Good news two weeks in a row. Last week a new pope is elected and he rejects p.c. silliness and is a defender of life and gender. This week, evidence of a brain-wave in the U.S. House GOP caucus:
On Monday, the House Republican Study Committee unveiled an aggressive plan to balance the federal budget in just four years. The plan, from the internal conservative caucus of the GOP Conference, achieves balance much faster than Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget released last week. Ryan’s plan would achieve balance in 10 years.
The RSC budget is built on many of the same elements as the Ryan plan. It just implements them faster. The RSC moves up the implementation of Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal five years earlier, for example. It also imposes lower caps on non-defense discretionary spending, achieving a net reduction in actual spending. The Ryan plan, by contrast, simply lowers the rate of increase in discretionary spending.
The RSC budget also gradually raises the retirement age for both Social Security and Medicare. The increase in the retirement age, however, wouldn’t begin until 2024. Surpluses generated under the plan would go to pay down national debt, rather than lowering tax rates.
