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New Paul Ryan Budget Proposal Would Cut $5 Trillion in Spending Over a Decade

New Paul Ryan Budget Proposal Would Cut $5 Trillion in Spending Over a Decade

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has a reputation for being a fiscal conservative. His new budget proposal serves as further evidence of his dedication to responsibility with our nation’s finances.

Russell Berman and Bernie Becker of The Hill reported yesterday…

Ryan’s final $5.1T cut

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.

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.

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…

“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.”

America definitely needs a better way forward. Government spending is out of control with no end in sight. In fact, Mike Flynn of Breitbart recently reported that the United States government is now the third largest economy in the world…

US Government Is World’s 3rd Largest Economy

The United States economy produces just over $16 trillion in total goods and services every year. China’s economic output is, by the most reliable measure, over $8 trillion. The next largest national economy is Japan, producing around $5 trillion in total economic output. Federal, state, and local governments in the US, however, consume more than $6.2 trillion. US government spending, in fact, is about the same as the total economic output of France and Germany combined.

Paul Ryan’s budget has been criticized by Tea Party groups and Sarah Palin for not going far enough but it serves as a reminder that America is on an unsustainable path.

Sooner or later, the bill is going to come due. At the very least, Congressman Ryan deserves an A for effort.

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

I can’t be the only one whose suspicions are aroused when these things are inflated as 10-year projections. The Federal budget is for one year (when they give us a budget at all). Reporting it as otherwise is just plain puffery.

    Olinser in reply to tom swift. | April 2, 2014 at 11:58 am

    Its the BS games that BOTH parties are playing, and they royally piss me off.

    Heck, half the time when you dig into the number of the ‘saves X trillion dollars!!’ budget, they save ZERO dollars for the current year. Their ‘savings’ are ‘projections’ out like 3-5 years. Which are totally irrelevant because the budget changes every year.

    Enough with letting these lying snakes from both parties get away with their ‘SAVES X TRILLION DOLLARS’ lies.

    Force them to state how much they’re actually saving this year, on THIS budget.

    Most of them will simply refuse to answer.

    We need to get some real conservatives in who will ACTUALLY cut the budget.

I would love to see a comparison of each prior budget’s spending forecasts for a given year vs. the actual spending as a result of subsequent agreements. How many times was 2013 spending factored into earlier budgets and then completely ignored?

Palin is correct in that the only numbers that matter are those for the current year. And even then, nothing is guaranteed. How long did Obama wait before proposing we throw out the last “budget” – two weeks?

An A for effort? Lord almighty, are we back in grade school? The libs are the ones who give out participation awards and congratulate themselves for their good intentions. We have a country to save, and Ryan’s bloated plan falls woefully short. It promises future savings that we’ll never see. I call it the Wimpy Plan. (Gladly pay you back in ten years for a spending increase today.)Sorry, Paul, your 15 minutes of infamy are over.

Sad that this kind of chicanery is, by comparison, almost heroic these days. Without having read it, I’m going to assume that the size of government continues to grow, no program or department is cut, the “savings” are all back loaded into the last couple of years and the numbers are based on what might be generously called “rosy” growth predictions.

And we are supposed to be happy about it.

I recall Reagan doing something similar. He explained that he was only slowing the rate of increase in the budget, but that this would be enough.

Sorry, Paul Ryan doesn’t cut it for me anymore. He’s a player, not a reformer.

Emperor Penguin | April 2, 2014 at 11:20 am

Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate…its not that hard to stop spending, you just STOP!!!! It doesn’t take 10 years of slowly weaning off shopaholic spending.

    Rick in reply to raven. | April 2, 2014 at 11:46 am

    Thanks for this link. Sarah Palin’s writings are among the very few that I trust.
    Ryan’s writings are not.

Juba Doobai! | April 2, 2014 at 11:41 am

Paul Ryan’s reputation as a fiscal, or any kind of, Conservative is totally undeserved. He’s like Rick Santorum in that respect. The new “budget” helps Ryan to position himself for a presidential run. Other than that, it’s a waste of time. Sarah Palin was right to blow it up.

Gee, if only I could rack up a massive debt and then decide that I would take 10 years to balance my budget. If this is the best that they can do then they all have to go.

If the responses here are any indication, there is nothing any Republican can ever do to satisfy “Conservatives” and win their support.

    raven in reply to Valerie. | April 2, 2014 at 1:08 pm

    How about cut the size of government and cut spending? Not curbing the rate of growth and trying to fob it off as something meaningful. Has that been tried? Seems pretty simple. Yet somehow inconceivable to these ersatz “fiscal hawks” and “conservative” poseurs who put more energy into spinning and pitching a sham to sustain the Establishment’s rigged deck of inexorable government expansion than restoring fundamental Constitutional principles and limits. And interesting how the debate is always framed by those who carp about “purists” and conservatives who “can’t ever be pleased” — always in the context of futility as opposed to possibility, to acceptance of Progressive premises as opposed to challenging them. This is how far into some of our heads the Left has gotten.

    Just do their job as conservatives. Do the hard work of confronting the empire of government and taking the truth to the people. Stop trying to con us with your BS “cuts”. The Left is going to hate you anyway — why not be hated for a morally important reason. But Ryan will never understand this. He got his as* kicked by Biden, was humiliated by Obama and played by Chuck Schumer. He’s a pseudo right-wing pretty boy without a real sinew in his body.

      tencz65 in reply to raven. | April 2, 2014 at 3:08 pm

      When you see them ‘Park’ AF1 then it is a real budget !! Barry and Wookie not flying is a good start

    MarkS in reply to Valerie. | April 2, 2014 at 1:14 pm

    Actually there is. Try cutting govt spending in real dollars right now, not just a wishful reduction in the rate of increase in government spending sometime in the future realizing that future Congresses are free to create their own budgets in any amount

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to Valerie. | April 2, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    In addition to the problems noted about all the cuts being in “out years” that never get here [and we have plenty of evidence of that]; there is the problem that it is not just a matter of passing a budget with cuts through the House, and then having it blocked by the Democrat Senate. If it comes down to a real budget conflict with the Senate, as we have seen on all the Continuing Resolutions and Debt Ceiling votes; Institutional Republican Speaker John Boehner and about 40 of his minions will vote with Nancy Pelosi and a united Democrat caucus and against the Republican caucus, killing all efforts.

    I will note further that both Boehner and Ryan are involved not only with the Republican “Main Street Project”, but also with the Soros and labor union-funded Democrat equivalent “Defending Main Street” PAC’s whose goal is to block all Conservative and TEA Party candidates.

    If the Institutionals want to get the support of Conservatives, maybe “stop openly attacking them with party funds” would be a good first step.

    Subotai Bahadur

Sorry, but fantasy budgets can never pass. So you can whine about how Ryan’s “doesn’t go far enough” all you like, it’s just whining unless you can produce an alternative that can pass.

And of course all Ryan’s can hope to do is pass the House. Reid and Patty Murray have already declared that the Senate won’t produce a budget this year, so forget even a vote there.

But the Senate is within reach, so Ryan is laying the groundwork. Even if it passed both House and Senate, of course Obama will veto it. But the groundwork will have been done for the next Administration to begin cleaning up the mess.

One imperfect budget with a chance of eventual enactment as a start is far better than a thousand good ideas that can’t pass at all.

The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

***This has been a public service message. Had it been an actual alert, you would hear sirens***

We now return to our regularly scheduled comments of demagogues rattling the monkey cages. Please don’t throw back the poo.

    BlueOx in reply to Estragon. | April 2, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    Would I prefer Ryan’s budget over anything Obama/Reid would accept? Absolutely.

    But I wholeheartedly reject the notion that it’s better to offer up smoke and mirrors and hope the NYT/WAPO/RNC doesn’t say mean things about you. ‘Cause guess what? THEY WILL ANYWAYS!

    Anything Ryan proposes will automatically be deemed “Extreme, right-wing, Koch Bros fueled anti-Americanism !!!1!1! “. Anything. So why put forward such a meek effort and allow the standard to be set? As you say, it’s not like it will be enacted.

    All you do is allow the other side to define the terms of the debate in their favor.

    raven in reply to Estragon. | April 2, 2014 at 2:59 pm

    >>”The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.”

    Tell me the “good”? Perfect never entered into it.

    The shi*ty and fraudulent is the enemy of the honest. And that’s where we stand.

DINORightMarie | April 2, 2014 at 1:30 pm

The only good thing in the new Ryan budget, IMHO, is that he proposes repealing ObamaCare to save money.

Unfortunately, it’s pie-in-the-sky budgeting; it will never happen. Once again, Sarah Palin speaks the truth!

And Paul Ryan knows his budget is a joke. He’s a “Young Gun” who sold out long ago to Boehner and the RINOs. Sadly, there are too many who still think he is working for Conservatives. Think again!

Henry Hawkins | April 2, 2014 at 3:26 pm

The people demand, “stop overspending!”, but congress seeks “to appear to slow down spending or slow it down without losing any political capital.”

The people = Country first
Congress = Congressmen first

Uncle Samuel | April 2, 2014 at 6:15 pm

Sarah Palin says this plan is garbage.

These legislators have the power to stop Obnoxious Obama’s Obscene spending now.

When the sequester cuts were being negotiated, I remember Mitch McConnell, not exactly a paragon of fiscal conservatism, got up and asked one question: “How much does it cut next year?”. The answer was something trivial, like $4 billion.

Ryan’s latest budget proposal? Spends MORE next year and more the year after while backloading the cuts in the out years. Every budget he’s proposed has done the same thing.

Problem is, you pass that this year, increase spending next year, and then next year’s budget comes up and its a whole new bill. Guess what, they do the same thing: increase spending now, pretend they are going to make cuts in a decade, and expect to get re-elected. Rinse and repeat, year after year.

A_Nonny_Mouse | April 3, 2014 at 2:19 am

The farce of “some LATER Congress will actually have the stones to cut spending; but for now we’re just grandstanding for our fiscal conservative base” is getting. really. old.

This BS is the same thing Obama does: “Gonna focus like a laser on jobs”. Gonna pivot to the economy”. Yeah, right, sure.

We keep electing bozos who think that “talking about” solutions for a problem actually counts as action toward SOLVING the problem. [Elsewhere I’ve seen it referred to as the Congressional Cargo Cult mentality: they entreat the gods by chanting their favorite slogans; then wait for the gods to bring about what they described in their earnest incantations.]

Mysticbeetle | April 3, 2014 at 7:34 am

Eliminate base line budgeting automatic increase without Congress voting, every year.
25% cut in all personnel salaries, benefits, and pensions.
Focus FBI and ATF on medicare, medicaid,welfare,ssi disability, and e-verify for any IRS payment.

That’d get us started, without a pixie dust budget like we have now.