Exclusive: GOP Budget Called 'The Path to Prosperity'

April 4, 2011— -- ABC News has learned the long-awaited budget to be released this week by Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan will be called "The Path to Prosperity."

It's a path paved with deep cuts in spending and significant changes to entitlement programs.

And it's a proposal that will dominate political debate in Congress for the rest of the year.

Ryan said on Fox News Sunday that his budget will cut federal government spending by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years – cutting the deficit even more than the plan put forward by the debt commission appointed by President Obama.

Ryan's budget will set the agenda for the Republican House on the critical issues of deficit reduction, entitlement reform and spending cuts.

It will also be target No. 1 for Democrats who will say Ryan's plan would destroy Medicare and impose devastating spending cuts that would kill the economic recovery.

"Yes, we will be giving our political adversaries things to use against us in the next election and shame on them if they do that," Ryan said.

They will.

For that reason, some top Republican leaders had urged Ryan to refrain from putting out a comprehensive plan until the President made the first move on entitlement reform.

But Ryan, with the strong backing of many of the 87 newly elected House GOP freshman who had won election by promising to cut spending and get the budget back in balance, argued that Republicans have a moral imperative to tackle the issue now.

"We are giving them a political weapon to go against us, but they will have to lie and demagogue to make that a weapon," Ryan said on Fox News Sunday. "They are going to demagogue us and it is that demagoguery that has always prevented political leaders in the past from actually fixing the problems. We can't keep kicking this can down the road. The President has punted; we're not going to follow suit."

The details of Ryan's plan won't be released until Tuesday. But he has said it will transform Medicaid by making it into a program that gives block grants to states.

It will also call for corporate tax reform – closing loopholes and lowering corporate tax rates.

On Medicare, Ryan says none of his changes would apply to people 55 years old or older. But Americans under age 55 would see an entirely different Medicare program with they hit retirement age.

Instead of the current system, where the government directly pays medical bills for seniors, under Ryan's plan, seniors would choose from a menu government-subsidized health insurance programs. Benefits would be income-adjusted and wealthier retirees would pay more.

Here's how Ryan described his plan on Fox News Sunday:

"It works like the Medicare prescription drug benefit program, similar to Medicare Advantage today, which means Medicare puts a list of plans out there that compete against each other for your business and seniors pick the plan of their choosing and then Medicare subsidizes that plan. It doesn't go to the person into the market place, it goes to the plan. More for the poor, more for people who get sick, and we don't give as much money to people who are healthy. Doing that saves Medicare. It doesn't apply to anyone who is 55 or above and they keep their Medicare as it is exactly today. "