House GOP budget plan heats up as campaign issue

STEPHEN BRAUN

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The new debt-slashing bud­get plan pushed by House Repub­li­cans heated up as a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign issue Sun­day as the proposal’s archi­tect, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wis­con­sin, sparred with top Democ­rats over its polit­i­cal fall­out and down­played the pos­si­bil­ity he could be tapped as a vice pres­i­den­tial candidate.

Senior White House adviser David Plouffe dis­missed the GOP plan Sun­day as “a lot of candy, not a lot of veg­eta­bles,” and charged that it would be “rubber-stamped” as law if lead­ing Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Mitt Rom­ney is elected.

“This is really the Romney-Ryan plan,” Plouffe said, adding that its mix of across-the-board tax cuts and stiff bud­get cuts “show­ers huge tax cuts on mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires paid for by senior and veterans.”

Ryan tried to tamp down spec­u­la­tion that he could be tapped for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket, although who will be the nom­i­nee is far from settled.

“I would have to con­sider it, but it’s not some­thing I’m even think­ing about right now because right — I think our job in Con­gress is pretty impor­tant,” Ryan said. “And what we believe we owe the coun­try is, if we don’t like the direc­tion the pres­i­dent is tak­ing us, which we don’t, we owe them a spe­cific sharp con­trast and a dif­fer­ent path that they can select in Novem­ber. And doing this in Con­gress is really important.”

The House GOP debt-reduction plan, unveiled last week with min­i­mal Demo­c­ra­tic con­gres­sional sup­port, is quickly sharp­en­ing as a line of divi­sion for the fall cam­paign, pit­ting GOP and tea party pres­sure for a reined-in bud­get against White House and Demo­c­ra­tic party alarms about a weak­ened Medicare sys­tem and tax relief for the wealthy.

“This is a sharp, clear dif­fer­ence with two dif­fer­ent futures,” Ryan said. Despite grow­ing signs that the U.S econ­omy is strug­gling back to life, Ryan threw down a marker for the fall national elec­tion, say­ing that the GOP plan is the only alter­na­tive to a loom­ing debt cri­sis ver­sus Obama’s “path of debt and decline.”

The GOP pro­posal — endorsed by Rom­ney last week dur­ing a meet­ing with GOP con­gres­sional lead­ers — would slice $5.3 tril­lion from Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s bud­get over the com­ing decade through tax reforms and sweep­ing pro­gram cuts. The plan aims to shrink U.S. deficits by $3.1 tril­lion over the next decade, reduc­ing tax bur­dens while cut­ting Med­ic­aid pay­ments and shift­ing over­sight to states and sharply cut­ting other domes­tic programs.

House Bud­get Com­mit­tee chair­man Ryan, who authored a sim­i­lar plan last year sunk by White House and Demo­c­ra­tic con­gres­sional oppo­si­tion, agreed that Rom­ney backed his plan gen­er­ally. But he said the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor might not be in com­plete lock­step with his vision.

“I’m not expect­ing every­one to enact every lit­tle piece,” Ryan said, adding that he expects Rom­ney will back the plan’s main planks.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., cau­tioned that his party would blunt the Ryan plan again as it did last year, also not­ing the elec­tion year “con­trast with Democ­rats.” He said Sen­ate Democ­rats would offer up a rival tax reform plan on tax day, April 15, call­ing for increased taxes on wealthy Amer­i­cans along the lines of the “Buf­fett Rule” acclaimed by bil­lion­aire Nebraska investor War­ren Buffett.

“Let’s be fair, you should pay more than your sec­re­tary,” Schumer said, echo­ing Buffett’s com­plaint that the cur­rent tax sys­tem allows the megarich to pay at lower tax rates than many of those who work for them.

Ryan and Plouffe spoke on “Fox News Sun­day,” while Ryan and Schumer went on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Posted by AP News on Mar 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.