–House Budget Committee To Mark-Up Rep. Ryan’s Fiscal Outline Weds
–House Panel Expected To Approve Ryan Framework By End of Day
–House Dems Likely To Offer Their Alternative on Floor Next Week
By John Shaw
WASHINGTON (MNI) – The House Budget Committee is expected to spend
all of Wednesday considering the fiscal 2013 budget resolution unveiled
Tuesday by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan.
The House Budget Committee convenes at 10:30 a.m. and is expected
to spend the first several hours on opening statements and a staff
review of the details of the Ryan budget.
The panel will then spend a number of hours considering amendments
to the underlying budget resolution. Many of the amendments are certain
to be presented by Democrats with the goal of highlighting controversial
aspects of the Ryan plan.
The plan is expected to be approved by the panel by the end of the
day, probably on a party line vote.
Budget resolutions set broad spending and revenue goals and make
deficit projections. They are congressional blueprints and are not
binding law.
When he unveiled his FY’13 budget Tuesday, Ryan said his plan
offers a clear and bracing alternative to President Obama’s fiscal
policies.
“We feel morally obligated to offer a choice,” Ryan said at a
briefing.
“We owe the country an alternative path,” he added, charging that
“the President is giving us a path of debt and decline.”
Ryan’s budget is based on his fiscal plan from last year, with some
revisions. Ryan’s budget calls for extending the Bush era tax cuts and
undertaking fundamental tax reform in which the current six individual
rates are collapsed into two rates: 10% and 25%. The top corporate rate
would be cut to 25%.
Ryan’s budget makes deep cuts in the projected growth of federal
spending and calls for the fundamental overhaul of Medicare, Medicaid
and welfare programs.
Ryan’s budget sets FY’13 discretionary spending at $1.028 trillion,
$19 billion below last year’s debt ceiling agreement which limited
discretionary spending to $1.047 trillion in FY’13.
Ryan also calls for passing a package of spending cuts to prevent
the $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to
begin next January.
Ryan’s plan would balance the budget in 2040, but he said that
strong economic growth and more realistic budget scoring could lead to a
balanced budget in a decade.
Under Ryan’s plan, budget deficits would drop from $1.180 trillion
in FY’12 to $797 billion in FY’13, $496 billion in FY’14, $304 billion
in FY’15, $241 billion in FY’16, $182 billion in FY’17, $166 billion in
FY’18, $213 billion in FY’19, $225 billion in FY’20, $217 billion in
FY’21 and $287 billion in FY’22.
For the FY’13 through FY’22 period, Ryan’s budget would have $3.127
trillion in cumulative deficits.
The full House is expected to vote on the Ryan budget next week as
well as a Democratic alternative and other plans by liberal Democrats
and conservative Republicans.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad is expected to offer
his FY’13 fiscal plan next month.
** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **
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