When Paul Ryan unveiled the House Republicans’ budget proposal
for fiscal 2013, many Democratic campaign strategists were
ecstatic. A Politico headline blared,
“For Democrats, GOP budget is Christmas in March.” They eagerly
anticipated some election-year demagoguery, accusing Republicans of
“ending” Medicare and perhaps reprising images of Ryan pushing a
wheelchair-bound old lady off a cliff.
The Ryan budget put many Republicans in a similarly festive
mood. Compared to President Obama’s fiscal blueprint, the House GOP
plan reduces spending by more than $5 trillion, deficits by more
than $3 trillion, taxes by $2 trillion, and the national debt by
more than $1 trillion over the next decade. Over the longer term,
it envisions a sustainable debt-to-GDP ratio and a solvent,
consumer-based Medicare system.
But not all reactions fit neatly along party lines. There were
Democrats who privately — and in the case of liberal Sen. Ron
Wyden of Oregon, quite publicly — sympathized with the premium
support model for Medicare. There were Republicans who feared
tackling tough fiscal issues in an election year, perhaps
preferring to take a Senate-style break from passing budgets at
all.
Most surprising of all, however, was the pushback from fiscal
conservatives who didn’t think Ryan’s budget went far enough. The
Club for Growth
opposed the proposal on the ground that it takes too long to
balance the budget — deficits aren’t eliminated until 2040, nearly
30 years from now — and waives most of the mandated spending cuts
required by the failure of the supercommittee.
“The Club for Growth urges Republicans to support a budget that
balances in the near future and complies with the Budget Control
Act,” Club president Chris Chocola, a former GOP congressman, said
in a statement.
A FreedomWorks blogger gave the plan a more mixed
assessment. “Unfortunately, the plan doesn’t really try to
balance the budget or specify a single cabinet agency for
elimination,”
complained Dean Clancy, who went on to say, “Like last year’s
Ryan budget, the new version takes Social Security and defense off
the spending-cut table.”
Two leading Tea Party freshmen, Reps. Tim Huelskamp and Justin
Amash, went so far as to vote against their chairman in committee.
As a result, the plan only cleared the House Budget Committee by a
narrow 19 to 18 vote. Last year, only four House Republicans in
total voted against the Ryan plan.
Even before the House budget was announced, Sens. Rand Paul, Jim
DeMint, and Mike Lee lined up behind a proposal that eliminates
cabinet-level departments and purports to reach balance faster
without raising taxes. Today a group of conservative House members
who belong to the Republican Study Committee will propose their own
alternative budget.
The RSC seeks to balance the budget in five years. The House
conservatives propose setting discretionary spending at $931
billion — about $2 billion below where it was under Nancy Pelosi
in 2008 — and freezing it there over the five-year period it takes
for the budget to balance. According to RSC staff, “This number is
reached by starting with the House Budget Committee’s proposal of
$1.028 trillion and subtracting the $97 billion cut to
discretionary spending required this year by the August debt
ceiling increase.”
RSC chairman Jim Jordan said in a conference call Monday that
the House conservatives’ proposal “deals with the sequester in a
more straightforward way” than the Republican conference plan.
Under the RSC budget, non-defense discretionary spending would
shrink from $377 billion in 2013 to $329 billion in 2022. The plan
endorses Ryan’s basic proposals to reform Medicare and block grants
both Medicaid and SCHIP to the states.
“Obviously, we though we could do better,” Rep. Scott Garrett
said Monday in explaining why the RSC once again introduced an
alternative budget with deeper, more immediate spending cuts. But
Jordan emphasized they were trying to improve upon the official
House Republican budget, not undermine it. “There is a budget that
will pass the House this week,” he told the conference call, “and
it will be Paul Ryan’s budget.”
“The vast majority of the RSC will be supportive [of Ryan’s
budget] because it is something that can get passed,” Jordan said.
“It’s a heck of a lot better than the president’s budget.” But the
RSC wanted to demonstrate that House Republicans feasibly could and
should go even further.
There is always the danger of making the perfect the enemy of
the good. Ryan has gotten the full House to vote in favor of
far-reaching Medicare reforms and a budget that spends much less
than the president’s. Republicans were hoping to repeat that
accomplishment this year.
But there is also a danger in relying too heavily on future
Congresses to carry out bold spending reforms over a long period of
time, when legislators routinely bust through the spending caps
they set for themselves. Will any spending blueprint proceed
perfectly according to projections through 2040?
Already, the conservative pushback has caused Ryan to emphasize
that his plan balances the budget more rapidly when scored against
the economic growth he believes his supply-side tax policies will
stimulate. The choice to remain in traditional Medicare, new to
this year’s version of the budget, also creates the possibility of
starting reforms and realizing savings sooner. Neither the House
Republicans nor the RSC currently propose any changes for anyone
aged 55 and over.
Given the gargantuan federal budget, it can’t hurt to debate
more ideas for cutting spending. And for once in the Washington
budget battles, congressional Republicans are facing pressure from
the right and not just the left.
