Will the New Ryan Budget Plan Hurt the GOP in 2012? >
Ryan Budget Sets Up a Winner Take All Pre-Election Fight
Republicans will use Ryan's budget as a referendum on Obama's tax and spend policies
March 23, 2012
About Ron Bonjean:
Ron Bonjean is a partner with Singer Bonjean Strategies and the owner of the Bonjean Company, both full service public affairs firms. He was chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference under Sen. Jon Kyl.
The House Budget Committee blueprint for spending and taxation over the next decade would reshape Medicare. In addition, the six existing tax rates topping off at 35 percent would be reduced to 2, 10, and 25 percent.
[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]
For this plan to be politically successful, the plan must be defined by Republicans or risk having it defined for them by the Democratic Party spin machine. The House Republican budget does not touch Medicare for seniors who are currently under the program or about to enroll in it. Republican candidates must repeat this until they are blue in the face or Democratic attack ads will work like quick cement around their feet.
Unfortunately, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate will not produce a budget this year. Instead, it is relying on the spending limits set by the debt ceiling agreement of last summer. That means that once the House passes the Ryan budget, which is $19 billion below last summer's Budget Control Act, it will not be addressed in the Senate. A fall 2012 showdown is now likely to happen over spending priorities because Republicans and Senate Democrats will be working on different spending levels. A spending fight is something that Republicans would relish right before a high stakes Presidential election.
[Read Paul Ryan Budget Won't Solve Deficit Crisis.]
Republicans are using the budget to show leadership and to demonstrate to Americans that they have a real opportunity to send a president to the White House who believes in turning around our fiscal mess and saving our country's finances so that it will be prosperous once again. They will make it a referendum on the President Obama's tax and spend policies in what will be a high profile fight right before the November election.
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- Other Arguments
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#112222
Yes — Every single Republican candidate in the country will have to answer for their party's dangerous plan
GUY CECIL, Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
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#26717
Yes — Working families are tired of the Republicans' failed "trickle down" economics
ERIC GRIEGO, Democratic Candidate for Congress in New Mexico's First District
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#36519
Yes — The only question is how bad the pain Ryan's budget causes will be
TRAVIS WALDRON, Reporter/Blogger for ThinkProgress.org
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#45663
No — If Americans understand budgetary math, the Ryan plan won't hurt the GOP
STEPHANIE SLADE, Project Director at The Winston Group
