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David Brooks on Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
April 4, 2011
Moment of Truth
By DAVID BROOKS

It was a season of fiscal perestroika. Last fall, the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission released a bold report on how to avoid an economic catastrophe. For a few weeks, the think tanks and government offices were alive with proposals to reduce debt and reform entitlements, the tax code and just about every other government program.

The mood did not last. The polls suggested that voters were still unwilling to accept tax increases or benefit cuts. Smart Washington insiders like Mitch McConnell and President Obama decided that any party that actually tried to implement these ideas would be committing political suicide. The president walked away from the Simpson-Bowles package. Far from addressing the fiscal problems, the president’s budget would double the nation’s debt over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But the forces of reform have not been entirely silenced. Over the past few weeks, a number of groups, including the ex-chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers and 64 prominent budget experts, have issued letters arguing that the debt situation is so dire that doing nothing is not a survivable option. What they lacked was courageous political leadership — a powerful elected official willing to issue a proposal, willing to take a stand, willing to face the political perils.

The country lacked that leadership until today. Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Ryan is expected to leap into the vacuum left by the president’s passivity. The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate.

His proposal will set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion. It will become the 2012 Republican platform, no matter who is the nominee. Any candidate hoping to win that nomination will have to be able to talk about government programs with this degree of specificity, so it will improve the G.O.P. primary race.

The Ryan proposal will help settle the fight over the government shutdown and the 2011 budget because it will remind everybody that the real argument is not about cutting a few billion here or there. It is about the underlying architecture of domestic programs in 2012 and beyond.

The Ryan budget will put all future arguments in the proper context: The current welfare state is simply unsustainable and anybody who is serious, on left or right, has to have a new vision of the social contract.

The initial coverage will talk about Ryan’s top number — the cuts of more than $4 trillion over the next decade. But the important thing is the way Ryan would reform programs. He would reform the tax code along the Simpson-Bowles lines, but without the tax increases. (It’s amazing that a budget chairman could include tax policy in his proposal, since it’s normally under the purview of the Ways and Means Committee.)

The Ryan budget doesn’t touch Medicare for anybody over 55, but for younger people it turns it into a defined contribution plan. Instead of assuming open-ended future costs, the government will give you a sum of money (starting at an amount equal to what the government now spends) and a regulated menu of insurance options from which to choose.

The Ryan budget will please governors of both parties by turning Medicaid into a block grant — giving states more flexibility. It tackles agriculture subsidies and other corporate welfare. It consolidates the job-training programs into a single adult scholarship. It reforms housing assistance and food stamps. It dodges Social Security. The Republicans still have no alternative to the Democratic health care reform, but this budget tackles just about every politically risky issue with brio and guts.

Ryan was a protégé of Jack Kemp, and Kemp’s uplifting spirit pervades the document. It’s not sour, taking an austere meat ax approach. It emphasizes social support, social mobility and personal choice. I don’t agree with all of it that I’ve seen, but it is a serious effort to create a sustainable welfare state — to prevent the sort of disruptive change we’re going to face if national bankruptcy comes.

It also creates the pivotal moment of truth for President Obama. Will he come up with his own counterproposal, or will he simply demagogue the issue by railing against “savage” Republican cuts and ignoring the long-term fiscal realities? Does he have a sustainable vision for government, or will he just try to rise above the fray while Nancy Pelosi and others attack Ryan?

And what about the Senate Republicans? Where do they stand? Or the voters? Are they willing to face reality or will they continue to demand more government than they are willing to pay for?

Paul Ryan has grasped reality with both hands. He’s forcing everybody else to do the same.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/opinion/05brooks.html?_r=1&hp
 

beethoven

Well-known member
kevin drum says it so well it bears repeating here:

Courageous. Serious. Gutsy. I imagine that within a few days this will be the consensus view of the entire Beltway punditocracy. A plan dedicated almost entirely to slashing social spending in a country that's already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world — well, what could be more serious than that?

I think I'm going to be sick.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
beethoven said:
kevin drum says it so well it bears repeating here:

Courageous. Serious. Gutsy. I imagine that within a few days this will be the consensus view of the entire Beltway punditocracy. A plan dedicated almost entirely to slashing social spending in a country that's already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world — well, what could be more serious than that?

I think I'm going to be sick.


Said like a true liberal and with reams of facts to support his position, no doubt :roll:


A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242612172357504.html
 

Lonecowboy

Well-known member
beethoven said:
kevin drum says it so well it bears repeating here:

in a country that's already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world —.

do you have any facts to back that statement up?
 

beethoven

Well-known member
i have a deep streak of cynicism, and struggle with the bigger questions regarding man in society.

urgent questions of our century:

where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?

the modern state promises justice, order and freedom. however, for many individuals it doesnt quite turn out that way.

each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
beethoven said:
i have a deep streak of cynicism, and struggle with the bigger questions regarding man in society.

urgent questions of our century:

where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?

the modern state promises justice, order and freedom. however, for many individuals it doesnt quite turn out that way.

each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up.

that was a pretty good book, you should give credit to the author when you quote him


A Short History of Progress
Ronald Wright


It's been a while since I read it. Maybe I should re-read it.
 

beethoven

Well-known member
you are of course correct! absolutely. i have heard about this book on radio and i wish i had more time to handle the real thing. lover of information! good enough to re-read, then? the modern state has entered everything. i expect this author will describe the problems of the past, but does it lay a plan for improvement, for change?

i have no answers. endless ideas and reactions and i would like to imagine some thinkers can help us and link us to those actions that will create better societies. i wish we could decide what those actions are, and have the ability to vote the right combination of people to do those things that protect us from ourselves, from corruptions, and our good way of life. i have endless wishes and dreams but they are more private than not.
 

Steve

Well-known member
beethoven said:
i have no answers.

admitting you have a problem is a good first step...

so I'll start out with a few easy questions...

Has welfare worked?
Did it achieve it's goal?
Did it make progress towards it's goal?

800px-US_poverty_rate_timeline.gif

HIGHLIGHTS
• In the 2009 ACS, 14.3 percent of the U.S. population had income
below their respective poverty thresholds. The number of
people in poverty increased to 42.9 million.

• Thirty-one states saw increases in both the number and percentage
of people in poverty between the 2008 and the 2009

• No state had a statistically significant decline in either the
number in poverty or the poverty rate.

as anyone can see poverty was on the decline in 1964, and may have continued down, even with out welfare, but the end result is it is now worse then it ever was...

so the final question is.. if it has not worked, has failed to meet it's goals, and hasn't even made any progress towards it's stated goal, in 47 years,

the liberals have had nearly 50 years to work on their "Great Society" idea.. and it is a failure.. Shouldn't we try something different?
 

beethoven

Well-known member
there have always been poor people. i imagine there will always be poor people. whether the state assists them or not, is that the bone of contention, is that your issue? your answer to poverty, would you have the state and society do nothing collectively to assist the poor with their needs?

there is a huge contrast between the wealthy and the poor.

somehow i cannot imagine that revolutions and wars, strikes, fighting for liberty, reforms and laws and so on all this would not have happened, all the loss of life would not have happened were it not for a need to bring about some justice. seems its ok to set aside more for the few and to hell with the rest of them.
 

Lonecowboy

Well-known member
Lonecowboy said:
beethoven said:
kevin drum says it so well it bears repeating here:

in a country that's already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world —.

do you have any facts to back that statement up?

So the above quote was a lie huh?
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
beethoven said:
there have always been poor people. i imagine there will always be poor people. whether the state assists them or not, is that the bone of contention, is that your issue? your answer to poverty, would you have the state and society do nothing collectively to assist the poor with their needs?

there is a huge contrast between the wealthy and the poor.

somehow i cannot imagine that revolutions and wars, strikes, fighting for liberty, reforms and laws and so on all this would not have happened, all the loss of life would not have happened were it not for a need to bring about some justice. seems its ok to set aside more for the few and to hell with the rest of them.

Seems to me the debate should be more about whether there is a finite amount of wealth, or if wealth can be created, within a community/society/Country?

Has more wealth been created over the years, or has a finite amount of wealth been re-destributed towards the "rich"

Were wars and revolution fought for the rights and liberty to create wealth or the re-distribution of a finite wealth?

What should I care if the rich are getting richer, if I too have the freedom to create wealth?

If the rich tax rate, or corporate rate, is lower than mine, but that tax policy is providing me with the opportunity to be gainfully employed and making more than if I was unemployed, should I be thankful?
 

beethoven

Well-known member
there is a violence that is central to the revolutions that have happened in the past, that is the energy that is required for those who are dissatisfied with the distribution of things. and i fear for the future, fear for the consequences of our indifference to the challenges and concerns of those people who will resort to it again.

that is my basic understanding of things. we reap what we sow and all that.

the cycle includes a cycle of the state behaving badly. and that concerns me greatly as well.

some sort of big levelling of the playing field.

at some point history also says that luck of being on the side of might is bound to run out. if states and the wealthy continue to increase their power what i see is big trouble for people like us who will get caught up in the ensuing chaos.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
beethoven said:
there is a violence that is central to the revolutions that have happened in the past, that is the energy that is required for those who are dissatisfied with the distribution of things. and i fear for the future, fear for the consequences of our indifference to the challenges and concerns of those people who will resort to it again.

that is my basic understanding of things. we reap what we sow and all that.

the cycle includes a cycle of the state behaving badly. and that concerns me greatly as well.

some sort of big levelling of the playing field.

at some point however history also says that luck of being on the side of might is bound to run out.


or a cycle that includes those that believe they are entitled to the property of others

How did most of the murderous tyrants, in history, come to power?

by promising socialism and the redistribution of wealth, or personal responsibility for wealth creation?

Were the results of those tyrannical regimes successful or not? What did the people of those Countries resort to, to right themselves, personal responsibility or further socialism?
 

beethoven

Well-known member
no matter how you slice it, the end result is not good. a tyrant is a tyrant no matter what his flag.

all systems seem to degrade with time.

some enriching themselves at the expense of others is not acceptable in my book.

misery, poverty, desperation, violence, war, these things hurt people no matter their affliliation.

you know what would work is a benevolent king! hah!
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
beethoven said:
no matter how you slice it, the end result is not good. a tyrant is a tyrant no matter what his flag.

all systems seem to degrade with time.

some enriching themselves at the expense of others is not acceptable in my book.

misery, poverty, desperation, violence, war, these things hurt people no matter their affliliation.

you know what would work is a benevolent king! hah!


all tyrants have come to power promising socialism. What you seem to propose is Capitalism progressing towards socialism, which is already happening.

What you are ultimately unhappy with, are the results of socialism.

And you want more of it?


Or are you arguing that the present system in the US and Canada should revert towards their roots 9conservatism) and discontinue the progression left, towards socialism?
 

Steve

Well-known member
beethoven said:
there have always been poor people. i imagine there will always be poor people. whether the state assists them or not, is that the bone of contention, is that your issue? your answer to poverty, would you have the state and society do nothing collectively to assist the poor with their needs?

there is a huge contrast between the wealthy and the poor.

somehow i cannot imagine that revolutions and wars, strikes, fighting for liberty, reforms and laws and so on all this would not have happened, all the loss of life would not have happened were it not for a need to bring about some justice. seems its ok to set aside more for the few and to hell with the rest of them.

If you had read my post without jumping to conclusions you would have seen that I posed a question..

for me it is clear that the approach we have taken over the last 47 years has failed..

Does that mean I am cold and heartless, because I looked at a problem and saw that what was done over the last 47 years has only made the problem worse..

there are solutions, poverty can be alleviated,.. but not if we stick with a plan that has already proven to be a failure..

is it stupid, stingy to want poor people to not be poor..

sorry, to me supporting a program that you know has failed with out at least looking at others' solutions is stupid, closed minded... and cruel

It (the plan) emphasizes social support, social mobility and personal choice. I don’t agree with all of it that I’ve seen, but it is a serious effort to create a sustainable welfare state

by the description it doesn't throw out the old system or welfare... it just tries to make it a better system..

how is that cold? stupid? or stingy?

BTW have you read the plan?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Most welfare money finds it's way back to the top through rent subsides to rich property owners. Also any money spent on health winds up with the health-care industry that is also rich. Food subsides end up in the grocery store and the farmers pocket. Then the property is taxed, and the profits are also taxed. Cutting welfare will stop the revenue stream to the rich and also some of the taxes they pay. Hard to make a bumper sticker slogan fix the economy. I am not defending anything here just stating my thoughts.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
beethoven said:
there have always been poor people. i imagine there will always be poor people. whether the state assists them or not, is that the bone of contention, is that your issue? your answer to poverty, would you have the state and society do nothing collectively to assist the poor with their needs?

there is a huge contrast between the wealthy and the poor.

somehow i cannot imagine that revolutions and wars, strikes, fighting for liberty, reforms and laws and so on all this would not have happened, all the loss of life would not have happened were it not for a need to bring about some justice. seems its ok to set aside more for the few and to hell with the rest of them.

Yes, there is a large gap between the wealthy and the poor. However, there is also undoubtedly the largest ever percentage of the population that feels entitled to the redistribution of other's wealth to them and that same group seems content to just live on those payments even though it puts them in a low income bracket. Coincidence? I think not.
 

Lonecowboy

Well-known member
hurleyjd said:
Most welfare money finds it's way back to the top through rent subsides to rich property owners. Also any money spent on health winds up with the health-care industry that is also rich. Food subsides end up in the grocery store and the farmers pocket. Then the property is taxed, and the profits are also taxed. Cutting welfare will stop the revenue stream to the rich and also some of the taxes they pay. Hard to make a bumper sticker slogan fix the economy. I am not defending anything here just stating my thoughts.

and when that welfare $ is fiat money and printed out of thin air you have inflation with higher prices resulting and the poor are no better off, actually the poor are worse off with the higher prices caused by the govt.
Government needs to protect this cycle to retain their power over the people.

welfare is way better handled by churches and communities!
 

beethoven

Well-known member
well so long as everyone is content or delighted or otherwise happy and not aiming to do something crazy im going to go along with that.
 
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