SLICE AND DICE

GOP Eyes $4 Trillion in Cuts

Over next 10 years.

This makes the current budget debate look like small change: House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said his upcoming proposal for the 2012 federal budget would cut “a lot more” than $4 trillion over the next decade, the amount recommended by President Obama’s deficit panel. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Ryan said his plan—which would apply to the federal budget that begins Oct. 1—would revamp Medicare to a system that subsidizes private insurance plans and restructures federal Medicaid payments to states. Ryan acknowledged that the cuts would be giving Democrats “a political weapon,” but said they’d have to “lie and demagogue to make it a weapon.”