GOP forges ahead with budget cuts

[Geee]

TheHill:

Republicans and Democrats clashed Monday on what is expected to be a chief battleground of the 2012 election — the fiscal plans of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Republicans.

A day after voters in France and Greece toppled governments in a European backlash against austerity measures, Republicans moved forward with legislation to replace $78 billion in automatic spending cuts to defense and discretionary domestic spending with a much larger $261 billion cut focused only on domestic spending.

The GOP said its bill highlights the Democrats’ obsessions with raising taxes and inability to accept even reasonable spending cuts to a government that is $16 trillion in debt.

 

 

“We shouldn’t be taking more from hardworking Americans to fix Washington’s mistakes,” Ryan said in a statement. “Instead, we should be solving the problem with structural reforms to our entitlement programs to make them strong and sustainable.”

Democrats said the party-line vote showed Republicans were more interested in protecting tax breaks for oil companies than in funding programs that help the poor and needy.

“It is no wonder commentators are calling Republicans reverse-Robin Hoods,” said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who offered a motion that would have replaced cuts to Medicaid and children’s health insurance with cuts to oil and gas subsidies.

The approval of the deep spending cuts by the House Budget Committee in a 21-9 vote took on added significance a day after French voters turned out President Nicolas Sarkozy in favor of a socialist government that promised to pair balancing the budget with economic stimulus.

It is unclear whether a majority of U.S. voters share the views of the French and Greek, who voted against parties that favored the terms of Europe’s bailout of Greece, which has imposed significant cuts to federal budgets.

Drama was also added by the rising political stock of Ryan, who is considered a favorite to serve as Mitt Romney’s presidential running mate. Ryan is seen as his party’s brightest and most articulate voice for reducing the size of government and lowering taxes.