End Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans

A sweeping Republican proposal laid down by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin proposes trimming more than $5 trillion from deficits over the next decade, but it does so almost exclusively on the spending side of the ledger, including a drastic reshaping of Medicare and other federal safety-net entitlement programs.

The Ryan plan doesn't only fail to propose major new tax increases, it advocates lowering the top tax rates for both corporations and individuals to 25 percent from the current 35 percent.

This comes amid disclosures of low tax payments by some of the nation's biggest companies, including General Electric Co., which made $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, but paid no U.S. corporate taxes in 2010.