Ryan spokesman Conor Sweeney e-mails:
As a factual matter, The Path to Prosperity does not waive the sequester. It reprioritizes sequester savings for Fiscal Year 2013, while leaving the enforcement mechanism in place for the years ahead. Washington will not be given a free pass on achieving the savings called for under the Budget Control Act (BCA), but we must reprioritize sequester savings to prevent devastating cuts to defense and instead reduce lower-priority spending elsewhere in the budget. That’s what The Path to Prosperity does.
The Path to Prosperity not only ensures the sequester savings are achieved, but in fact advances real reforms to achieve savings far in excess of what is called for under the BCA. It cuts $5.3 trillion in spending from the President’s proposed budget, and $3.9 trillion from a current-policy baseline. In other words, The Path to Prosperity cuts far more spending than what is scheduled to be cut by the BCA sequester. It reprioritizes the full amount of sequester reductions scheduled for FY2013 through a combination of discretionary and mandatory spending cuts that will result in even greater savings over time.
Additionally, The Path to Prosperity does balance the budget. According to official Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers – with static assumptions on growth, The Path to Prosperity balances the budget and puts us on the path to a debt-free future. The reforms called for by The Path to Prosperity would not only unleash job creation and greater opportunities, but the economic growth made possible by this budget’s reforms would likely achieve our fiscal goals far sooner than CBO’s limited analytical tools allow.