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The Spectacle Blog
Paul Ryan’s Wall Street Journal op-ed isn’t just a synposis of the House Budget Committee chairman’s 2012 proposal and long-term spending blueprint. It’s a preview of how Ryan and company intend to sell the plan to independent voters and defend it from an all-out liberal assault. A few points:
- More than entitlements: Because the Path to Prosperity reforms two out of the three biggest entitlement programs, detractors will focus on the reductions to social welfare spending. But Ryan emphasizes reform to farm subsidies, cuts to corporate welfare, and shrinking the federal workforce through attrition.
- Not even the Pentagon goes unscathed: It accepts Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ “plan to target inefficiencies” in defense spending. Remains to be seen what that means for defense spending in general, though in the past Ryan had suggested such savings be reinvested in legitimate defense expenditures rather than used for deficit reduction.
- Medicaid reforms part of welfare reform: Not only does Ryan couple the Medicaid plan with reforms to the food stamp program, but by invoking the example of welfare reform in the 1990s he associates it with the success of block granting to the states and no longer rewarding increased caseloads. This also can serve to remind us that many of the same commentators and activists making dire predictions about this Medicaid proposal were also predicting Calcutta-like conditions in U.S. cities as a result of the 1996 federal welfare reform law.
- Emphasize choice and premium support in Medicare: Ryan accurately makes use of a favorite public option supporter talking point: “Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy.” Talks about offering the most support for the poorest and sickest retirees, and leaving those currently at or near retirement alone.
- Jobs and income growth: Ryan touts a study by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projecting the plan will help create nearly 1 million new private-sector jobs next year; 2.5 million new jobs in the final year of this decade; will lower the unemployment rate to 4 percent by 2015; will help spur $1.5 trillion in additional economic growth and $1.1 trillion in higher wages over a decade; will add an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.
Another good line contrasting the entitlement reforms with the cuts to corporate welfare, reforms of Fannie and Freddie, and end to the permanent Wall Street bailout authority: “As we strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them, we eliminate welfare for those who don’t.”
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More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/05/the-roadmap-to-defending-the-2
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jpp| 4.5.11 @ 7:32AM
Does it matter anymore, since the country is on the path to become "North Mexico"?
Learn Spanish and get a muslim prayer rug.....you're gonna need both.
The United States is kaput.
Zbigniew Mazurak | 4.5.11 @ 8:32AM
"Not even the Pentagon goes unscathed: It accepts Defense Secretary Robert Gates' "plan to target inefficiencies" in defense spending. Remains to be seen what that means for defense spending in general, though in the past Ryan had suggested such savings be reinvested in legitimate defense expenditures rather than used for deficit reduction."
That's exactly what Paul Ryan says (he opposes real-term cuts of defense spending), and that is EXACTLY as it should be: make the DOD as efficient as humanly possible, eliminate all wasteful expenses, spend money only on what is absolutely necessary, but reinvest any DOD savings in the DOD. That is a fiscally conservative policy. The US military, responsible for defending a territory of 9 mn sq kms and a population of 308 mn people, has large legitimate needs, so it must be properly funded (but also closely monitored on how it spends every dollar entrusted to it).
One thing is wrong in that paragraph, though: the headline. Antle writes, "Not even the Pentagon goes unscathed", as if the DOD had enjoyed a "protected status" earlier and as if its budget had been previously shielded from cuts. It hasn't been. Defense spending has NEVER been shielded from cuts: not during the late 1940s (during the Truman era), not during the 1950s (after the Korean War), not during the 1970s, not during the late 1980s and the 1990s, and not in FY2011. Not even during the Reagan era, when the Congress imposed budget cuts on the DOD, forcing Secretary Weinberger and Secretary Carlucci to make tough choices, including retiring 16 frigates and cancelling the goal of a 600-ship-navy, resulting in the resignation of the SECNAV.
On the other hand, for the last 50 years nonstop, both discretionary and nondiscretionary civilian spending (including entitlements and welfare spending) have enjoyed protected status and have never seen cuts. Even during the 1990s, defense spending was the ONLY category of spending which was reduced in real terms. Domestic discretionary spending saw slower rates of growth (but grew nonetheless), and entitlement spending grew on autopilot, as it always has.
The budget proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan, if enacted would be the FIRST time in at least 50 years that domestic discretionary and nondiscretionary spending would see any cuts in real terms.
Once again, James Antle has proven how ignorant he is.
Ryan| 4.5.11 @ 9:31AM
From what I can tell, the biggest fault in Ryan's budget is that it doesn't address farm subsidies and the ethanol boondoggle.
Zbigniew Mazurak | 4.5.11 @ 9:48AM
It doesn't, AFAIK, and that is one of its downsides. But Ryan is a Midwesterner, so you can't expect him to seriously tackle that, and moreover, you can't solve all problems at once.
That being said, though, if the US economy is to be governed by CAPITALIST rules, then all those ethanol boondoggles must be abolished completely.