Bloomberg (2011) - "Ryan's Deficit-Cutting Proposals Too Ambitious Even for Fellow Republicans"

[TomCADem]

The fact that Romney who has the Republican nomination locked up still feels the need to tack even further to the right by picking a rightwing extremist who wants to abolish Medicare and Social Security is breath taking in how out of touch the Republican party is. The Republican party is truly just a play thing of corporate America.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-02/ryan-s-deficit-cutting-proposals-too-ambitious-even-for-fellow-republicans.html

Paul Ryan, the U.S. House budget chief, rejected President Barack Obama’s efforts to tame government spending as not enough. As Ryan drafts a Republican alternative, he’ll have to reject his own ideas as too much.

Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a long-term proposal for dealing with the nation’s deficit that he introduced long before taking the helm of the budget committee last month, would cut deep into health programs for the elderly and disabled -- the biggest drivers of federal spending -- and partially privatize Social Security.

It would mean about $718 billion less, almost 6 percent, for Medicare and Medicaid over the next nine years, according to a Bloomberg Government study. And while newly empowered House Republicans put shrinking the U.S. debt at the top of their agenda and chose Ryan to lead on budget issues, his own panel won’t produce a spending plan that mirrors his proposals.

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Only 17 of 180 House Republicans signed on to Ryan’s roadmap in 2010, an election year. Ryan has said it’s too early to know whether his 2012 budget will include elements of his plan, or if it will address spending on entitlements at all.