"In an interview that aired Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama rejected the budget proposal put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as one that achieves balance recklessly."
"Obama conceded to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that differences with congressional Republicans may be "too wide," admitting that if the GOP will only accept new tax revenues under the condition that deep cuts are applied to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid "then we're probably not going to be able to get a deal."
"The President argued that Ryan's proposal to balance the budget within 10 years is a punitive approach because it undermines popular government programs."
"We're not going to balance the budget in 10 years because if you look at what Paul Ryan does to balance the budget it means that you have to voucherize Medicare, you have to slash deeply into programs like Medicaid," Obama said, adding that his goal is not "to chase a balanced budget just for the sake of balance."
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-rejects-ryans-proposal-says-differences-with-gop?ref=fpb
As much as you hate to say it, if this is the best the GOP can do, maybe we're better off with no deal at all, much less a GB-or any bargain. When you compare the latest from the GOP with the plan of the Senate Democrats released today it's tough to see where the agreement can start. So maybe Ezra KLeins' proposal is the best option for the Dems: basically accept there won't be any more tax increases on the rich for now but at least they can:
1). Pocket military cuts
2). The GOP plan to get the "Big Three" will be stillborn.
In figuring out the optimum outcome for the Democrats the question has been how much do the Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich? I certainly want to see that happen but at what price? Would clsoing loopholes, would closing loopholes be worth trading in exchange for deep cuts to the BT? Certainly not deep ones. How about chained CPI for SS and raising the retirement age for Medicare? It's at least arguable that at least one of these isn't a "deep cut" however, after seeing Ryan's budget-deep cuts to Medicaid, voucherization of Medicare it's not clear where the common ground could possible start and these are clearly "deep cuts." So Klein's suggestion that the Dems pocket the military cuts, and keep the Big Three intact.
Yes, these cuts done in the indiscriminate way they are currently structured will do a lot of damage but maybe as Klein suggests the Dems should take the GOP offer of discretion for the President in terms of what is cut, on the condition they let him decide when the cuts are implemented as well.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-is-optimum-sequester-strategy-for.html
For those who worry that Obama will give up too much at least he's drawn a line in the sand on Ryan's budget. While the Dem's proposal even has $100 billion in stimulus, the Ryan makes his arbitrary goal of balancing the budget in 10 years even steeper by adding in some huge tax cuts for the rich-down to 25% and dropping the corporate tax rate to the same level.
Matt Yglesias points out that we don't really ever need to balance the budget. While Clinton's budget surpluses in the 90s was impressive, it was an unnecessary feat:
"The last 17 rounds of Paul Ryan's budgets didn't lead to a balanced budget within the ten-year scoring window because there's no reason to balance the budget within the ten year scoring window or, indeed, ever. But somehow as part of the intracaucus politics around the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling, John Boehner ended up telling backbench members that he was going to balance the budget within ten years. So Ryan dutifully adjusted the magic asterixes in his tax reform "plan" and produced a balanced budget."
“This is an invitation. Show us how to balance the budget,” Mr. Ryan said. “If you don’t like the way we’re proposing to balance our budget, how do you propose to balance the budget?”
" Ryan was, obviously, right the first time. There's no need to balance the budget. In general, the economy grows from year to year. That's especially true in nominal terms. So a continuous modest deficit is consistent with a scenario where the burden of debt is always shrinking. You can see this most clearly in the post-World War II era. The USA borrowed enormous sums of money to fight the war, but by 1970 or so the debt-to-GDP ratio was extremely small. That's not because we ran surpluses in the 50s or 60s, it's because we ran small deficits and the Federal Reserve always acted quickly to prevent recessions from lingering and ensure a rapid return to full employment."
"Something else to note is that politicians and journalists sometimes suffer from CBO blindness when talking about this kind of thing. Even if congress passes a law that the CBO scores as leading to a $0 budget deficit in 2022, the odds of a $0 budget deficit arising in 2022 are extremely low. The 1999 budget surplus was not forecast in 1990 and the 2009 budget deficit was not forecast in 2000. Stuff happens. It's good to aim for fiscal sustainability and it's good to estimate fiscal needs over the medium term, but it's dumb to get too hung up on precise target points and the number zero."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/13/balanced_budgets_are_dumb.html
It's amazing that this version of the Ryan budget is the worst one yet. He doesn't think the election was in anyway a rejection of his agenda, though he can't tell you what it was a rejection of as he and Romney lost handedly.
Now he's even acting petulant at the President's attempt to reach out to Republicans:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) isn't completely sold on President Obama's recent outreach to congressional Republicans.
"The question is, is he going to go out on the campaign trail and start campaigning against us again like he has been since the election?" Ryan said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Was the so-called charm offensive a temporary, you know, poll-driven political calculation, or was it a sincere conversion to try and bring people together and start communicating? I hope that that's the case."
"Obama, Ryan and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) had lunch last week at the White House. And Obama is scheduled to meet with congressional Republicans Wednesday on Capitol hill.
Ryan described his recent conversation with the President as "very, very frank," but said differences remain. "Look, I ran against him, so we have different views. But at least we started talking. This is the first time I ever had a conversation like that with him. So I think that's a good, constructive start. The question is, is there follow through? The question is, does the campaign start back up or does the engagement continue in a real, constructive and promising way? I don't know the answer to that question. Time will tell."
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/paul-ryan-not-sold-on-obama-charm-offensive?ref=fpb
If Ryan doesn't want to campaign why hasn't he offered anything but the Romney plan on steroids? Does he see as a way to foster agreement?
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