printNo wonder neoconservative kingpin Bill Kristol (http://barelyablog.com/?p=33225) anointed House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan as heir apparent to the neoconservative project. Ryan is a strategist; he has more plans than principles. You and I do not want to see the debt ceiling raised. But for some reason, Ryan thinks that “tactic isn’t viable.”
Tactic? Come Again? Ryan believes that it has to be lifted (something to do with the neoconservative national-pride dybbuk).
He is, however, prepared to “tack on requirements for deep spending cuts as a condition of passage.” (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/06/5779097-ryan-hints-at-debt-ceiling-strategy) Why, thank you, Sir.
No sooner do our overlords arrive in DC, than their campaign promises evaporate. (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=579.)
(I’m placing hyperlinks in brackets, for now, because hyperlinks attached distort the blurb that propagates to my Facebook page. Any suggestions?)
UPDATE I (Jan. 14): When it comes to serious spending cuts, Republicans intend to tinker around the edges. John Stossel exposes just how little they will do to beat back the federal behemoth:
New Speaker John Boehner, leader of the Republicans who now control the House, says he wants to cut spending. When he was sworn in last week, he declared: “Our spending has caught up with us. … No longer can we kick the can down the road.”
But when NBC anchorman Brian Williams asked him to name a program “we could do without,” he said, “I don’t think I have one off the top of my head.”
Give me a break! You mean to tell me the Republican leader in the House doesn’t already know what he wants to cut? I don’t know which is worse — that he doesn’t have a list or that he won’t talk about it in public.
The Republicans say they’ll start by cutting $100 billion, but let’s put that in perspective. The budget is close to $4 trillion. So $100 billion is just 2.5 percent. That’s shooting too low. Firms in the private sector make cuts like that all the time. It’s considered good business — pruning away deadwood.
GOP leaders say the source of their short-run cuts will be discretionary non-security spending. They foolishly exclude entitlement spending, which Congress puts on autopilot, and all spending for national and homeland security (whether it’s necessary or not). That leaves only $520 billion.
So even if the Republicans managed to cut all discretionary non-security spending (which is not what they plan), the deficit would still be $747 billion. (The deficit is now projected to be $1.267 trillion.)
This is a revolution? Republicans will have to learn that there is no budget line labeled “waste, fraud, abuse.” If they are serious about cutting government, they will ax entire programs, departments and missions.
UPDATE II (Jan 16.): Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Majority Leader, was out and about … lobbying for an increase in the debt ceiling. Why, of course. Give a little, get even less. “Live and let live,” said the one leech to the other.
In normal times the political process does not tolerate naked principle. Ron Paul is a sterling example. So Paul Ryan compromises his principles in order to become a “player.” By doing so he hopes to “steer” the pragmatic (opportunistic) majority in the direction of his true principles (assuming he has them).
But these are not normal times. Monetary reality is eliminating fiscal wiggle room. Republican politicians have been forced by popular demand to make Paul a player. He is now the Chairman of the House subcommittee on monetary policy. Whether his new post will allow him to make a difference remains to be seen.
In times of crisis – and a monetary crisis is fast approaching – the political process embraces those “extremists” who stand exclusively on principle. Why? Because there is no pragmatic solution to imminent monetary collapse. Because black and white principles, and the unbending leaders who bravely stand by them, suddenly and seemingly become the only means of avoiding fatal disaster. The British marginalized Winston Churchill until Britain caught fire. Jobless Germans turned to Hitler.
The danger in all this is megalomaniacs often have principles too, albeit false and dangerous ones. Voters standing in bread lines may just as easily turn to Obama and Marxist principle as to Ron Paul and the free market.
This is the danger Paul Ryan likely fears and seeks to avoid.
I watched Stossel last night; he managed to have a guest congressman who did list the programs that he would cut, total 100 million over TEN YEARS. Maybe I missed it and he said 100 Billion. That’s still only ten billion a year. Another guest said he would abolish the department of energy, then ended up running it and got its budget increased. He even had the audacity to say that the government would have to build nuclear power plants; because, the environmentalist would make the court costs too expensive for the private sector. Did it ever occur to him, that what government does best is govern! Declare Nuclear power plants a matter of national priority to prevent global warming from gas powered plants. Cut the red tape and issue a permit, with the nuclear regulatory commission to oversee the safety issues. Government should not consist of an army of defense lawyers. In other words, they not only waste money, they don’t even do the job of government properly. I know, the problem is too complicated for my little mind to understand, that’s why they’re there to help, right.
The size of the budget in 1958 when Barry Goldwater wrote “Conscience of a Conservative: – $ 82 Billion.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/budget.php
Arguably, the Eisenhower 1958 budget was humongous compared with the Truman 1948 budget of $ 30 Billion. Nevertheless, the $ 82 Billion – with inflation, that comes out to $ 630 Billion in today’s Greenbacks – and add another factor of 2 for population growth and you get $ 1.26 Trillion – which is less than the annual DEFICIT!
The government that needed to be cut back in 1958 now looks like anarchy today. And we have had 30 years of Republican Presidents since.
In fact, do not merely blame Lyndon Johnson – for example, the 1980 budget, scaled for inflation and population would be about 55% of today’s behemoth (the one Boehner cannot think of cutting!). Since 1980, the Democrats have controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress for only 4 out of the last 30 years while spending nearly doubled on a real-per-person basis.
“Conservatives” keep swallowing the same Republican Kool Aid decade after decade and never learn (to distrust them). The Republicans didn’t fight to turn away power but to “exercise” (e.g. expand) power.
Well said Myron.