Questions on the House Republican Budget

For Immediate Release:

March 8, 2013


Next week, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and House Republicans are reportedly planning to put forward a budget that balances in 10 years. Rep. Ryan told the Wall Street Journalthat we shouldn’t expect any big surprises, but we’ve still got plenty of questions about the fuzzy math and ambiguous spending cuts. Take a look at our top 10 questions for Rep. Ryan:
Can you let us in on the magic asterisks of savings you include in your budget, which don’t include any specifics on what those savings are or what policies you would implement to achieve them?
If you can’t lay out exactly what you’re cutting and instead include enormous, unspecified cuts, how can people take this budget seriously?
How do you plan on telling your conservative friends that you’ve recognized that additional revenues are necessary to bring down budget deficits, which is why you’re including the revenues from the fiscal cliff deal in your budget?
Are you planning to let the untargeted, irrational sequester cuts stay in place?
Are you ready to admit that your budget uses the exact same Medicare savings that you criticized President Obama for last year?
How is it possible to balance the budget in a decade and NOT allow your Medicare voucher program to affect anyone over 55?
Are you once again planning on converting many critical programs for our most vulnerable, such as food stamps and Medicaid, into state block grants with few federal controls?
Why did you decide to make adjustments for an expected decline in war spending that could reduce assumed expenditures by up to $600 billion over the next decade after you consistently mocked war savings as “phantom savings” when Democrats included the same number in our budget? Change of heart?
Since your budget was widely panned last year and rejected by Americans in November’s election, are you expecting a different reception this time around?
With the Republican budget already drawing flak from House Republicans, how do you plan on keeping your party “united” this time around?

We’ll be waiting for the answers.