Budget committee to set spending limits

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Republican head of the House Budget Committee Thursday announced plans for spending limits to end Washington's budget-busting habits.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who gave the GOP response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in January, criticized Democrats for failing to even propose a budget limit on non-security spending.

He said the GOP-majority House would file an enforceable discretionary spending allocation when Congress returns next week that will save $74 billion during the rest of fiscal year 2011.

"Washington's spending spree is over," said Ryan, chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee. "As House Republicans pledged -- and voted to affirm on the House floor last week -- the spending limits will restore sanity to a broken budget process and return spending for domestic government agencies to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels."

"After two consecutive trillion dollar budget deficits, and with unemployment remaining unbearably high, we must chart a new course," he said in a statement posted on the budget committee's Web site.

"The president has asked for an increase in the national debt limit," Ryan said, "but we must first work to enact serious spending cuts and reforms. Endless borrowing is not a strategy. Business as usual in Washington is not acceptable."