House passes Paul Ryan’s budget plan
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) takes reporters’ questions during a news conference at the US Capitol on Dec. 7, 2011.
After two days of debate, the US House of Representatives passed a 2013 budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), one of the GOP’s rising stars, on a 228 to 191 vote, the Guardian reported. Ten Republicans opposed the $3.5 trillion budget, and no Democrat voted for it.
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The budget was designed to get spending under control, Ryan said this morning, CNN reported. "We have one of the most predictable economic crises in this country coming,” he said. “It's a debt-driven crisis. And so we have an obligation – not just a legal obligation but a moral obligation – to do something about it.”
The Ryan plan slashes $5.3 trillion over the next decade through cuts in entitlements and agency spending, the Washington Post reported. The budget calls for an overhaul of the Medicare program that would give seniors the option of moving to a Medicare-approved private plan, CNN reported.
At the same time, the plan reduces individual tax rates and brackets, eliminates the alternative minimum tax and drops the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, CNN reported.
The White House immediately dismissed the Ryan plan as designed to "shower millionaires and billionaires with a massive tax cut,” the Guardian reported.
The Ryan plan has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, but it will frame the election-year debate on fiscal issues, according to the Washington Post.
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