last year’s framework, just with everyone having become one year
older. Ryan had pushed to make Medicare changes to those 55 and younger in last
year’s budget, but couldn’t get enough of the GOP caucus on board.
Ryan’s budget also makes few changes to his Medicare framework for people under
55, allowing future seniors to choose between the traditional program or
choosing a private plan, where costs are offset by a “premium support” payment.
For instance, it continues to incorporate the Medicare cuts in ObamaCare that
Ryan sharply criticized as GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012. Ryan
has argued the difference is that he uses the cuts for deficit reduction and
continues to press to repeal the healthcare law in the budget.
But the new budget does not outline a specific replacement for the healthcare
law, nor does it say what would happen to people now covered under ObamaCare
once it is repealed.
The new budget does suggest using the average bid from competing private
insurance plans to calculate the premium support payment, a method Ryan says
would means savings for both the beneficiary and the government.
Like previous years, Ryan also continues to call for dramatic changes to
Medicaid, seeking to provide block grants to states.
In the latest budget, Ryan keeps the outlines of an aggressive plan to overhaul
the tax code that he first formulated with Camp a couple years ago.
That plan would collapse the current seven individual tax brackets into two and
lower the top individual rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. The corporate
rate would also be slashed to 25 percent, from its current 35 percent.
Camp released a draft tax reform proposal in February that axed many tax breaks
but fell short of those goals, with a small percentage of individual taxpayers
hit by a 35 percent bracket.
The Camp plan illustrated the challenges that policymakers face in revamping
the tax code, and Ryan — who is the front-runner to take over Camp’s gavel —
again declined to weigh in on which tax preferences should be scrapped.
Ryan applauded Camp for releasing his tax overhaul, but the Budget Committee
chairman’s newest framework only notes that “there are a number of good
tax-reform proposals” and the “the Path to Prosperity does not embrace any
particular proposal.”
Ryan’s budget has historically taken a more hands-off approach to Social
Security than it does to Medicare and Medicaid, and the newest framework is no
different. Like last year’s budget, the newest plan requires both the president
and Congress to submit plans to strengthen Social Security.
If Ryan's budget in 2014 was similar to his previous proposals, so was the
Democratic reaction. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Ryan's counterpart on the
budget committee, labeled it a “Republican declaration of class warfare.”
“This reckless Republican budget casts a dark shadow over the American Dream,”
Van Hollen said. “By gutting vital investments in our future, it is a direct
attack on job creation and a recipe for our nation's economic decline.”
In other areas, Ryan’s budget proposes cuts to programs aimed at combating
climate change throughout the federal government while expanding domestic oil
production on federal lands — a longstanding Republican priority.
Ryan incorporates some of the reforms to agriculture and welfare policy adopted
in the farm bill that passed earlier this year, but he proposes additional
changes to subsidies while again pushing to block-grant the food stamp program
and turn it over to the states.
The proposal envisions the winding down of the housing giants Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac while scrapping significant portions of the Dodd-Frank banking
reform bill and significant funding cuts to the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
On transportation, Ryan’s plan notes the financial shortfall in the Highway
Trust Fund, but it does not endorse a specific long-term funding source and
says only that its future spending should match revenue — an approach that
could lead to significant cuts to federal transportation projects without a new
revenue source.
Ryan again calls for eliminating operating subsidies to Amtrak, and he proposes
reducing funding for the Transportation Security Administration.
In education, the plan calls for major cuts to the Pell grant program, a repeal
of funding for the 2010 student loan reform signed by President Obama and a
consolidation of job training programs.
One significant omission is familiar from Ryan’s previous budgets: immigration
reform. While the president’s budget calls for an overhaul of immigration laws
as a way to strengthen the economy and reduce the deficit, Ryan does not touch
an area that remains divisive in his party, despite his own personal push for
the issue over the last year.
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