7 February 2013
HOUSE: The House voted on a ten-year budget plan recently.
By Stephen Park, Staff Writer
The House Republicans have proposed a plan to balance out the national budget in just ten years. They plan to make huge cuts in President Obama’s spending and safety net programs such as Medicare.
Last week, the House Republicans approved a temporary suspension of the 16.4-trillion ceiling on the nation’s debt, which will allow the federal government to continue borrowing money up until May. This new proposal to balance out the budget would zero it out in almost half the time of previous Republican efforts. It was only with the promise of deep spending cuts that Speaker of the House John A. Boehner was able to convince his more conservative Republican majority to agree on the suspension. The vote was 285-144 and will now be sent to the Senate, which is expected to approve it.
With the House vote now set, another budget-fueled war is expected to occur in what will likely consume the first months of Obama’s second term. The Republican’s ambitious new approach for a ten-year plan would require drastic reductions in domestic programs, especially from education, infrastructure investment and from the safety nets of low-middle-income families. The Republicans have already agreed to tax increases on the wealthy and have insisted the deficit reduction must come from the spending side of the ledger.
The new budget will be written over the following weeks, but the blueprints for the Republican ten-year plan are already clear. They plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like system, raise the age for senior eligibility, cut down on food stamps and school lunch subsidies and hold other domestic accounts flat.
Republicans hope that the public will be on their side even though they they lost the presidential election with the maker of the last House budget. In fact, Congressman Paul D. Ryan will be returning to man the creation of the new budget. However, the Democrat-run Senate plans to counter Ryan’s approach with one of its own. It is expected to raise revenue by closing tax breaks for the wealthy and loopholes that benefit specific industries, including oil and gas.