Republicans can’t meet their own deficit and spending targets

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/republicans-cant-meet-their-own-deficit-and-spending-targets/2011/04/13/AFxhhTIE_blog.html

Posted at 10:53 AM ET, 04/21/2011
By Ezra Klein

House Republicans voted to make the Ryan budget law. But the Ryan budget includes $6 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, which means that to become law, the Ryan budget would require a substantial increase in the debt ceiling. But before the Republicans agree to increase the debt ceiling so that the budget they passed can become law, Republicans are demanding the passage of either a balanced budget amendment that would make the Ryan budget unconstitutional or a spending cap that the Ryan budget would, in certain years (and if you’re using more realistic numbers, in all years), exceed.

The point? Republicans have done a lot more thinking about how to run against spending, debt and deficits than thinking about how to handle them going forward. The specific plan they voted for blows through both their spending and debt caps, and that’s if you grant a series of assumptions it makes about health-care spending that even conservative wonks agree are “magical.” You simply can’t run the government under the sorts of targets Republicans are endorsing, and if you look at their budget, you’ll realize that some of them, at least, know that.

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