Republican lawmaker's budget plan gets Obama's attention

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

Released two days before the unusual back-and-forth session between Obama and the GOP, the bill sponsored by Ryan and five other House members would seek to reduce the deficit and spur economic growth by cutting the tax rate on corporations, shifting future Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to private insurance plans, and both raising the retirement age gradually to 70 and reducing the growth of benefits to make Social Security solvent. Even Democrats have acknowledged that it is one of the few plans offered by a member of either party that would lower the long-term budget deficit.

But while Obama called Ryan a "pretty sincere guy" and a person willing to "study this stuff and take it pretty seriously," the Wisconsin lawmaker's bill illustrates the wide gulfs on ideology and policy that separate Democrats and Republicans, complicating any effort between the two sides for compromise, despite Obama's recent calls for more bipartisanship. And those divides will become even deeper because it is an election year.

* * *

But even Ryan's fellow GOP colleagues will not endorse his plan. Asked Thursday about the "Roadmap for America's Future," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) dismissed the plan by saying "it's his," referring to Ryan. "I know the Democrats are trying to say that it's the Republican leadership. But they know that's not the case."

Boehner declined to specify anything in the legislation that he disagrees with, and when House Republicans release a formal alternative to Obama's budget in a few weeks, party leaders expect it to include some of Ryan's ideas. In his role as the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, Ryan wrote the House GOP budget plan last year that Boehner and other party leaders signed off on, and that included many provisions similar to those in the Roadmap, such as the tax cuts and changes to Medicare.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404238.html?hpid=topnews

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Interesting that fellow Republicans are distancing themselves from Ryan's plan, which I am sure will emerge as Contract for America II if the Republicans take over Congress.

[No Elephants]

1. So, did this Republican budget have numbers for a change, or just proposals for tax cuts?

And what a swoon piece Bacon of WAPO wrote.

Such a shame that the paper that brought Nixon to resignation went Republican.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. WAPO is now, and always has been a CIA propaganda outlet.

Woodward has been an asset going back to ancient times. Nixon, like Kennedy, was taken out by the Company for getting too independent.

[Proletariatprincess]

2. Tax breaks for corporations and privatizing Social Security..

wow...what a concept. Nothing new here...Repubs have no ideas except to reward their corporate masters and dismantle the social contract...what there is of it. I hope Obama just blows this idea out of the water post haste.

[grytpype]

3. Obama has to jump on the privatizing Medicare thing! Right?

The Repugs are going apeshit over a very incremental HCR bill, while they want to PRIVATIZE MEDICARE!

[modrepub]

7. Agree

That's what happened to my father at 58. He wouldn't sue due to ideology. Struggled for the next seven years until he could collect his military and SS. Good luck to all of the "ditch diggers" out there. I never see anyone who has do do hard physical labor last much past 40 or 50.

[JDPriestly]

4. If they want to raise the retirement age to 70, they have to

prosecute age discrimination with the full force of the law.

If an older person is laid off or organized out of a job or simply fired for no good reason, he or she will only rarely find another job as good as the one that was lost.

I wanted to work until I was 70. I planned to work until I was 70. I went back to school and got an additional degree believing that the additional education would make me employable until I was 70. And I was fired because my boss wanted to hire a younger person.

So, it sounds so easy to delay the retirement age -- but the fact is that older workers face a lot, a huge lot of discrimination.

And in this age of accelerating change and technological innovation, working longer means investing in training -- not just on the part of the employee but also on the part of the employer. Most employers don't want to invest in older workers. That is why we are the first to go when times get tough or a business makes changes.

I oppose raising the retirement age to 70 -- unless there is a massive campaign against age discrimination that demonstrably eases the job market for older workers.

There is also a problem in that with age our minds work a little differently and most of us get chronic medical conditions like arthritis or diabetes or high blood pressure that can cause complications in the workplace. Arthritic fingers do not type as fast or handle paper or simply hold things as well as non-arthritic ones. The infirmities of age are not as obvious today, but they are a physical reality that we all have to deal with.

Just watch some of the senators who are 70 and older. Several of them move very differently and speak more slowly than the younger senators. There is nothing wrong with that. With age comes wisdom and breadth of experience that are useful in the Senate -- but in the workplace, employers want quick, efficient workers, not lumbering, but trustworthy and experienced oldtimers. That's the attitude today.

[zbdent]

5. Boehner doesn't like it?

What, it's more than two paragraphs long?