Posted on 03/21/2012 3:02:02 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The conservative Club for Growth on Wednesday came out against the new House Republican budget proposal authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.).
The Club faulted the Ryan plan for not balancing the budget quickly enough and for turning off the automatic spending cuts triggered by the failure of last year’s supercommittee.
Ryan and House GOP leaders are facing continued unrest among Tea Party-backed conservatives in the House over the details of the Ryan plan, which does not balance the budget until 2040. The Club for Growth statement could embolden a floor rebellion against the 2013 budget.
“Despite containing several important reforms and pro-growth policies, the Ryan budget falls short in two critical respects,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “First, it does not balance for decades. Secondly, it violates the Budget Control Act by waiving the sequester.”
Conservatives wanted a budget that balances in 10 years without raising revenue — something that could require double the amount of spending cuts.
The Ryan budget turns off $78 billion out of the $97 billion in automatic cuts next year and instead instructs six committees to find $261 billion in cuts over the next 10 years.
“By waiving the automatic spending cuts required under the Budget Control Act, this budget is asking Americans to trust future Congresses to do the hard work later,” Chocola said. “It is hard to have confidence that our long-term fiscal challenges will be met responsibly when the same Congress that passed the Budget Control Act wants to ignore it less than one year later. On balance, the Ryan budget is a disappointment for fiscal conservatives.”
The Club stopped short of demanding a “no” vote on the budget, but did ask for a revision. Some conservatives, such as House Budget Committee member Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), have said they will vote against the Ryan plan.
But House Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a leading conservative, said Tuesday he is leaning toward voting for the Ryan plan even though he is disappointed in how the automatic cuts are handled. Jordan and others wanted the full “sequester” cuts reflected in the 2013 spending cap.
The conservative Heritage Action, which is often aligned with the Club, has not come out against the Ryan plan.
“Chairman Paul Ryan deserves credit for confronting the main drivers of our debt crisis — our runaway entitlement system," the group said in a statement. “Of course, there is much to be done if we are to save the American dream, but this budget signals a seriousness of purpose that Americans expect from their lawmakers. Heritage Action looks forward to a spirited conversation over the future of our country.
— This story was updated at noon.
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Leave it to Obama’s mouthpiece The Hill to run a story with criticism of Ryan’s plan from the right, as a “balance” against the torrent of criticism they’ll run from left-wing critics. Who on earth is Count Chocula and why is he being a useful idiot for the Marxist-in-Chief?
The criticism is valid. Ryan does yeoman's work, but his budget ain't perfect. It won't get passed anyway, so don't fret too much over this piece.
Did any of the candidates even mention it today?
I love Paul Ryan.
That said, it is ridiculous to plan a budget that balances itself only by 2040. There are so many unknown factors and things that can occur between now and then that could drastically affect spending, it’s an exercise in futility.
Further I personally don’t think we can wait that long to get the budget balanced. Drastic overspending requires drastic restraint to fix things. Jettison the welfare state of people who are getting welfare but are able-bodied, not US citizens, or are welfare frauds.
The “over 10 years” stuff is stupid.
...
Until there are massive layoffs in DC, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
I read this as them saying Ryan is trying to scam us again.
I love Ryan and want him to be president someday, but the CFG is right here.
The Senate Tea Party Caucus came up with a budget that gets us in surplus in five years. That’s what we should be shooting for. We will all be accused of trying to starve the poor in any case. Let’s go for real change.
He is, you cannot say what future congresses will do. It is BS. Same as his other plan.
Club for Growth, a group I’ve sent money to in the past, is a decent organization.
I applaud Ryan for doing SOMETHING in the right direction.
Folks, we didn’t get this far down the road to perdition in three years; Obama has of course thrown TONS of gasoline on the fire and is the WORST occupier of the Oval Office since before the War Between the States, but we have to turn this ship of state around carefully, like an aircraft carrier (as Dick Cheney would say).
Of course he is. Ryan’s “budgets” are a sham with a marketing plan, nothing more.
Any credible budget that closes the deficit gap has to take on several things:
1. Entitlements. The retirement/eligibility age needs to be raised, and quickly, and the benefits need to be means tested.
2. Spending needs to be slashed fast. We need to slash $1T/year out of federal spending in the next couple of years, and $500B more over the next four years. To do this, military spending needs to be cut, discretionary spending needs to be slashed, and fraud needs to be ruthlessly prosecuted.
3. After that, we need a tax plan that includes some form of consumption tax, so as to put imported goods on an equal footing with domestically made goods. The income tax is now an albatross in our economy, hampering domestic production while favoring off-shore production.
Ryan addresses none of these things in a serious way. We don’t have 5, 10 or 30 years to balance the budget. By my reckoning, we have less than three years in which to make serious budget cuts before the US currency and banking system runs into European-style problems. When we hit the wall, there won’t be anything like the ECB that can bail us out. The Fed will become the laughingstock of the world’s central banks for being a handmaiden to excess spending.
I agree with the CFG—taking 28 years to balance the budget is a joke.
Defense spending has to come down along with serious cuts in the welfare state.
Defense is too big: http://www.iiss.org/publications/military-balance/the-military-balance-2012/press-statement/
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