Ryan's budget brings back a now-familiar list of spending cuts to promise balance, including $2.1 trillion over 10 years in health care subsidies and coverage under the Affordable Care Act, $732 billion in cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, and almost $1 trillion in cuts to other benefit programs like food stamps, Pell Grants and farm subsidies. But follow-up legislation is usually limited to one-year appropriations bills rather than more difficult measures to deal with the government's long-term fiscal challenges, which are fueled by spiraling health care costs and the retirement of the baby boom generation. And we need to show the country the right way forward to get this economy growing, to get our budget, our fiscal house in order."Īt issue is the arcane congressional budget process, which employs a non-binding measure known as a budget resolution to set forth goals for future taxes, spending and deficits. "It is not just enough for us to be an opposition party," Ryan said. Senate Democrats have already announced they will not advance a budget this year, but Ryan pitched his budget as a party-defining document on where Republicans would take the nation if they return to power. Election-year politics are in play, for starters, as are entrenched differences over spending and taxes. The legislation promises to serve more as a political and policy statement by House Republicans than a realistic attempt to engage President Barack Obama and Democrats, who control the Senate, in any serious effort to further cut the deficit. Democrats who helped pass the Ryan-Murray pact in December will oppose the GOP plan. Many conservatives who opposed the pact last year would have to reverse course and embrace them as part of the GOP budget. The plan should skate through the Budget Committee on Wednesday but faces challenges on the floor next week since it endorses a bipartisan pact - negotiated by Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., in December - to increase agency operating budgets this year and next. It also relies on scorekeeping help from the Congressional Budget Office, reflecting the beneficial effects of deficit cuts on long-term economic growth and tax revenues. The proposal would reprise a voucher-like Medicare program for future retirees that would be the basis for GOP claims that the measure would drive down government debt over the long term. Ryan's plan would also cut Pell Grants for low-income students and pensions for federal workers. WASHINGTON (AP) - House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled an updated Republican budget plan Tuesday that would slash $5.1 trillion in federal spending over coming decade and promises to balance the government's books with wide-ranging cuts in programs like food stamps and government-paid health care for the poor and working class.
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