"The charts on how the Obama, Ryan budgets differ"

[applegrove]

The charts on how the Obama, Ryan budgets differ

by -- Robert Schroeder and Ruth Mantell at Market Watch

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-charts-on-how-the-obama-ryan-budgets-differ-2013-04-10?dist=lcountdown

"SNIP............................................

President Barack Obama on Wednesday offered a budget meant to compete with Republicans’ proposals to shrink the deficit and empower the middle class. As the ensuing charts indicate, there’s a considerable gulf between priorities, ensuring an intense debate this spring and summer over taxes and spending.

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Obama would spend more over 10 years and take in more in taxes than would the budget passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. In Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget, he proposes spending $46.5 trillion over 10 years, nearly 12% more than the $41.7 trillion authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. On taxes, Obama plans to reap $41.2 trillion, compared to the $40.2 trillion sought by the Ryan budget. A major difference between the budgets: Obama does not propose to balance within 10 years and instead projects a deficit of $439 billion in 2023. Ryan’s plan forecasts deficits in the next 10 years, but by 2023 projects a surplus.

Obama proposes greater spending on items including health care, veterans’ benefits and income security – which includes Food Stamps, unemployment benefits and federal employee disability – than does Ryan. By 2023, for example, Obama would spend close to $800 billion on health programs including state Medicaid grants and food inspections. (Medicare is a separate category.) Ryan would spend about $450 billion.

For income-security programs, it’s a similar story. Obama would spend more than $620 billion, versus the $511 billion sought by Rep. Ryan’s budget.

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[applegrove]

1. They are pretty close with the exception that Ryan funds his budget by attacking and destroying the

poor and Obama does not.

[JHB]

2. How did they handle Ryan's handwaves?

Ryan's budget depends on closing unspecified loopholes, what has been described as as a "magic asterisk". Is that factored into the comparison?

[applegrove]

3. Don't know. But I liked the point you could get to almost the same place with Obama's budget without

forcing the poor and middle classes into lives of desperation on the whole.