Ryan’s plan: Would it cut the deficit?

Democrats insist that Republicans have no plan to deal with the nation’s budget crisis, said Mary Kate Cary in USnews.com. But they’re wrong. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a rising star in the GOP, has a very detailed, comprehensive “road map” to cutting spending that Democrats are doing their best to ignore. Unlike most Democrats, and most Republicans, too, Ryan has the guts to take on the entitle­ment monster that’s driving the deficit ever upward—Social Security and Medicare. Under Ryan’s plan, people under 55 would put their Social Security payments into private investment accounts, thereby relieving the government of trillions in future obligations. Medicare would be turned into a system of government-sponsored vouchers, which seniors could use to buy their own insurance on the private market. By also freezing spending increases on most federal programs, Ryan’s plan cuts the deficit in half by 2020. “I don’t think these things are third rails anymore,” Ryan says. “People are ready for this.”

Rich people, maybe, said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. Ryan is suddenly being touted as “the innovative thinker du jour,” but he’s serving up the same Republican “flimflam” George W. Bush and Newt Gingrich have peddled in the past. Take Medicare. The only way Ryan could achieve the savings he promises would be to make his vouchers “too small to pay for adequate coverage.” As a result, most seniors would get bare-bones care, while the wealthy paid doctors directly. And let’s not forget his proposal to provide more tax cuts for the rich, by eliminating taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has found that these tax cuts would reduce government revenues by $4 trillion over a decade, and thus add to the budget deficit. If Ryan is the new king of Republican thinking, as his fans insist, then their emperor has no clothes.

Now, now, said Ezra Klein in WashingtonPost.com. Most of Ryan’s GOP colleagues try to demonize Democrats for “rationing” health care while offering no alternatives; at least Ryan has shown a willingness to consider options for reducing health-care spending. Ryan has even said he would adjust his plan, while keeping deficit-reduction targets intact, if his revenue assumptions are shown to be faulty, said Peter Suderman in Reason.com. That’s an invitation for a “thoughtful dialogue with the opposition.” If Ryan is a “flimflam artist,” Washington could use more like him.

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