Paul Ryan's unserious budget

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Tuesday released his proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year, and it promises to save more than $5 trillion over a decade. So where do those savings come from? Largely from repealing ObamaCare.

In fairness, the proposed budget is a dream blueprint of federal spending, not an actual proposal. Democrats have no intention of acting on it, so the Path to Prosperity is essentially no more than a political document for Republicans to tout on the campaign trail this year.

Yet to project massive savings on the far-fetched idea that ObamaCare will completely disappear — as Ryan did in past budget proposals as well — is a disingenuous accounting trick. Republicans have held dozens of repeal votes, all for naught. Meanwhile, ObamaCare enrollments surged on Monday — possibly hitting the administration's target of seven million — and support for the health care law is rising. There are still questions about how successful the law will be once people actually move onto their new insurance plans, but there is simply no reason to believe ObamaCare will vanish and deliver the massive savings Ryan projects.

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Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.

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