Ryan Budget Puts Government on the Right Track

The House of Representatives took two significant steps last week toward reversing the nation's disastrous debt trajectory.

Step one was passing a resolution to fund the government for the remainder of 2011. The 2011 budget should have been completed by September of last year, but the failure of the Democratically controlled Congress to do its work gave the new Republican majority in the House an extra opportunity to cut spending. That's exactly what we did, passing a bill in January that cut $100 billion from President Obama's 2011 budget request. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats and President Obama rejected the spending cuts and brought the government to the brink of shutting down before finally agreeing to accept sensible spending reductions.

The 2011 budget agreement approved by both houses of Congress last week is not perfect -- but it is historic in scope. Because of this legislation, the federal government will be spending $78.5 billion less this year than we would have if the president's budget had passed. Such a groundbreaking reduction in spending would certainly not have been possible in the Pelosi Congresses of the past few years. With this one vote, we have changed course.

Washington is no longer debating whether to cut spending; now, the only question is how much we will cut. The answer? $6.2 trillion. The day after passing the largest spending cut in history with the 2011 budget agreement, House Republicans passed our budget resolution for 2012 cutting trillions of dollars over 10 years.

The budget developed by the Paul Ryan-led Budget Committee does not shy away from tackling the tough issues. Unlike President Obama's approach, the Ryan Budget is based on the reality that we can't tax our way to prosperity. The only way to reduce our debt is to address the 60 percent of federal spending consumed by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Reforming these entitlement programs is not only vital to preventing a debt crisis, but reform is also the only way to save the programs for future generations. Medicare is set to go bankrupt in 2021, followed by Social Security in 2037.

The Ryan plan ensures these programs will be available for our children and grandchildren -- without making any changes for those age 55 and above. That's an important point that bears repeating: The Ryan Budget passed last week will not affect benefits for anyone 55 or older.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are working overtime to misrepresent this fact, but it is still a fact. It is also a fact that the Ryan Budget is the only serious debt reduction proposal that has been offered. Although the president was scheduled to announce his own plan last week, he instead delivered his most partisan and least presidential speech yet. Distorting and demonizing Chairman Ryan's thoughtful and detailed plan, the president offered nothing but tax hikes, study commissions, and vague goals to "eliminate waste" and "find additional savings." After similarly hollow rhetoric in the State of the Union and his original 2012 budget proposal, this latest offering should put to rest once and for all any expectation that we should expect leadership -- or even cooperation -- from the Executive Branch.

Regardless of resistance from the president and his party, we are making progress. With passage of the 2011 funding bill and the 2012 Ryan Budget resolution, we have officially reversed course and are now finally on the right track to balancing the budget.