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"Path to Prosperity"

fuheel

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Don't care enough to write a long post about.

Pros
* actually touched medicare. really nice to see
* didn't take cutting defense off the table
* projected to massively lower the deficit

Cons
* the name
* cut the tax rate for corporations and for the individual top rate. I guess no republican plan for anything is complete without cutting taxes for the rich in some way
* the vouchers place more a burden on the poor, disabled, and elderly. the percentage of people with health insurance will fall as more folks aren't able to afford.
* didn't cut defense nearly enough
* no mention of social security
* does a lot of passing the bill down the line - doesn't affect those currently in medicare, doesn't come into effect until 2022, and will essentially force the states to pony up more if they want their citizens to be healthy.

More on it here:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/04/americas_budget_deficit
 
Good:

It addresses a lot

--------
Bad:

It doesn't go far enough
 
I love it because of the Dems' immediate reaction was to go to fear mongering. So it must be a great plan...

Plus Paul Ryan is a badass.
 
I love it because of the Dems' immediate reaction was to go to fear mongering. So it must be a great plan...

Plus Paul Ryan is a badass.

any substantive analysis? or even linkage to substantive analysis?
 
I was happy to see a republican plan that actually touched medicare. I mean, it was only four months ago that GOP senators were campaigning against Obama's massive senior-killing medicare cuts, so this is a nice change. But, the details of this plan are not good. It's typical smoke and mirrors stuff, relying on stupidly optimistic unemployment numbers and completely unspecified cuts in discretionary spending from 12% of GDP to 3% (the medicare changes only cover the tax cuts.)
 
any substantive analysis? or even linkage to substantive analysis?

It balances the budget, eliminates the debt and the liberals are howling. All I need to know brother.
 
so, you don't need to know:

a) what areas are being cut and how much
b) which areas aren't being cut
c) are there any tax cuts/hikes associated with the budget, and who are the recipients of the cuts/hikes
d) what are budgetary organizations (like the CBO) saying about the predictions
e) will the cuts disproportionately negatively affect a portion of the population
f) will the cuts disproportionately positively affect a portion of the population
g) how realistic are the predictions
h) how realistic are the chances the plan will get bipartisan support and pass
i) etc

If the Heritage Foundations says it will create lower unemployment below 4%, good enough for you.
 
Please tell me how you can be on a "Path to Prosperity" by taking about $2T less in tax revenues over the next decade?

His plan is nuts.
 
Please tell me how you can be on a "Path to Prosperity" by taking about $2T less in tax revenues over the next decade?

His plan is nuts.

But he does raise taxes for the vast majority of Americans, and still manage to bring in less revenue. That takes some skill.
 
OPINIONAPRIL 5, 2011
The GOP Path to Prosperity
Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt.
By PAUL D. RYAN

Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year's deficit—is important. It's a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut.


Steve Moore has the details on Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut spending.

But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act.

No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses.

The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Here are its major components:

• Reducing spending: This budget proposes to bring spending on domestic government agencies to below 2008 levels, and it freezes this category of spending for five years. The savings proposals are numerous, and include reforming agricultural subsidies, shrinking the federal work force through a sensible attrition policy, and accepting Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon.


• Welfare reform: This budget will build upon the historic welfare reforms of the late 1990s by converting the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant that lets states create a range of options and gives Medicaid patients access to better care. It proposes similar reforms to the food-stamp program, ending the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for adding to the rolls. Finally, this budget recognizes that the best welfare program is one that ends with a job—it consolidates dozens of duplicative job-training programs into more accessible, accountable career scholarships that will better serve people looking for work.

As we strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them, we eliminate welfare for those who don't. Our budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.

• Health and retirement security: This budget's reforms will protect health and retirement security. This starts with saving Medicare. The open-ended, blank-check nature of the Medicare subsidy threatens the solvency of this critical program and creates inexcusable levels of waste. This budget takes action where others have ducked. But because government should not force people to reorganize their lives, its reforms will not affect those in or near retirement in any way.

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose a plan that works best for them from a list of guaranteed coverage options. This is not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

In addition, Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower-*income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks. Reform that empowers individuals—with more help for the poor and the sick—will guarantee that Medicare can fulfill the promise of health security for America's seniors.


Getty Images/Imagezoo
We must also reform Social Security to prevent severe cuts to future benefits. This budget forces policy makers to work together to enact common-sense reforms. The goal of this proposal is to save Social Security for current retirees and strengthen it for future generations by building upon ideas offered by the president's bipartisan fiscal commission.

• Budget enforcement: This budget recognizes that it is not enough to change how much government spends. We must also change how government spends. It proposes budget-process reforms—including real, enforceable caps on spending—to make sure government spends and taxes only as much as it needs to fulfill its constitutionally prescribed roles.

• Tax reform: This budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%. It maintains a revenue-neutral approach by clearing out a burdensome tangle of deductions and loopholes that distort economic activity and leave some corporations paying no income taxes at all.

This is America's moment to advance a plan for prosperity. Our budget offers the nation a model of government that is guided by the timeless principles of the American idea: free-market democracy, open competition, a robust private sector bound by rules of honesty and fairness, a secure safety net, and equal opportunity for all under a limited constitutional government of popular consent.

We can reform government so that people don't have to reorient their lives for less. We can grow our economy, promote opportunity, and encourage upward mobility. This budget is the new House majority's answer to history's call. It is now up to all of us to keep America exceptional.

Mr. Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's first congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
 
"on a path to eliminating national debt" sounds a lot better than the President's spend and tax plan.
 
This gives sams a bad name.

I wonder how much insurance company stock Ryan owns or if he owns stock in mortuaries as it will kill millions of seniors prematurely.
 
I appreciate the link, but an op-ed from the guy who came up with the plan isn't exactly what I was looking for.
 
I'd love to hear from Ryan supporters why a for profit insurance company would take a voucher that is worth and average amount of money to cover a 74yo male who has had a heart attack, knew replacement and has diabetes.

Anyone who is being honest knows this person will be left to fend for himself unless he is wealthy.
There are untold millions of seniors for whom finding coverage will be impossible.

With the voucher do seniors with illnesses get a certifcate for creamation?
 
paul krugman basically spent his entire day attacking this proposal from every angle. he had a few interesting points - namely that ryan's projections rely on a historically low unemployment rate and a drop in non-defense spending from 12 to 4% of GDP. if those things were to happen, then sure, it works as advertised. but i wouldn't count on it.
 
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