WASHINGTON — House Republicans unveiled their latest budget outline on Tuesday,sticking to their plans to try to repeal so-called Obamacare,cut domestic programs ranging from Medicaid to college grants and require future Medicare patients to bear more of the program’s cost.
The point is to prove it’s possible to balance the budget within 10 years by simply cutting spending and avoiding further tax hikes,even though the fiscal blueprint released Tuesday by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan,R-Wis.,will be dead on arrival with the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate.
The latest Ryan plan generally resembles prior ones,relying on higher tax revenues enacted in January and improved Medicare cost estimates — along with somewhat sharper spending cuts — to promise balance.
Senate Democrats plan to offer a counterproposal on Wednesday with higher spending on domestic programs and additional tax hikes on top of the higher rates imposed on top-bracket earners in January. That plan will,in turn,arrive as a dead letter in the GOP-controlled House.
At issue on Tuesday and beyond is the arcane and partisan congressional budget process,one that is unlikely to illustrate a path forward in a gridlocked Washington. At stake are so-called budget resolutions,which are nonbinding measures that have the potential to stake out parameters for follow-up legislation cutting spending and rewriting the complex U.S. tax code.
Read More at OfficialWire . By Andrew Taylor.
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