The GOP’s long-term budget plan is an imperfect, perhaps unrealistic government spending blueprint. But it’s also a great start on a conversation that’s overdue in Washington.
Whether that debate results in a compromise plan that can pass muster with federal lawmakers and the president will be a key test of whether divided government can work in the era of hyper-partisanship.
There is a lot at stake.
A government shutdown is looming unless a temporary spending plan can be agreed upon by Friday. But Republicans and Democrats have been unable to fashion a budget that would take the country through Sept. 30. (Democrats, when they controlled Congress, failed to pass a budget last fall.)
So compromise, they must. A government shutdown would be disruptive and potentially damaging to the nation’s fragile economic recovery.
Americans will have little patience for such a political failure and the resulting finger-pointing over which party ought to take the blame.
The long-term budget plan pitched by Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, should spark a discussion with Democrats. At issue is the shape and scope of billions in domestic spending cuts.
Though any financial analysis of Ryan’s preliminary plan is necessarily limited, Republicans say it would cut $5.8 trillion in spending through 2021.
The plan would deeply cut personal and corporate tax rates, and would dramatically restructure Medicare to slow the program’s rate of growth.
Republicans have proposed replacing the current Medicare system with private health care plans subsidized by the federal government. That subsidy almost assuredly won’t keep pace with medical inflation, leaving users to fill the gap.
It is a draconian idea already generating controversy, and it leaves a lot of room for negotiation. The president and Democrats should be pitching counter-proposals that aim for the ample middle ground that exists between Ryan’s plan and, well, nothing.
And the truth is, only a fairly radical solution is going to make a difference with the long-term debt.
The parties, however, seem quite far apart. The 10-year spending plan the president unveiled earlier this year did not take on entitlements in a serious way and it must be part of any serious budget-balancing conversation.
However, it is not feasible to rely solely on cuts to dig our way out of the nation’s debt problem.
Spending cuts must be part of the plan, but additional revenues must be as well. The GOP proposal does not go there.
Neither Ryan’s nor the president’s plan includes significant defense spending cuts, which also must be part of the solution.
The Ryan plan and the immediacy of potential government shutdown pose an opportunity.
It could be an affirmation of the gridlock that exists in the nation’s capital, or the beginning of meaningful discussion and compromise. We certainly hope for the latter.
