Last week, the Republican Study Committee released its budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year, echoing the restraint and leadership proposed in Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget plan. The RSC budget adopts many of the mandatory reforms proposed by Mr. Ryan, while focusing on rectifying the explosive discretionary growth of the past two years. The RSC budget further demonstrates the folly of policymakers who default to tax hikes to confront the country’s fiscal maladies. Keeping the focus on spending, the RSC budget specifically:

• Eliminates $9.1 trillion in spending over the next decade. The plan achieves some of these savings by cutting discretionary spending to pre-bailout, pre-“stimulus” levels, consistent with the GOP’s Pledge to America made to taxpayers in the fall of 2010.
• Addresses government bloat by restraining spending – under the RSC budget, federal spending would increase by only 1.7 percent each year, the lowest of any rate offered in serious budget proposals this Congress. This stands in stark contrast to the President’s plan, which would increase spending by almost 5 percent annually.
• Incorporates the RSC’s Welfare Reform Act, the comprehensive reform plan that builds on the success of similar reforms in the 1990s. By block-granting many federal programs to the states and streamlining agency efforts, the RSC budget would save about $500 billion over ten years.
• Builds on the formative work by the RSC’s member caucuses such as the Sunset Caucus by identifying and eliminating duplicative and wasteful government agencies and programs, saving taxpayers $243 billion.
• Repeals Obamacare, saving taxpayers almost $700 billion in spending over the next ten years and eliminating over $800 billion in new taxes imposed by the health care plan.
• Reforms Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security by building on the reforms offered by the Ryan budget such as allowing states to control and administrate their own Medicaid programs. Incremental changes to the Social Security program could save over $56 billion, as estimated by CBO.

By cutting spending and reforming government, the RSC Budget refuses to punish taxpayers for the poor policy choices of spending advocates who have set the country on the path towards fiscal ruin.  Following the introduction of the House GOP Budget, and on the heels of a budget deal in which the White House championed spending cuts, the RSC Budget rightly frames the debate on diminishing the size of government to foster economic prosperity. The RSC FY2012 Budget shows leadership on fiscal solvency begins and ends with the debate on the size of government; Honest Solutions solidifies the pledge of fiscal fortitude espoused by House Republicans for the 112th Congress.

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Posted by Mattie Duppler on Monday, April 11, 2011 10:37 AM EDT

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