5 Reasons Paul Ryan Is In A Budget Jam

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) muscled his signature budget blueprint through the House of Representatives for three straight years, basking in praise from the right and weathering criticism from the left for attempting to privatize Medicare and slash social programs.

This year, the budget chief faces a swath of competing pressures that give him little room to maneuver, and unprecedented divisions within his Republican conference that may leave him with no viable option but to ditch the project.

Ryan hasn't yet announced whether he will or won't offer an updated proposal this year. Perhaps tellingly, he refrained from criticizing Senate Democrats after they announced last Friday they won't be writing a budget. His office declined to comment on Monday. For a theoretical exercise that has no real chance of becoming law, attempting to pass a budget resolution this year is a high-risk, low-reward proposition for Ryan.

Here are five reasons why the House Budget chairman is in a jam.

1. House Republicans are divided on how much to spend<...>

2. The GOP is all over the map on entitlements<...>

3. Voting for Ryan's Medicare plan is dangerous in an election year. His proposal to convert Medicare from a program that directly pays seniors' medical bills into a subsidies system for private insurance (similar to the Obamacare exchanges, ironically) wouldn't be a new position for the GOP. Almost all of them have voted for it every year since 2011. But it'd provide Democrats with a fresh round of "Mediscare" fodder ahead of a promising mid-term election where Republicans are counting on elderly voters to help strengthen their House majority and take back the Senate. They have little to gain by voting for that policy again, particularly because it's a nonstarter for the White House and Democratic Senate majority.

4. The GOP's tax reform blueprint narrows Ryan's space to maneuver. <...>

5. Offering a budget complicates Ryan's focus on poverty<...>

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/paul-ryan-is-in-a-budget-jam

Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray...said no new budget resolution is needed, however, because the budget deal (PL 113-67) Congress approved in December already sets the discretionary spending limit for the coming year.

Murray said that with the appropriations committees already working on fiscal 2015 spending bills based on the budget agreement, “we should work together to build on our two-year bipartisan budget, not create more uncertainty for families and businesses by immediately re-litigating it.”

Congress in that agreement reduced the discretionary spending cuts required under sequester by raising the discretionary caps to $1.012 trillion in fiscal 2014 and $1.014 trillion in fiscal 2015.

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http://www.rollcall.com/news/murray_says_senate_wont_move_2015_budget_resolution-231157-1.html