President Obama needs an alternative to Paul Ryan's catastrophic plan. Here's what he should do.
By Eliot SpitzerThe relief at the mere fact of a resolution to last year's budget—six months late—is distracting Americans from an unfolding catastrophe. Four critical decision points—two past, two still forthcoming—are leading us down a path to fully embracing the disastrous Republican budget framework. The two past moments: last December's extension of the Bush tax cuts, which eliminated nearly $4 trillion in revenue over the next decade, and last week's budget agreement, which cut nearly $40 billion mostly from nondefense discretionary spending. The two decision points still to come are next month's confrontation with the debt ceiling and this fall's confrontation with the 2012 budget.
At each of the first two decision points, the terms of debate were largely defined by Republicans. The simplicity of their argument—cut taxes, cut spending that benefits the poor—was not met by a clear alternative from the White House. The president never successfully made the case for allowing marginal tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent to revert to their Clinton-era level at this time of massive deficits, or for protecting the programs benefiting the poorest Americans from disproportionate cuts.
The abject failure to enunciate a policy alternative has led to two failed negotiations. The lesson is worth restating because the next two negotiations are at least as significant as the one just past, and Republican leadership has been very open that there will be no lifting of the debt ceiling absent major structural changes in federal spending.
The two Republican proposals for future spending are devastating. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan was met with accolades by the chattering class, merely because he at first blush appeared to confront serious issues. But Ryan's plan is a disaster: It raises no revenue, relying exclusively on draconian cuts to close the deficit gap; sets a threshold for federal spending at 19 percent of GDP, thus ensuring massive underinvestment in key areas; ignores the politically risky issue of Social Security altogether; barely takes a nick out of defense spending; claims falsely to save $1.4 trillion by eliminating health care reform; and cuts Medicaid—health care for the poor—by close to $1 trillion, in a way that will guarantee that tens of millions of the poor lose health coverage. And yet with all this and the use of impossible economic forecasts—unemployment will be at 3.5 percent by 2015?—he will not balance the budget until 2040! Summed up: Fully two-thirds of Ryan's cuts fall on the poorest Americans at the same moment the wealthiest get a tax cut.
http://www.slate.com/id/2290955/ 
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