Remember that Republican budget outline last week that was supposed to be the GOP’s alternative to the president’s? Remember how House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said: “Two nights ago, the president said we haven’t seen a budget yet out of the Republicans…Well, it’s not true, because here it is, Mr. President”?
Not so much, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday morning. Appearing on MSNBC, Ryan said, “The thing you saw last week was not the alternative budget, this is our alternative budget,” referring to the budget the GOP plans to introduce on Wednesday.
More, that budget last week, which was widely panned for lacking specifics, was a “marketing document,” Ryan said.
‘Somewhere along the line there was a misimpression given that that was our budget,” he said.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, previewed the Republican budget to be revealed later this morning.
The major components, according to Ryan, include:
- SPENDING: A five year non-defense disrectionary spending freeze, with veterans affairs excluded.
- DEFICIT: By 2019, the deficit would be half that of Obama’s proposal
- ENERGY: More oil exlporation, no cap-and-trade
- ENTITLEMENTS: Current Medicare secure for those over 55, with a new income-relative program moving forward
- TAXES: Make permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts while setting up a parallel, simplified tax code that taxpayers could opt-in to.
Ryan also blasts the President’s budget: “If this agenda comes to pass, it will mark this period in history as the moment America turned European.”