The United States House of Representatives has passed a Budget for Fiscal Year 2013 authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan. His budget has been dubbed "The Path to Prosperity" which is aptly named since it starts the reversal of current trends and knifes through the controversy. The Ryan budget is not just a blueprint for spending. It's a platform for governing that deliberately and self-consciously advances "the timeless principles of the American Idea"- among them limited government, free enterprise and economic liberty.

Last month, the House unanimously defeated President Obama's reckless budget by a vote of 414-0. His budget raises taxes by nearly $2 trillion, does little to simplify the tax code and spends $3.8 trillion next year, a figure that jumps to $5.8 trillion by the end of the decade. It offers no serious proposals to rein in entitlement programs, the biggest drivers of our debt, which locks America onto an unsustainable path of unpaid-for obligations. It includes a fourth consecutive $1 trillion-plus annual deficit, and adds $11 trillion to the gross debt over 10 years. It relies on trickery, crushing tax increases and claiming credit for already-enacted spending cuts the president strongly opposed to create the illusion of "savings." The president's budget never balances.

The Democrat-controlled Senate, for the third consecutive year, has chosen not to even introduce a budget - despite their statutory obligation to pass one. Over 1,056 days have passed since the Democratic Senate last fulfilled this duty, a task that Majority Leader Reid now calls "foolish." Senate Democrats claim that last year's temporary Budget Control Act "deemed" their budget passed. This is not governance for the people or compliance of their Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution. For cravenly political reasons, Senate Democrats will not offer a vision on tax rates, spending, entitlements and debt.

Ryan's plan identifies the nation's looming fiscal crisis as a product of big government. For the fourth consecutive year, a trillion-dollar-plus federal deficit burdens the nation, and the government's publicly held debt is on course to exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy
within a decade. Clearly, this trend must be reversed.

Here are some highlights of the Ryan Budget:
1. It lowers, flattens and simplifies personal and corporate income taxes while limiting and eliminating spending in the tax code.
2. It restores spending and revenue levels to their historical norms of roughly 20 and 18 percent, respectively, by 2015.
3. It reduces deficits by $3 trillion compared to President Obama's over the next decade and begins to control our growing national debt.
4. It repeals Obamacare in its entirety.
5. It reduces spending and eventually balances, unlike any Democrat alternatives, such as they even exist.
6. It uses a bipartisan framework to reform and save a crashing Medicare program for future seniors.

I strongly urge everyone to read at least the introduction within the Ryan Budget which summarizes the intent and specifics of the budget. It can be found online at prosperity.budget.house.gov as the Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Resolution. It is so critical that you as a citizen get your information unvarnished from the original source document. With your knowledge gained in this fashion, you will form opinion based on fact. Indeed, when you gain this knowledge you will be astounded by the erroneous and outright falsehoods that you will read and hear from the media. With this knowledge you cannot be lied to.