–House Budget Committee’s Ryan: Spending Controls Key To Deficit Cut
–Rep. Ryan: Must Act To Prevent ‘European Meltdown Mode’ In U.S.
–Rep. Ryan: Eager For ‘Great Debate’ Over Fiscal Policy’
–Rep. Van Hollen: Need Spending Cuts, Tax Hikes To Cut Deficit
–Rep. Van Hollen: GOP Plan ‘Takes A Hatchet to Medicare’

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget panel,
clashed sharply Wednesday over fiscal policy, with Ryan arguing that his
fiscal blueprint would help get American fiscal policy moving in the
right direction while Van Hollen said the Ryan budget is a dramatic step
backwards.

Ryan and Van Hollen made their statements on the floor of the House
as the lower chamber began debating Ryan’s fiscal year 2013 budget
resolution.

Budget resolutions set broad spending and revenue goals and make
deficit projections. They are congressional blueprints and are not
binding law.

Speaking first on the floor of the House, Ryan said a “great
debate” is needed over the future of U.S. fiscal policy.

Ryan said his current plan builds on his budget from last year
which he claimed “changed the debate in Washington” over fiscal policy.

Ryan said the fiscal debate is now focused on controlling spending
and cutting future deficits.

Ryan hammered President Obama for presiding over four consecutive
years with annual deficits of more $1 trillion, adding that the U.S. now
faces a “tidal wave of debt.”

“What is the primary driver of this crisis? Spending,” Ryan
declared.

Ryan said his plan would “preempt a debt crisis” and protect the
U.S. from a “European meltdown mode.”

Ryan has said his budget would cut spending by $5 trillion more
than Obama’s budget over a decade and would reduce deficits by $3.3
trillion more than would the president’s budget.

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. It also calls for repealing the 2010 health care
law.

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 corporate rate
would be cut to 25%.

Ryan’s budget sets FY’13 discretionary spending at $1.028 trillion,
$19 billion below the $1.047 trillion that was allowed for in last
summer’s debt ceiling agreement.

Ryan also calls for enacting a package of spending cuts to prevent
the $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to
begin next January.

It secures some of its savings by cutting the federal workforce by
10% over three years, freezing federal pay through 2015, slowing the
growth of federal financial aid for college students and focusing it on
low-income students.

For the FY’13 through FY’22 period, Ryan’s budget would result in
$3.127 trillion in cumulative deficits. His budget would not balance the
federal budget until 2040.

Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee,
scorched the Ryan budget, saying it represents a “return to the failed
economic policies that got America into this mess in the first place.”

“We need to come up with a credible plan,” to cut deficits, Van
Hollen said. Such a plan, he declared, should be “balanced” with both
spending cuts and revenue increases.

The House Republican budget would renew costly tax cuts for the
wealthy and would “deform” Medicare, Van Hollen charged.

The Ryan budget, he said, “takes a hatchet to Medicare” by cutting
it by more than $800 billion over a decade.

Van Hollen has offered an alternative budget that is based broadly
on the budget that Obama introduced in February.

The House debate will extend for four hours. The final House vote
is expected Thursday.

The House Budget Committee narrowly approved Ryan’s budget last
week on a 19 to 18 vote. All Democrats on the House Budget Committee
opposed the budget; all Republicans, except for two, supported it.

House Speaker John Boehner has said he’s “confident” the full House
will approve Ryan’s budget resolution and downplayed the narrow margin
by which the House panel approved Ryan’s budget.

The full House is set to vote on the Ryan budget, the Democratic
alternative, and plans by liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats and
conservative Republicans.

** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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