Let’s take a look at the Republican “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan, as reported by CBS News.

Excerpt:

The House next week will take a vote to raise the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget amendment, House Republican leaders said today.

The plan is unlikely to go anywhere, since a balanced budget amendment would likely fail in the Democrat-led Senate, but GOP leaders nevertheless called it a serious plan to raise the debt ceiling. They said President Obama and Democrats have failed to come up with an equally serious plan.

“We asked the president to lead,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a press conference today. “We asked him to put forward a plan — not a speech, a real plan — and he hasn’t. We will.”

The “cut, cap and balance” proposal would make raising the debt ceiling contingent on Congress sending a balanced budget amendment to the states. It would also cap government spending at 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years.

The plan would raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, since that is the increase requested by the president. However, the plan would actually make even more in spending cuts — as much as $111 billion in 2012 alone.

[…]Boehner said the House would vote on the “cut, cap and balance” plan and then decide how to proceed from there.”I don’t want to preclude any chance of coming to an agreement, but [Democrats have] been unwilling to put a real plan on the table,” Boehner said. “Without serious spending cuts or real reform to entitlement programs, this problem is not going to be solved.”

That’s what the Republicans would do if they were in control. The balanced budget amendment would cap spending at 18% of GDP, so that we would never have a debt crisis ever again. That’s the right solution, except that the Democrats cannot give up the idea of buying votes with the money they steal from job creators. They just can control their addiction to spending.

Now, let’s take a look at who caused the debt crisis, with this House Budget Committee article by fiscal hawk Paul Ryan. (H/T Washington Post)

Excerpt:

While President Obama has recently professed a newfound — and vague — desire to cut government spending, it’s useful to recall what the President has actually done since taking office in 2009. The President signed into law a massive spending spree that plunged us deeper into debt, and failed to deliver on its promise to create jobs.

• 24% Increase in Base Spending. Non-defense discretionary spending grew by 24% for the first two years of the Obama Administration, adding $734 billion in spending over the next 10 years.
• Record Government Spending. The Federal government will spend $3.6 trillion this year, 24% of gross domestic product (GDP) and the highest burden on the economy since World War II. Spending has historically averaged a little over 20% of GDP.
• President’s Budget Makes Matter Worse. According to CBO, the President’s budget never spends less than 23% of GDP and by the end of the decade rises to 24% of GDP. His budget’s failure to address the drivers of our debt threatens the health and retirement security of America’s seniors, and the economic security of all Americans. The President’s budget seeks to spend $46 trillion in government spending over the next decade, and has subsequently fought against House Republican efforts to restrain his spending appetite down to $43.5 trillion.

During the four years when Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid was in control of the Senate, the Democrats packed 5.34 trillion dollars onto the national debt.