CrackedWorld

Today Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan and the House Republicans released their new Budget plan for consideration in Congress. The Republicans were heavily criticized last week for producing a budget blueprint as an alternative to President Obamas’ budget for 2010; the House Minority Leader John Boehner tauted the budget blueprint with no hard numbers in it.

The minority party in congress typically offers an alternative budget but it is mainly just a formality because no one takes it seriously, it is generally ignored. But not this time, the Democrat majority in congress began to refer to the republicans as the party of “no” after they refused to step aboard any of The Presidents’ spending plans. The republicans were referred to as obstructionists and Barack Obama even challenged them to submit a better budget plan than his own.

The new budget proposal put forth last week lays claim to: “lower spending, lower deficits, lower debt and more jobs.”

The Democrat backlash as covered by The Washington Post went something like this:

“What they’re proposing far exceeds anything proposed before and would require deep and eviscerating cuts,” said Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Added House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.): “It’s hard to believe you can get to where they say they’re going to get to without doing some things the American people would reject.”

The Republican Plan

The proposed GOP budget also calls for a recall of the $787 billion spending plan. You can imagine what the Democrats said about that but this is a PG rated blog so I can’t tell you word for word. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee called out The President on his economic recovery plan by challenging its logic and common sense saying “The president’s budget is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by Washington to spend its way into prosperity, tax its way into tax relief and borrow its way into debt reduction. This simply cannot work,” CNN.com has the remarks in full.

“Our budget applies our country’s enduring first principles to the problems of our day,” Ryan stated in The Wall Street Journal. “Rather than attempting to equalize the results of peoples’ lives and micromanaging their affairs, we seek to preserve our system of protecting our natural rights and equalizing opportunity for all. The plan works to accomplish four main goals” NewsMax

1. Fulfill the mission of health and retirement security.
2. Control our nation’s debts.
3. Put the economy on a path of growth and leadership in the global economy.
4. Preserve the American legacy of leaving the next generation better off.

The GOP budget proposal will complete these measures by:

1. Converting Medicaid into an allotment to states. Reforming Social Security and Medicare, including a “means testing” for prescription drugs.
2. Rolling back the Obama budget and continuing a freeze on all spending not related to defense, and our veterans.
3. Simplifying the tax code. - -Taxpayers would have a choice of keeping the current system, or choosing one that would tax couples making $100,000 (or individuals making $50,000) at a 10% rate and taxing those above that at 25%.
4. Cutting the corporate tax rate to 25% to procure new jobs and maintain existing ones.
5. Placing a moratorium on all earmarks. (That would hurt just about ALL members of congress)
6. Increasing Domestic Oil Production.

The GOP Budget Plan would spend about $3.5 trillion less over the next 10 years than The Presidents, and the national debt would reach about 75% of the economy, less in comparison to the 84% under the Obama Plan. Both plans run the national debt considerably higher than the pre-recession level of 40%.

The GOP has met The presidents challenge with a bill that has no chance of passage, which may eventually play into their own hands. If, or should I say “when”, the Obama budget plan fails the GOP will have more ammunition to fire than if they had remained idle and produced no alternative at all.

Translation — Politicians are playing chess with the future of America. It’s a Cracked World.

Tags: Congress, deficit, Politics
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