Today, Chairman of the Budget Committee Paul Ryan released the GOP FY 2012 budget, giving taxpayers and fiscal conservatives the answer to the question on how the country can survive the fiscal malaise of the past few years. By restraining spending, tackling entitlement reform and incorporating commonsense tax reform, Rep. Ryan offers a budget that seriously addresses the country’s fiscal crisis. In stark contrast to the foolhardy budget offered by the President, who proposed a $1.5 trillion tax hike to triple the debt in ten years, the GOP budget increases economic growth by over $1.5 trillion in its first decade.

The GOP Budget Resolution reveals the fallacy of hiking taxes to grow the government – lawmakers have, for too long, punished taxpayers for their spineless budgeting “deals” that leave taxpayers with a growing price tag for government bloat. Instead, the GOP budget targets the problem: the government’s overspending disease. Mainly, the budget proposed today:

• Permanently alters Washington’s spending habits: Cuts $6 trillion over ten years by addressing both mandatory and discretionary spending, eliminating duplicities, getting government out of the bailout business and returning powers to the states. Looks to permanently alter Washington’s bias towards profligacy by establishing enforceable budget caps that promote prudence and restraint in government spending.
   
• Discretionary spending: Addresses the explosive 84 percent growth in discretionary spending that has crippled the private economy over the past few years, bringing spending below the levels preceding implementation of the failed “stimulus” plan, freezing at those levels and establishing statutory discretionary spending caps
   
• Tackles entitlement spending: The GOP budget returns decisions to the states on how to best operate their own Medicaid programs. Medicare is transformed to allow competition and consumer choice, offering premium support to beneficiaries to choose their own plans. The budget forces both Congress and the President to propose Social Security reform now, instead of punting on the insolvency issue until its too late.
   
• Focuses on the problem: Taxpayers are not undertaxed – Washington overspends. The budget reverses the trend of explosive government growth by bringing spending in line with the historical average and keep outlays far below that average in the long-term.
   
• Repeals Obamacare, ends bailouts and gets government out of the business of business: Realizing the private economy is far more successful in encouraging economic growth, the budget saves $725 billion by repealing the government’s takeover of health care, privatizes government-run housing giants and proscribes future bailouts under last year’s financial regulatory overhaul. 

The GOP Budget Resolution offers fortitude in a debate that has been dominated by the meek and the timid. Lacking the courage to confront unsustainable entitlement promises and rectify the government spending bloat of the past few years, the President and other self-proclaimed budget dealers such as the so-called Gang of Six attempt to use the government’s spending crisis to increase taxes and grow government. The budget offered today by Rep. Paul Ryan demonstrates the fecklessness of the policymaker who, when faced with tough budget decisions, defaults to tax hikes. The thoughtful solutions proposed in the GOP Budget show the country can restore its fiscal health and save taxpayers from the foolhardy decisions of the past few years. All it needed were leaders with the courage to show the way.

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Posted by Mattie Duppler on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 10:10 AM EDT

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