House Republicans are offering a budget Tuesday that would balance in nine years and cut $5.5 trillion in projected spending over the next decade.
The budget would keep spending ceilings under a 2011 budget deal in place, but would provide as much as $90 billion in additional war funding — much more than the $51 billion proposed by President Obama.
House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) blueprint repeals ObamaCare and proposes a premium support system for Medicare similar to the one proposed in previous House budgets by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Price’s predecessor.
It does not touch Social Security but proposes that a bipartisan commission study the entitlement program’s problems and then submit proposals to Congress.
If you’re frustrated by the refusal of Congress to stop its fiscal insanity – and how could you not be? – it’s time to start realizing that the Constitution gives states and the people more power over Congress than most realize. And right now there is an effort called the Article V Initiative that would wield and deploy that power.
Most people don’t know, because they have never been taught, that Article V of the Constitution empowers the people through their state legislatures to propose amendments. Specifically, Article V proscribes a process in which two-thirds of state legislatures (34 total) can vote to direct Congress to call a meeting of the states for the purpose of proposing amendments.
This is not a constitutional convention, which would be for the purpose of writing an entirely new Constitution. It is solely for the purpose of voting to enact amendments. Once such a meeting of the states is called (and Congress cannot refuse if two-thirds of the states call for it), then any amendment would require a vote of three-fourths (38 total) of state legislatures for ratification....
A quick look shows the spending plan relies upon temporary tax increases, fails to address unfunded pension and retiree obligations, pays down state debt slowly and – surprise – resorts to gimmicks to make the numbers work.
In November 2012, California voters passed Proposition 30, which increased the state sales tax by 0.25% and created four new “millionaire” tax brackets (10.3% for taxable income over $250,000, 11.3% for income over $300,000, 12.3% for income over $500,000, and 13.3% for income over $1 million). The additional revenue generated from the tax increases was sold to the electorate as strictly for education. However, while there is a debate as to whether the money is actually being spent on education, there is no doubt surrounding the temporary nature of the taxes. These taxes expire at the end of FY 2019 – meaning the estimated $6 billion in additional revenue will disappear with them.
Senator Jeff Sessions offered a motion tonight to send Patty Murray's Senate budget back to committee with instructions to re-do it in any way necessary to produce a balanced budget.
There were no caveats to how this should be done - Senators were simply voting to accept or reject the very principle of balancing the federal budget within 10 years. Text of the motion follows:
Mr. Sessions moves to commit S. Con. Res. 8 back to the Committee on the Budget with instructions to report back no later than March 22, 2013 with such changes as may be necessary to achieve unified budget balance by fiscal year 2023.
Every Democrat Senator except for Sen. Joe Manchin voted against this measure.
...Senate Democrats also voted unanimously tonight to maintain the $1 trillion in tax increases in their budget plan which includes raising taxes on the middle class.
They rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senior member of the Finance Committee and the Budget Committee, which would have protected the middle class and paved the way for pro-growth tax reform.
Grassley said in his speech before the vote, "the Democrat budget taxes the middle class to spend more. It is 'balanced and fair' because they finally figured out that you can't just raise taxes on the wealthy, they gotta raise it on the middle class!"
“Tonight the American people witnessed a remarkable and alarming event: the Senate’s Democrat majority declared they do not want to balance the budget, will not balance the budget, and will oppose any effort to balance the budget in any way," Sessions said after the vote.
The bottom line on Ryan’s Republican budget is that it restores federal taxes and spending back near the long term, stable level as a percent of GDP that prevailed for 60 years after World War II, from 1948 to 2008.
...The Democrats have attacked Ryan’s budget claiming it is “extremist” and “radical.”
House budget chairman Rep. Paul Ryan on Tuesday unveiled the GOP’s budget proposal that would slash $4.6 trillion in projected government spending over the next decade in order to balance the country’s budget by 2023.
“We owe the country a balanced budget,” the Republican congressman and 2012 vice presidential nominee said during a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Ryan’s plan includes a combination of tax reform, reform of entitlements and repeal of President Obama’s health-care law....
Here are some of the major bullet points from Ryan’s 91-page fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, “The Path to Prosperity”:
• Simplify the tax code to make it fairer to American families and businesses.
• Substantially lower tax rates for individuals, with a goal of achieving a top individual rate of 25 percent.
• Consolidate the current seven individual-income-tax brackets into two brackets with a first bracket of 10 percent.
• Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent.
• Transition the tax code to a more competitive system of international taxation.
• Provide states flexibility on Medicaid.
• Repeal the health-care law’s expansion of Medicaid.
• Repeal the health-care law’s exchange subsidies.
• Allow states to customize SNAP to address the needs unique to their citizens.
• Reinstitute welfare’s work requirements.
• Preserve Medicare for those in or near retirement.
• Reform Medicare for younger generations.
• Repeal the health-care rationing board.
• Reform the medical-liability system.
• End the raid on the Medicare Trust Fund.
• Means-test premiums for high-income seniors.
• Require the President to submit a plan to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Reform civil-service pensions.
• Reform the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
• Reform civil-service pensions.
• Require the President to submit a plan to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Restore competition to the energy sector with the goal of energy independence.
• Stop the government from buying up unnecessary land.
• Wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• Reform the Federal Credit Reform Act.
• Revisit flawed financial regulations.
• Repeal the President’s health-care law.
• Move toward patient-centered reform.
• Provide $560.2 billion for defense spending in fiscal year 2014, an amount consistent with America’s military goals and strategies.
Throughout the Tuesday press conference, Ryan challenged Democrats to offer a plan to solve the country’s debt problem.
House Republicans redoubled their efforts to roll back signature accomplishments of President Barack Obama on Tuesday, offering a slashing budget plan that would repeal new health care subsidies and cut spending across a wide swath of programs dear to Obama and his Democratic allies.
The GOP plan was immediately rejected by the White House as an approach that “just doesn’t add up” and would harm America’s middle class. Obama said the plan would “slash deeply” into programs such as Medicaid.
“I think he just asked, ‘Can someone please tell me where that $5 trillion in unspecified cuts is coming from?’” Harkin said of Obama’s comments on the Ryan budget.
(T)his budget is not a balanced budget; it is a contingent budget. So-called “balance” is achieved by relying on voters to pass a tax increase this fall. Voters, however, have turned down the last eight statewide tax increases and they will turn down the tax increases on the ballot this fall just as they turned down the Prop. 29 tax increase in June.
What will happen then? The budget calls for automatic cuts to programs.
The programs facing those cuts will be used politically by Gov. Jerry Brown to scare voters into tax increases this fall — i.e. if you don’t pass this tax increase, we have to cut education, parks, public safety, etc. Everyone in Sacramento knows, however, that those automatic budget cuts, as they are currently formulated, will not actually be made. When push comes to shove, those cuts will be revised.
In other words, the current budget is not and never was meant to be the real budget. It is a political document Brown and the Democrat leaders will use to push tax increases.
With major debt ceiling, sequestration and tax policy debates on the horizon, should conservatives call the President’s bluff on the matter? Or should they try to undermine the President’s self-proclaimed “balanced approach” preference to deficit reduction by combining major spending cuts with tax increases?
...It is my view that conservatives should call the President’s bluff and tell Democrats we want two things if they really want a debt ceiling hike and avoidance of sequestration: First, spending reductions of at least $600 billion annually for ten years – including medium reductions in the Department of Defense and aggressive entitlement reforms – and at least $100 billion annually in tax loophole closures and equivalently lower income tax rates. Second, we want a balanced budget by the time the 2014 fiscal year starts. If we don’t have a public promise by Obama and Reid (in addition to signed legislation) for all of these goals by the time the day of the debt ceiling arrives, we default on our debt. Plain and simple.
The weakness of this approach would be the media’s predictable reaction – which will almost certainly include accusations of “hostage-taking” and intransigence on the part of conservatives. We would need an effective media strategy to deal with this, with a focus on three areas:
◼ Explain the coming fiscal cliff that will hit the country if we don’t balance the budget very soon, and how that fiscal cliff is especially likely to devastate young people, AKA the Debt-Paying Generation. If the President doesn’t agree to our spending reductions and tax reforms, we’ll let the cliff arrive sooner (and thus force spending reductions, tax reform, etc.) rather than later, since later means we’d have added trillions more to the national debt and thus reforms would be more drastic.
◼ Explain how this approach is a compromise. Many conservatives don’t want to raise the debt ceiling at all, and so strong spending and tax reforms in exchange for raising the ceiling are a compromise.
◼ Make certain the American people understand what the implications of a debt ceiling are. During the debate over this last summer, many liberals blamed former President Bush for the “need” to raise the debt ceiling, saying his spending and tax policies led to the deficits responsible for the debt ceiling hike. However, this is the inversion of what a debt ceiling actually is – instead of being a floor related to future spending, a debt ceiling is merely the nation’s credit card limit. As such, we don’t need to raise the debt ceiling because of past spending…but instead because of future spending, much like a credit card limit allows a holder complete freedom to that point. Once the limit is hit, the spree is over. Raising the debt ceiling again and again without changing spending patterns shows Congress is not serious about instituting any kind of spending discipline, and this will prove costly to the nation in the long run.
Everyone pays a price for higher debt, mostly through slower economic growth, higher taxes and a lack of entrepreneurial independence. But it is those people under the age of 30, the Debt-Paying Generation, will pay the highest price as their entire lives are dominated by paying down our nation's massive debt.
THE ROMNEY RECORD
Governor Romney Closed A Nearly $3 Billion Shortfall Without Raising Taxes And Balanced Four Budgets. (Pam Belluck, "Romney Candidacy Puts Massachusetts Economy In Spotlight," The New York Times, 3/16/07)
THE OBAMA RECORD
President Obama Has Projected The “Fourth Straight Year Of Deficits Over $1 Trillion.” (“Highlights Of Obama's $3.8 Trillion Budget,” The Associated Press, 2/14/12)
__________________ Mitt Romney
President Obama, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME and left-wing operatives know that Wisconsin is Ground Zero in their battle against limited-government activists. Their demagogic propaganda war against Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan, who is leading entitlement reform and budget discipline efforts in Washington, is of a piece with the campaign to overturn the popular elections that put Walker, Kleefisch and the GOP majority in place. If they can chill fiscal responsibility and free market-based reforms in Wisconsin, they can chill it everywhere. Will movement conservatives let them?
Since the beginning of the public union protests in Wisconsin, you can trace everything back to one over-arching puppet master and that's a White House that saw the crucial swing state of Wisconsin fall into Republican hands by a wide margin in 2010.
Everything about these crybaby teacher protests, the union violence, and a merry-go-round of recall elections is designed to keep Obama's base ginned up and frothing at the mouth straight through to when it's time to vote for him in November.
But there's so much more going on just below the surface.
Michelle Malkin points out that President Obama knows Wisconsin is ground zero in the Left’s battle against limited government. And, as Michelle writes: “If they can chill fiscal responsibility and free market-based reforms in Wisconsin, they can chill it everywhere.” Concerned Americans, don’t let them snuff out this Mama Grizzly’s successful efforts to fight for what is right.
Grand Old Badger State: you are America’s blessed 30th state. Your natural and human resources abound. Even your state motto promises a vision of “Forward.” So, as the eyes of America focus on you, raise your voice in support of your state’s good destiny!
“On, Wisconsin! Champion of the right, 'Forward', our motto – God will give thee might!”
Both political parties are afflicted with this defeatist thinking. President Obama's latest proposed federal spending blueprint is a depressing case in point. The Obama proposal assumes $47 trillion more spending, $1.9 trillion in new taxes and a national debt of $25.9 trillion -- at the end of the decade. Things look somewhat better over in the Republican-controlled House, where the budget committee's Road to Prosperity proposal cuts $4.4 trillion more from planned spending than the Obama budget, but only "puts the budget on the path to balance," rather than eliminating annual deficits entirely.
Now along comes the Senate Tea Party Caucus with a budget proposal -- dubbed "A Platform to Revitalize America" -- that not only balances federal spending and revenues in five years, but produces a $117 billion surplus in 2017. The plan is the handiwork of the three senators who make up the Senate Tea Party Caucus -- Jim DeMint, R-S.C., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. "The whole point here is to show we can reasonably balance the budget within a five-year period. This idea that we have to look 30 years out to balance the budget is not only unnecessary, but it's improbable. We cannot continue to spend at our current rate for 10 more years, much less 20 or 30 more years. This is an urgent matter," said DeMint last week. Read the rest...
As former President Ronald Reagan says in this video, “Most Americans understand the need for a balanced budget and most have seen how difficult it is for the Congress to withstand the pressures to spend more. … We tried the carrot and it failed. With the stick of a balanced budget amendment, we can stop government’s squandering and overtaxing ways and save our economy.”
