House GOP leaders on Tuesday released a new plan for decreasing the national deficit by lowering tax rates and calling for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and a long list of other programs that President Obama has promised to protect.
The plan, announced by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. and co-authored by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, takes aim at what conservative Republicans deem a wasteful health care system. Ryan says the plan will reform Medicare and keep it from going bankrupt, while also help seniors by lowering cost increases and giving them more options.
However, Democrats in the Senate say the plan has no chance of passing, because it falls far short of helping seniors in any real way and stands in sharp contrast to Obama’s plan released last month, which saved any cuts to benefit programs such as Medicare.
Still, Ryan denies any claims that the GOP’s plan will threaten benefits to seniors in or near retirement and says Americans are ready for real deficit-reduction solutions, which his plan achieves.
"If you want to save Medicare and keep it from going bankrupt, you must reform the program, and that's what we intend to do,” he said. "We want to take all the empty promises our government is making and make sure they're not broken promises."
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