Yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his latest budget proposal, called "The Path to Prosperity," which serves as an update to his plan from last year. The proposal, which is the draft of the fiscal year (FY) 2013 House budget resolution, is supposed to be a fiscal framework for the House for the coming year. However, the congressman's tax plan is not a serious proposal for change.

Earlier this month, the city council of Topeka, KS, voted to decriminalize domestic violence in what has become a national-headline-grabbing budget dispute between the city and its county seat, Shawnee. Some are arguing that it's a sad spectacle when a couple of local governments within our nation play jurisdictional games with such a serious issue, but it's important to point out that the standoff didn't have to occur.

Good news everyone! In 2010, according to a recent accounting by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the bills Congress passed reduced the deficit by $64 billion over the next ten years. Surprised? Thought this past year featured massive deficit-financed bills? That’s because the scorecard, which OMB keeps as part of statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO), does not include hundreds of billions in spending. Congress essentially told OMB to ignore a few key pieces of legislation, which, if included in the calculation, would bring the year’s cost to $820 billion over ten years.

One deficit plan that's not getting much attention, and one which can easily pass a Republican-controlled Congress, is the one that the Republican-controlled Congress approved in 2001 (and further augmented in 2003): The 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts.