U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
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WASHINGTON -- House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said he will release a budget plan Tuesday designed to cut more than $4 trillion from federal spending over the next decade, in part by paring Medicare and Medicaid.
In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Ryan, R-Wis., said his plan would seek cuts topping those the heads of President Barack Obama's deficit commission proposed last year. His plan also would overhaul the tax code, create caps on government spending and contain no tax increases.
"We're going to go after the source of the problem, and that is spending," Ryan said. "Where the president has failed to lead, we are going to lead, and we're going to put out ideas to fix this problem."
Democrats and Republicans are working on a 2011 budget to avoid a government shutdown when current spending authority ends Friday. Obama increased pressure on lawmakers Saturday, telephoning Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, urging them to get the budget impasse resolved.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the budget committee, said in a statement Sunday that "we are all committed to deficit reduction, but the issue is how we do it without jeopardizing our economic recovery, losing American jobs and violating our commitments to seniors."
"It is now clear that the Republican budget is not bold, but the same old ideological agenda that extends tax breaks to millionaires and big oil companies while cutting our kids' education and health security for seniors," said Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.
Ryan said his plan would convert Medicaid, which provides health care to poor people, into a block-grant program that would give governors more discretion over how to run the joint federal-state program. "We've had so much testimony from so many different governors saying, 'Give us the freedom to customize our Medicaid programs, to tailor for our unique populations in our states,' " he said.
New Medicare beneficiaries would choose from a list of private health care plans whose cost would be subsidized by the government, Ryan said. Those payments would be adjusted to provide "more for the poor, more for people who get sick, and we don't give as much money to people who are wealthy," he said.
The plan would begin in 2022, said Conor Sweeney, a Ryan spokesman.
Lawmakers have passed $10 billion in cuts so far for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. House and Senate negotiators, joined by the White House, are considering plans to raise that total to about $33 billion.
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