WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., this morning unveiled an updated budget proposal aimed at overhauling Medicare and Medicaid, reforming the tax code and putting the nation on a sustainable fiscal path.
If implemented, the plan would reduce deficits by $3.26 trillion from 2013 through 2022 relative to President Obama’s budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while averting massive tax hikes. […]
Compared with the CBO baseline, which, among other things, assumes all Bush tax rates will expire and that Congress will actually go through with steep scheduled cuts to physicians payments under Medicare, Ryan’s budget would add $240 billion to deficits over the decade. Yet compared to Obama’s budget, Ryan would reduce spending by $5.3 trillion and taxes by $2 trillion, for $3.26 trillion in deficit reduction. Compared to his own budget from last year, public debt would be $1 trillion less by 2021.
But Ryan’s key Medicare reform doesn’t kick in until 2023, meaning that the major cost savings only come over time. Under a scenario in which the CBO assumes Congress will continue making policy as they have in the past, debt would rise to a staggering 194 percent of GDP by 2040. By way of comparison, Greece, which recently defaulted on its debt, had a debt to GDP ratio of 165 percent in 2011. Yet under Ryan’s reform, that number would be 38 percent. By 2050, the CBO model breaks down, but Ryan’s plan reduces debt as a share of the economy to 10 percent.  (read more)

Surprise, and yet somehow the insufferable progs find a way to make Ryan’s budget proposal a, wait for it,….. yep “War on Women”.
As expected, Democrats voiced strong objections Tuesday to the House GOP budget proposal, saying it violates the agreement established during last summer’s debt negotiations, destroys the current Medicare system and would be harmful to women.
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) told reporters that Ryan’s plans to repeal elements of the health law “is a political thing on the part of the Republicans, but it has real consequences for real people, whether you’re a senior, whether you’re a child, whether you’re a woman, whether you’re a small business, where small businesses can get tax credits toward providing health care. There are consequences.”
The lawmakers also blasted Ryan’s plans regarding Medicare, which proposes to cap spending on future retirees, offering them a set amount with which to purchase private health insurance on newly created federal insurance exchanges.
Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), who worked for two decades as a nurse, said the plan would adversely affect women. “More women live longer and are more dependent on this benefit and they are very much interested in how we protect Medicare.”
Reviving a line of argument successfully used for political gain by Democrats in recent weeks, the lawmakers said Ryan’s plan is just the latest in a series of measures designed to strip women’s rights.
“The Republican majority that has now won the House are again and again proposing extreme and divisive legislation targeted at women’s health,” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said.
“The level of these attacks on women’s health that we’ve seen make a lot of us wonder whether we’re in the dark ages or in fact whether we’re in the 21st Century,” she added.
Anticipating the Democratic line of attack, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) — the highest-ranking House Republican — said Democratic focus on the so-called “War on Women” is an attempt to distract and scare voters.  (read more)