Dems to Ryan: We'll see your budget plan and raise you another
Dems to Ryan: We'll see your budget plan and raise you another
By Steve Benen
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The Senate Democratic budget, meanwhile, is ...
modest. It has no intention of trying to transform modern American life, and seeks fiscal responsibility through gradual tweaks and reforms. It's a middle-of-the-road budget, setting a target of $1.85 trillion in debt reduction, divided perfectly between new revenue and new spending cuts. It eyes changes to social-insurance programs like Medicare, but goes out of its way to avoid touching benefits.
As we talked about the other day, the Senate Dems have put together the sort of moderate, mainstream approach that one might expect from a responsible governing party. It accepts compromises, requires unobtrusive concessions from both parties, focuses on pressing needs (scrapping sequestration cuts and boosting infrastructure), all while striving for balanced policymaking.
Ryan envisions a redistribution of wealth unlike anything Americans have seen in generations -- in effect, he and his caucus hope to wage a class war on behalf of the rich while shredding the social safety net. The far-right Wisconsin congressman is less a budget committee chief and more a social engineer who's spent too much time with Ayn Rand novels under his pillow.
The Senate Democratic budget looks at the nation through a very different prism -- the deficit is already shrinking, the recovery is already taking hold, so there's just no need for dramatic changes to how American society functions.
- more -
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/14/17311568-dems-to-ryan-well-see-your-budget-plan-and-raise-you-another
Obama to GOP: "Our biggest problems in the next 10 years are not deficits"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022506142