House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled the latest incarnation of the Path to Prosperity budget blueprint, a proposal that vows to cut $5.1 trillion in government spending and gets a thumb’s up from the Congressional Budget Office for economic growth.
Ryan says his plan balances the budget within a decade, strengthens Medicare and national security, repeals Obamacare, reforms the tax code and tackles entitlement reform.
“This is a plan to balance the budget and create jobs, and it builds off a simple fact: We can’t keep spending money we don’t have,” Ryan said. “…The Bipartisan Budget Act was a good first step. But we can and must do more. 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.”
The White House immediately jumped on Ryan’s plan as “the same old top-down approach.”
“The House Republican Budget stands in stark contrast to the President’s Budget, which would accelerate economic growth and expand opportunity for all hardworking Americans, while continuing to cut the deficit in a balanced way. The President has put forward a Budget that rewards hard work with fair wages, equips all children with a high-quality education to prepare them for a good job, puts a secure retirement within reach, and ensures health care is affordable and reliable, while at the same time asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share and making tough cuts to programs we can’t afford,” press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.
“And by paying for new investments and tackling our true fiscal challenges, the President’s Budget builds on the progress we’ve already made to cut the deficit by more than half since 2009 and cuts the deficit as a share of the economy to 1.6 percent by 2024. It also stabilizes the debt as a share of the economy by 2015 and puts it on a declining path after that,” Carney continued. “Budgets are about choices and values. House Republicans have chosen to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest rather than create opportunities for middle class families to get ahead.”
Ryan reaped praise from his House colleagues, though. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) lauded how it “prioritizes expanded American energy production and recognizes that new energy development is one of the best ways to raise new revenue, put Americans back to work, bolster the economy, lower gasoline prices, and create good-paying jobs.”
“Onshore and offshore U.S. energy production on our federal lands currently accounts for the second largest source of revenue to the U.S. Treasury,” Hastings said. “Yet the full potential of our energy resources will never be realized if the Obama Administration continues to block new leases sales and impose unnecessary bureaucratic regulations and costly red-tape.”
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) tweeted, “Paul Ryan ran for VP on a very similar budget to the one he released today. Americans didn’t like it last time, they won’t this time.”
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