When Senator Murray and I started these negotiations, we agreed on some ground rules. We knew if we tried to force each other to violate one of our core principles, we’d never get anywhere. I wasn’t going to raise taxes. She wasn’t going to change major entitlements.
Instead, we looked for common ground. There was some overlap between the budget she proposed in the Senate and the budget I proposed in the House. We knew we wouldn’t resolve all our differences. So we found some commonsense ideas both parties could support.
Here’s what we came up with: The Bipartisan Budget Act will provide $63 billion in sequester relief — split evenly between defense programs and other domestic priorities — in exchange for $85 billion in savings elsewhere in the budget. In other words, this bill will reduce the deficit by an additional $23 billion, without raising taxes. And most important, it will cut spending in a smarter way.
How do we cut spending? First, we eliminate waste. We stop paying Medicaid bills that dead-beat dads should cover. That alone is a $1.4 billion cut. We stop sending unemployment checks to criminals. And we stop sending government checks to dead people. There’s no reason to tolerate fraud....
John Boehner: Over at National Review, Paul Ryan notes the House-Senate budget agreement "will reduce the deficit by $23 billion. It won't raise taxes. And it will cut spending in a smarter way. It doesn't go as far as I'd like. But it's a firm step in the right direction."
He's right. This agreement keeps in tact the strict spending caps at the heart of the Budget Control Act, while replacing one-time spending cuts with permanent reforms that produce real, lasting savings.
◼ Conservatives: We’re ‘under attack’ on Hill - Politico
◼ This Liberal and This Conservative Think the Ryan-Murray Budget Plan Is a Raw Deal for Americans - Heritage
