–House Approves Republican Fiscal Outline On 235 to 193 Vote
–House Speaker Boehner: Plan Tackles ‘America’s Spending Illness’
–House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan: ‘This Is Our Defining Moment’
–House Minority Leader Pelosi: GOP Budget Would ‘Abolish’ Medicare
–Rep. Van Hollen: GOP Budget Would ‘Turn Back The Clock On Progress’

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – At the end of two days of unrelentingly partisan
debate, the House Friday approved the fiscal year 2012 budget resolution
drafted by the Republican majority.

The House approved the Republican blueprint on a 235 to 193 vote.
No Democrat voted for the plan; all Republicans except four voted for
the GOP budget.

Earlier in the budget debate, the House rejected fiscal
alternatives by the House Democratic leadership and a group of
conservative Republicans.

The House GOP plan was drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman
Paul Ryan.

Ryan’s budget calls for about $4 trillion in ten year savings from
Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlement programs and discretionary
programs.

It also calls for the extension of all the Bush era tax cuts. The
budget recommends keeping overall revenue at between 18% and 19% of
gross domestic product. It calls for cutting the top individual income
tax rate from 35% to 25%.

Ryan’s budget seeks to return non-security discretionary spending
to below 2008 levels and freezes it at this level for five years. It
sets a binding limit on total spending as a percentage of GDP.

Ryan’s budget would fundamentally overhaul Medicare. Beginning in
2022, it would give seniors a Medicare payment to buy insurance from a
list of private coverage options. It would convert the federal share of
Medicaid into a block grant for states which would be indexed for
inflation and population growth.

House Speaker John Boehner said the Republican plan is a “budget
worthy of the American people.”

The GOP budget, he said, “deals with America’s spending illness.”

“If the president won’t lead, we will,” Boehner said.

The Speaker repeated his vow that the House will not approve a debt
ceiling increase this summer unless it is linked with “serious spending
cuts and real budget reforms.”

“This is our defining moment,” Ryan said of the House Republican
budget.

He said the U.S. faces a certain debt crisis unless dramatic
changes are made to fiscal policy. “This is the most predictable
economic crisis we’ve ever had in the history of the country,” Ryan
said.

The House Republican plan, he said, “gets us off this wrong track.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasted the Republican budget,
saying it would “abolish Medicare as we know it.”

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget
Committee, said the House Republican plan is draconian and fails to
“reduce our deficits in a predictable and steady manner.”

“We are turning back the clock,” Van Hollen said.

A budget resolution is a non-binding congressional blueprint which
makes ten year spending and revenue estimates as well as deficit
projections.

It is more of an internal congressional blueprint which doesn’t
have the force of law, but sets the stage for later consideration of
binding legislation.

Now that the House has passed the Ryan budget, the fiscal action
will shift to the Senate.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a Democrat, is
expected to present his FY’12 blueprint in late April or early May.

Conrad has been devoting much of his time in recent weeks to
developing a bipartisan plan with the so-called “Group of Six.”

This is a group of three Democrats and three Republican senators
who are trying to craft a ten fiscal plan based on the Simpson-Bowles
budget which calls for about $4 trillion in deficit reduction over a
decade.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

[TOPICS: M$U$$$,MFU$$$,MCU$$$]