House Republicans plan a new front in Washington’s budget wars with a proposal they say would erase the government’s deficit within a decade, Bloomberg reported yesterday. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that he will unveil next week a fiscal blueprint delineating how Republicans would eliminate a deficit projected to reach $978 billion in 2023. The plan’s timetable is more ambitious than previous versions of Ryan’s tax-and-spending proposals, the last of which wouldn’t have balanced the government’s books until 2040. It’s also a gamble that the promise of erasing red ink without tax increases will outweigh concerns over the wrenching changes in spending policies that would be needed to make the numbers work. “We can show the country that this is an achievable goal, a goal that we all ought to share, a goal that helps us prevent a debt crisis, a goal that helps our economy,” Ryan said. The proposal will come amid a separate fight over what to do about the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that began last week, the penalty for lawmakers’ failure to break their long-running impasse over fiscal issues that include cutting entitlement programs and raising taxes. President Barack Obama has begun contacting individual Republican lawmakers, including Ryan, in search of a long-range deal.
