WHETHER you're a family, a business or a government, there is no greater expression of your values than the decision about how to spend your money.

That is why the current debate over the federal budget is so important. But the lion's share of the attention has gone to the least responsible plan — the one offered by the House Republican majority and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

It is one of the more reckless proposals I've seen during 18 years in Congress. It adds trillions in corporate tax cuts, including more rewards for companies that send jobs overseas. And it spends billions in giveaways to oil companies, which are already raking in huge profits and want to drill off our North Bay coast.

Meanwhile for everyone else, the Republicans offer all austerity and no prosperity. Medicaid — cut. Transportation infrastructure — cut. Pell Grants, which help roughly 10,000 Sixth District residents pay for college — cut.

And on the issue that most concerns Americans, their plan fails miserably — it would cost 1.7 million jobs nationally by 2014.

Most ominously, the GOP budget would gut Medicare, disfiguring the program (which has about 40,000 beneficiaries in Marin) beyond recognition. It would end the Medicare guarantee, replacing it with a voucher that will not be able to keep up with soaring health care costs. This new system would leave seniors at the mercy of insurance companies, not exactly known for offering affordable coverage to high-risk populations.

There is a better way. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has offered a budget defying the notion that eliminating the deficit means shredding the social safety net. We do not believe fiscal responsibility has to be synonymous with cruelty.

Our blueprint, which we're calling the People's Budget, actually balances the budget by 2021, long before the Republican proposal does. How? By rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that drove us into the red in the first place, returning to Clinton-era tax rates that helped usher in the biggest economic expansion in a generation.

On health care, the People's Budget includes a robust public option, which was embraced by the president's bipartisan deficit commission. The public option, by injecting competition into the system, will bring down health care costs. And it will save taxpayers an estimated $68 billion over seven years.

The People's Budget also calls for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saving $1.6 trillion over the next decade. These wars are bankrupting us morally and fiscally. After almost ten years, we still haven't stabilized Afghanistan or advanced our national security interests. This is disastrous foreign policy and a bum deal for taxpayers. Especially now that Osama bin Laden is dead, we must bring our troops home.

As long as we're spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan, I will not take seriously the Republican argument that we have to scale back investments in our schoolchildren, seniors and working families. We can't be flush when it comes to the Pentagon but broke when it comes to programs people need.

The good news is that Republicans faced a rude awakening when they tried to sell their budget back home. Chairman Ryan himself was booed at a town hall meeting in his district. And no wonder. The principles underlying their proposal are deeply unpopular. Recent polling shows overwhelming majorities against Medicare privatization and for higher taxes on top earners.

The Republican budget passed the House, but the conversation about our long-term fiscal challenges is ongoing. As deliberations in the Senate and negotiations with the White House continue, we must insist that the provisions and priorities of the CPC budget are fully considered.

Ours is the one budget that combines fiscal responsibility with fundamental fairness and a sense of shared sacrifice. Ours is the budget — the People's Budget — that captures the sentiment and the values of the American people.