WASHINGTON — We in America today live in a country
circumscribed by entitlement policies devised by an America that
has steadily been disappearing. Those policies established over a
generation ago cannot possibly in mathematical or demographic terms
support the America of the present much less the America of the
future. That is the stark reality. We need to reform those policies
or we shall go bankrupt, and raising taxes on the so-called rich
will not fix things. Even raising taxes on the middle class will
not fix things. Nor will spending a trillion dollars more than we
have on hand fix things. Eventually those trillion-dollar deficits
have to be paid off. Facts are facts; the day of reckoning that our
hayseed politicians have said was up the road a piece is here. We
have to do something now and we can begin by growing the
economy.
That is the burden of Chairman of the House Budget
Committee Paul Ryan’s carefully thought-out budget for fiscal year
2013. The way he would get the economy growing again is by lowering
the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to a more competitive 25
percent. He would allow American corporations to bring profits
earned abroad home without penalty so that they could invest in
jobs and factories here. His budget would eliminate the complexity
of the tax code on individuals and families and consolidate the tax
brackets from the current six brackets to two of 10 percent and 25
percent. He argues that revenue would remain steady because of the
elimination of special-interest loopholes and because of economic
growth.
As for confronting the budgetary overhang, the Ryan budget
offers disciplined spending cuts that amount to $5.3 trillion over
the next decade. He would return to the states the responsibility
for federal programs such as food stamps and Medicaid, for at the
state level the needs of the citizens are better understood than at
the national level. He would reorganize education and job training
and make Pell grants dependent on need. Taking on the major force
behind our budgetary exigency, Ryan plans a complete overhaul of
healthcare, eliminating Obamacare and reforming Medicare. For those
in retirement or near retirement there would be no change in
Medicare. For those facing retirement a decade from now the House
budget provides guaranteed coverage for various options to be
financed by “premium-support.” Recipients can bid for various
options made available by competing insurance companies. As Ryan
said in the Wall Street Journal the day before he
announced his budget, “Forcing health plans to compete against each
other is the best way to achieve high-quality coverage at the
lowest cost….”
That same day Ryan announced on YouTube, “Americans have a
choice to make — a choice that’s going to determine our country’s
future. Will it be the future that looks like the America we know
— one of greater opportunity, greater prosperity — or more of
what we’re seeing today, debt, doubt, and decline?” That stress on
choice is becoming a theme of Republicans as opposed to President
Barack Obama’s Entitlement State.
Choice of one policy over another policy. Choice over the
government straitjacket. Choice is the natural consequence of a
people who believe in personal liberty.
By making choices in public policy one creates
competition and all the benefits that come from competition. One
creates better policies, policies suited for individuals’ varying
needs. One creates efficiencies in distribution and in design of
policies. Ever since the New Deal, the Nanny State mentality has
been developing ever more intrusive policies to govern our lives
and to limit our freedoms. The result is the Entitlement State and
the trillions of dollars of looming debt. Paul Ryan and his
Republican colleagues think their budget can eventually eliminate
the debt and get the economy growing again. Moreover, they believe
a sufficient number of Democrats are concerned about our freedom
and the budget overhang to act in a bipartisan manner at least on
some of the matters he has taken up. We shall see, but for now the
Senate Democrats have not even attempted a budget in three
years!
