Left-leaning group gives Ryan budget failing grade

The report card, released Thursday, comes on the same day that Vice President Joe Biden is starting a new round of bipartisan talks on reducing federal deficits. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader and House GOP representative at that get-together, has made clear going into that meeting that Republicans in his chamber are firmly behind the Ryan budget.

Democrats have slammed the House budget plan — which would switch Medicaid into a block grant and turn Medicare into a kind of voucher system — since it was introduced last month, saying it hurts seniors and the poor. 

For their part, GOP officials have said it would both battle the debt and spark the economy, and have criticized President Obama for not laying out a more fleshed-out plan for deficit-reduction in his April address.

In its report card, Demos gave its highest marks to its own budget framework and one from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Both of those plans would vastly increase public investment and bring revenue to more than 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2016. (In 2009, that figure stood at around 15 percent.)

The president’s deficit vision, based on both his April speech and his 2012 budget, and the plan from his deficit commission have both received less-than-stellar grades from Demos.