GOP Budget Would cut $4 Trillion Over Ten Years

CHRIS WALLACE: So more than $4 trillion, which is a significant number, because that was the president’s debt commission cut the deficit by $4 trillion.

RYAN: Yes, we will be exceeding the goals that were put out in the president’s debt commission.

WALLACE: How do you do that?

RYAN: By cutting spending, reforming entitlements and growing our economy. Look, we intend to not only cut discretionary spending and put caps on spending, you have to address the drivers of our debt. We need to engage with the American people on a fact-based budget, on stopping politicians from making empty promises to people and talk to the country about what is necessary to fix these problems.

Now the good thing we have going for us is we have time to fix this problem. So the kinds of reform we’re going to be putting out there won’t make changes to people who are already in or near retirement. If you’re 55 or older, you won’t see changes. You won’t have to reorient your lives around these things.

But if we keep kicking the can down the road and keep making more empty promises to people, then we’ll have the European kind of pain and austerity. Then you have cuts to current seniors, tax increases that slow down your economy.

By addressing the drivers of the debt now, we do it in a gradual way. We can guarantee the mission of health and retirement security, not just for current generations, but for future generations. And we are going to put out a plan that gets our debt on downward trajectory and gets us to a point of giving our next generation a debt-free nation. That in and of itself will help us grow the economy today and create jobs.

The Washington Post

I give Paul Ryan credit for coming up with something substantial and substantive, but let’s face it, it’s not substantial enough.  $4 trillion over ten years works out to be $400 billion in spending cuts per year.  That’s a gargantuan number, but considering our budget deficit this year alone is $1.5 trillion, this still leaves us with a trillion dollar budget deficit per year.  We’ll still be heading towards Hell in a hand basked, just slowing it down a bit.

We need a balanced budget, period.  Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) has introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would amend the U.S. Constitution requiring a balanced budget.  Senators Richard Burr, Lindsey Graham, and Jim DeMint have signed on as co-sponsors.

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