Is The Ryan Budget A Joke?

Last April, House Republicans released the Ryan budget for FY 2012 with much fanfare and promise. The budget resolution was approved almost unanimously among the members of the conference, and they spent the subsequent spring months working on individual appropriations bills that reflected the goals and the spending levels established in that budget blueprint.

Later that year, Republicans summarily jettisoned the Ryan budget for the debt ceiling deal, the minibus, and the megabus. Ultimately, they wound up spending more than the previous year on the discretionary side, and failed to enact any of the transformational change on entitlements and welfare as prescribed in the Ryan budget. They also agreed to fund Obamacare and every other program that was defunded in the Ryan budget.

Fast forward to April 2012, and we are experiencing deja vu with the FY 2013 Ryan budget, albeit at a quicker pace. Ryan introduced a watered-down version of last year’s budget, both in terms of entitlement reform and discretionary spending. On the discretionary side, he set the topline spending at $1.028 trillion, just $15 billion below last year’s level, but $95 billion above the pre-Obama levels. Yet, this is too harsh for the Republican establishment because it is $19 billion below the level set by the debt ceiling deal – a bill they should be ashamed of supporting in the first place. Now it turns out that the entire budget was a joke. This, from Roll Call:

Boxed in by their Senate colleagues on one side and House conservatives on the other, House Republican leaders are starting the slow march toward the Budget Control Act without explicitly walking away from their own House-passed budget. […]

That eventuality was reinforced last week when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted for that spending mark in the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, and President Barack Obama threatened to veto bills that don’t adhere to the BCA.

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