House GOP's budget cuts $6.2 trillion over 10 years

So we now know exactly how good a poker face Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has: The eye-twinkle and the very, very slight hint of a smile when Chris Wallace was quizzing him on Sunday morning about the size of the House GOP's proposed budget cut gave away nothing. But Rep. Ryan must have been mightily amused when Wallace managed to pry out of him that the cuts might be somewhere north of $4 trillion.

In fact, as revealed in Rep. Ryan op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal (no subscription required), the House GOP's budget for FY2012 promises to cut $6.2 trillion over 10 years as compared to the federal budget proposed by President Obama. That such enormous cuts can be contemplated is, of course, a function of the gigantic increases in federal spending already made since January 2009 and expanding over the future in the budget proposed by President Obama.

The details will be the basis for intense — and emotional — debate over the coming months. Absent another 9/11-scale surprise, I expect it will become the single most important issue in deciding the 2012 election.

I've reprinted above the chart from Rep. Ryan's op-ed. It focuses on how this budget will compare to Obama's when measured by federal debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. Don't be disappointed by the fact that there isn't a sharper drop-off to a negative slope in the green-colored portion: Current spending in absolute dollar terms will indeed show a much greater drop.

The op-ed is pretty good, albeit necessarily wonky. Read the whole thing, because I couldn't possibly summarize it here.

I'm reminded of the line variously attributed to Frederick the Great or French revolutionary leader Georges Jacques Danton, but in either event much beloved by U.S. Gen. George S. Patton: "L'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace!" This is indeed audacious. This is a fight worth having, and vitally worth winning.