Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
As time goes on, and conservative interest groups and members of Congress rip into it, support among Republicans for the Gang of Six plan to reduce deficits will begin to wane. In fact, that’s already happening.
In a publicly released memo meant to undermine support for the Gang of Six plan in its current form, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) laments, “it increases revenues while failing to seriously address exploding federal spending on health care, which is the primary driver of our debt. There are also serious concerns that the proposal’s substance on spending falls far short of what is needed to achieve the savings it claims.”
Read the full memo here.
Not all of Ryan’s complaints ring hollow. The plan legitimately does punt a lot of the spending cut questions to Congressional committees — though under the threat of across the board cuts if those committees fail to report out more targeted reductions. And, whether you want plenty of new revenue, or no new revenue, the plan leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Members claim it would count, in budgeting terms, as a tax cut, because the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline assumes that all of the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012.
Relative to current policy, though, it’s supposed to draw in $1 trillion in new revenue — surely a sticking point for House Republicans. But where do those revenues come from if the plan lowers top tax rates (or at least the top rates), eliminates the Alternative Minimum Tax (at a cost to the deficit of $1.7 trillion), and doesn’t eliminate the most expensive loopholes and benefits in the tax code? That’s left to Congress to decide
It’s not just Ryan, though. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) says he opposes the Gang of Six plan because it cuts too deeply into military spending.
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