See how the major budget plans coming up for a vote in Congress this week stack up to one another - we rate them here!

The House GOP budget proposal for the coming decade (2013-2022), released yesterday, is a mixture of boldness and caution, principle and compromise. Resembling and building on last year's House-passed "Ryan budget," the Path to Prosperity version 2.0 reads very much like a preview of a Romney Administration budget version 1.0. While not nearly as bold and principled as these debt-drenched times require, it would still be a major improvement over the status quo, and much better than what President Obama and congressional Democrats envision, namely, ever-bigger government.

This past month's government-shutdown fight pales in comparison to the longer-term budget fight ahead.   In the words of a leading congressional budget-cutter, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), "We must now move from saving billions to saving trillions." Ryan is right.  The national debt is skyrocketing at the rate of: • $200,000,000 ($200 million) an hour • $30,000,000,000 ($30 billion) a week • $120,000,000,000 ($120 billion) a month • $1,600,000,000,000 ($1.6 trillion) a year