Heritage: Ryan's Budget 'Stasis,' 'Not a Silver Bullet'

The conservative Heritage Foundation on Tuesday  said that Rep. Paul Ryan’s new budget has some good aspects but does not go far enough.

“At first look, the budget unveiled today by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) advances much-needed reforms and importantly accomplishes the crucial goal of balancing the budget within the decade, though this is partially on the coattails of Obama’s tax increases,” Heritage’s Alison Acosta Fraser wrote on Tuesday morning. “Not a silver bullet, it is more of a stasis budget, rather than a bolder plan that builds on the reforms of previous years.”

The conservative foundation, which former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint will lead as its president, is impressed that Ryan’s budget balances in ten years. “The President’s budgets have never even attempted this, and given the Senate’s rusty skills in budget writing, it’s unlikely they would choose this course, either,” Heritage wrote. “The Ryan budget slows the growth of spending to about 3.4 percent per year, compared to roughly 5 percent today, with about $5 trillion less spending.”

But Heritage disapproves of how Ryan uses President Obama’s $618 billion tax increase from the fiscal cliff (one that Republicans justified voting for by going over the cliff, then lowering taxes back down from the amount they shot up to) and the $1 trillion in Obamacare taxes, saying Ryan’s budget “regrettably” uses those tax increases “to get to balance.”

Heritage also knocks Ryan for keeping Obamacare’s taxes, but repealing the law. “The vital organs of Obamacare–the insurance exchange subsidies and Medicaid expansions–are scheduled to start next year,” Heritage wrote. “Ryan’s budget takes the correct and necessary step of repealing them. But, as noted above, perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it keeps the tax increases associated with Obamacare. These tax hikes are the oxygen that fuels the fire of ever bigger spending. But the entire fire needs to be put out–all of Obamacare should be repealed, including its tax hikes.”