Last week Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, presented his proposed budget plan for fiscal year 2013, which starts October 1, 2012, and people in both parties are happy. Republicans (or at least some of them) are happy because it gives them something to stand on, a program to get the budget under control and get/keep taxes down.
Lots of Democrats are happy too, perhaps even happier than some Republicans. Of course, the Democrats aren’t happy because they think Representative Ryan’s plan is good one and they can to support it. Rather, the Democrats like it because they think they will be able to use it against the Republicans in the fall (politics über alles, after all).**
I haven’t read enough about Representative Ryan’s plan to know all of the details. I have a couple of concerns, and there are several things I really like. First, the concerns. I wish Representative Ryan, and other House Republicans, were not trying to set the cap for discretionary spending for fiscal year 2013 below the number that was agreed to last August. The deal last August set a cap of $1.047 trillion for discretionary spending for fiscal year 2013. Representative Ryan’s budget drops that number by $19 billion to $1.028 trillion. Democrats call this a breach of faith, while the Republicans say the $1.047 trillion figure was a just maximum, not an agreed-upon number. I’m not sure who is right, but I wonder if a fight over $19 billion, especially this way, is something we want to be doing in the middle of the presidential election this fall.
Also, I wish Representative Ryan could have been a little more specific on how he is going to get the necessary tax revenues to start cutting the deficit, especially with his proposed reductions in tax rates. (The deficit is so big that cutting spending isn’t going to do the job by itself. We need to increase tax collections, too.) Representative Ryan said that that isn’t the job of the Budget Committee, and he is right. Still it would be nice to see more specifics. But then maybe identifying the necessary changes (i.e., the deductions we would have to get rid of, etc.) would just give Democrats political issues (remember, politics über alles) without accomplishing much of anything.
But there are good things in Representative Ryan’s budget. First, even though there aren’t a lot of specifics, I like Representative Ryan’s idea of lowering rates and broadening the base for taxes. That is the way we have to go. It’s also what was suggested by President Obama’s own debt commission after the election in 2010. As I said on Sunday, raising taxes rates on the rich, which is President Obama’s idea, isn’t going to work (because it won’t raise enough money), and it’s not a plan for the future. Representative Ryan’s plan may be missing some detail, but he has the right idea, and his plan heads us in the right direction.
I also like Representative Ryan’s suggestions for Medicare. The current system is not sustainable. It can’t continue as it has. There isn’t enough money. President Obama’s plan is, apparently, to keep costs down by government rules and government experts. While I won’t use the name, the Obama plan will have government experts and government committees telling us what treatments are okay and what drugs can be used (or at least paid for) based on their relative effectiveness (and their costs). If your condition doesn’t respond to the “best” treatment (in the eyes of government experts), that will be unfortunate (for you), but at least costs will be controlled – in theory.
Most importantly, I like the fact that Representative Ryan is trying to restore the automatic cuts that are supposed to be made in defense spending cuts because the “supercommittee” failed to come up with a solution last fall. I realize that Democrats will say that this, too, is breaking faith with the compromise reached last summer. Maybe it is. I don’t care. As I have said before, we can afford the defense budget we need to protect ourselves and our interests. Defense comes first. The Constitution talks about “provid[ing] for the common defense,” not providing for solar subsidies or providing for federal aid to elementary education. If the compromise made last summer doesn’t provide enough money for defense, then it needs to be changed.
Representative Ryan’s plan is not perfect. But in the most important way, it is better than President Obama’s. If you can’t all the way, at least go in the right direction. Representative Ryan’s plan does that. President Obama’s does not.
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* I am using the same title I did on Sunday for my post on President Obama’s economic and budget plan. Trying to be even-handed.
** The Democratic view of the politics of the budgeting process can be seen in this quote from an article in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago:
“Democrats say that if the House and Senate stick to that number [i.e., $1.047 trillion in discretionary spending – see the third paragraph of this post], Congress could devote much of its energy to working on a long-term deficit reduction plan that would be ready for a vote shortly after the November election.”
In other words, the Democrats aren’t interested in making any hard decisions or taking any positions that might be unpopular before the election. If Paul Ryan wants to do that, they’ll take advantage of the situation to score political points. But they’re not going to do it themselves. It reminds you of what President Obama said to Russian President Medvedev yesterday: “After my election I have more flexibility.”
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