GOP budget plan would revamp Medicare and Medicaid to slash deficit
The 2012 budget strategy outlined by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan promises more than $4 trillion in savings over the next 10 years and takes a dramatically different approach from what President Obama has proposed.
By Kathleen Hennessey, Washington Bureau
April 4, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-republicans-budget-20110404,0,1584409.storyHouse Republicans' 2012 federal budget plan will propose significant changes to Medicare, shift control of Medicaid to the states and aim to chop more than $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Sunday.
Ryan's broad overview of the GOP plan, which is slated to be officially unveiled Tuesday, included a combination of entitlement reforms and spending cuts that amount to a dramatically different approach to deficit and debt reduction than that advocated by President Obama.
Obama's plan, proposed in February, aimed to shave $1.1 trillion from the deficit over 10 years through a combination of increased revenues and targeted budget cuts. He did not suggest structural changes to the nation's social safety net programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Republicans blasted that plan as ignoring the primary drivers of the escalating debt and deficits, as well as the solutions proposed by a commission Obama tasked with drafting a reduction plan....