It was released last week, but I have not had the time to write about it. President Obama asked for ideas for the budget and now he has an entire counter budget to consider. It will be interesting to see how his administration handles it. Will he call Republican’s stupid again like he has with other ideas or will he actually take a hard look at what they have come up with. In commentary to the WSJ, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan said the following:
In the recent past, the Republican Party failed to offer the nation an inspiring vision and aconcrete plan to tackle our problems with innovative and principled solutions. We do not intend to repeat that mistake. America is not the greatest nation on earth by chance. We earned this greatness by rewarding individual achievement, by advancing and protecting natural rights, and by embracing freedom. We intend to continue this uniquely American tradition.
The 65 page plan released last week follows the 19 page blueprint issued when President Obama called them out for not having a plan of their own. There are stark differences in the two plans. I will highlight a few and give links at the bottom so you can read it yourself if you like.
Deficits and Spending
The Republican budget has $3.3 Trillion less deficits than the Obama plan over the same 10 year period. This means that we would be borrowing less money which means our debt to GDP ratio would be about 18% less with the Republican plan. Government spending would also be about 5 Trillion less with the counter plan. They have accomplished a lot of this by placing a increase freeze on all non-defense government spending for 5 years. In comparison, Obama would increase most government programs spending by more than the inflation rate just this year alone. Entitlement spending growth would also decrease in contrast to Obama’s 1.4 trillion increase.
This plan is good in the fact that it has less spending than the alternative and will start to reverse some unsustainable trends that the Obama administration is trying to enact. That being said, it does have some compromises in it that without could make the plan even better. The main point being that they are trying to save the Social Security Program, which I think should be completely overhauled or basically privatized. The majority of government spending comes from this program and Medicare. I think they should look to reduce this burden from the government. Giving this money directly to the people instead of using a government middleman is just a better solution. But of course it has been around so long everyone now thinks it is their right and most have paid into the system so doing this would be complicated and painful.
Taxes and Energy
Obama has made no secret that he plans to enact $1.5 Trillion in new taxes over the next 10 years. And I do not think that included the massive tobacco tax he just initiated (which does raise taxes on those making under $200,000 just in case you are wondering). The republican budget does not enact new taxes. It suspends the capital gains tax for 2010 and reduces the corporate tax rate to 25%. Currently the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Lowering the rate will encourage the evil corporations to do business here instead of elsewhere creating more jobs. This I think works better than trying to intimidate corporations with threats of windfall taxes. Call me crazy.
Then there is the cap and trade energy tax. The republican budget shows that this will cost the average family about $1,600 annually in energy costs because as pointed out by some Democrats in Congress a couple of weeks ago; companies will just pass along that cost to the consumer. The counter plan does not enact the cap and trade and instead opens up land for energy exploration as well as other energy sources such as nuclear.
Defense and Veterans
This is the only area where Republicans would increase spending over what Obama has asked for in his budget. The increase is 5 Billion over Obama’s plan for DoD and $540 million over Obama’s plan to fully fund the VA.
Like I said before, the counter plan is not perfect, but I think much better than what the current administration is offering. If you look at the numbers it is just not sustainable. Even if we place ridiculous European taxes on our population (over 60% of your income), we cannot keep up with this spending. You may think that is crazy, but that is where this administration is taking us. That is what Europe believes in. Big government. In a sidenote, it was also positive to see Republicans acknowledge that they have made mistakes about providing good ideas based on conservative principles. Too bad it took Obama getting elected to act on that. Anyways, as promised here are some links to the documents if you want to read them.
GOP Counter Budget legislative text
GOP Budget Summary to WSJ by Paul Ryan
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
i would agree with you that as a whole the counter budget is better. then again, a group of monkeys could do better than the obama plan or throwing darts would be better than the obama plan. i feel there is way too much spending on defense because these budgets do not even have the price of the non-war on terror. there will be suplementals galore to pay for our killing innocent civilians as well as a few of the bad guys. by the way, where were all these fiscal republicans this past 8 years? i know, the reps and dems have the same agenda, the rhetoric is just a little different. too bad for mr and mrs average american, we will lose unless the individual states get serious about states rights legislation.
I would say a lot of the Republican congressmen who were less fiscally responsible were voted out and replaced…ironically with liberals who are even less fiscally responsible. Probably because they were already in more left leaning districts. (leaving more conservative repubs in more conservative districts) For others, the Obama election was a wake up call. Spending increased as has the government for the last couple of decades but not to the degree we are seeing now. Even many moderate democrats are worried about it. It is something that we have to get under control.
I have to comment as well on your “pay for our killing innocent civilians as well as a few of the bad guys” comment.
Bottom line it is irresponsible to say that; unprofessional, and shows you do not understand our military’s multi-faceted mission. I would ask you be more careful with your words. Some innocent people are killed in war. It is the nature of war and unfortunate, but it does happen. Our military takes every step humanly possible to avoid any loss of life, especially innocent civilians.
kill others before they kill you. give me a break, i would rather die than live by that belief. beware of neocons who will go down in history as mindless lackey sheoples. who were “fear mongered” into following a seriously flawed doctrine. but exactly what i expect out of a neocon.
I know you understand the threats that existed because I have explained them to you. Whether you choose to believe that they were not sufficient threats or choose to ignore them is up to you. It was not fear mongering because threats did exist.
You did not address the military mission so I still have to assume that I am correct in that you do not understand the missions given to the military during this conflict.
However, I really was not even commenting on the Iraq War, which you always try to bring into conversation despite the topic of the post. I was commenting on the carelessness of the words you used. With your response I think I have proven my point.
“kill others before they kill you. give me a break, i would rather die than live by that belief.”—It’s possible.
I can’t tell. Is Greg a vet?
ya know, i fear war mongering globalist neocons more than some ak-47 toting guerilla terrorist in aphganistan or iraq. i understand the military mission, obama just revealed it yesterday. it is, “how to not lose in aphganistan”. an outright admission that winning is unachievable nor the goal. i tell you, what is happening here is globalism and the neocon globalists do not even hide that fact. that’s okay, because i will keep my guns and continue to be a true patriot that believes soveriegnity and liberty are more important than idle threats of safety. i believe they hate us because we are on their land and i have data to support that. another thing, you are just out to prove a point. i am out to help save the republic from seriously flawed policy that reps and dems alike agree with. globalism is the major threat to the united states. they want world government, is really what you want steady? because your blind support of the establishment wants our empire to grow into a global empire where we are at the helm. i do not want that at all. i want humble foreign policy, free markets, sound money and a return to a true republic where the government is mostly at the municipal, county and state level. this is what the founders established. not world dominance. i am finished here with your blog, it has become a waste of my time. it used to be productive, but your hostility to opposing views makes it unproductive. i will leave the sheoples in the gated corral to do whatever you do!
You are avoiding the point I made. I agreed with the majority of what you said about the budget. I made a simple point about the carelessness of the comment you made. You have said it several times and I felt I should finally say something about it. I understand your positions, but they have little to do with the statement I was addressing.
I mentioned the military mission because it relates to that particular comment. There are several parts to our mission. The first being direct security. Second is support to Iraqis in developing local, regional, and national governments. A third is standing up and training local police departments for local security within towns and cities. A fourth is training of Iraqi military units for regional and national security. A fifth mission is help with infrastructure development such as schools, water systems, electrical systems. A lot of our missions are non military related. Your comment mis- represented the mission of the US military in this conflict in a very negative way.
You are welcome to have other viewpoints, but you seem to think that just because I disagree I am being hostile. That is not my intent even though you have to expect some of that when you make a comment like the one you made.
I do not move about blindly just because I do not agree with some of your points. I do believe it was you who never had heard about any of the threats that existed in Iraq (from my email). So did you really do your research on Iraq before taking the position you did. Or was it simply based upon a philosophy.
I am sorry you think the blog is a waste of time. I personally do not think so.