What can Newt be thinking?

Day one, right out of the chute, Newt has to start kicking other Republicans in the nuts. Does he think that by alienating a bunch of people he increases his chances at becoming the nominee?

Paul Ryan's plan may not be perfect, but he is willing to do SOMETHING. We didn't get into this entitlement mess over night. It took many years of BOTH PARTIES passing the buck. Politicians are far more worried about their political careers than they are the welfare of our Country. Ryan has shown, with his plan, that he has the future of our Nation in mind. It may not be popular to talk about changing social security and medicare, but is a conversation we need to be having.

Newt has flip-flopped on so many issues, most people have lost count. He has no chance at becoming the Republican candidate. None. He may have the most name recognition out of the current bunch, but that isn't always a good thing. Especially when you are notorious instead of famous...

Tea Party Slams Boehner and Ryan on Debt Ceiling

Raising the debt ceiling with no policy to work towards avoiding raising it in the future is a bad idea. The Tea Party has a right to be pissed. The Tea Party backed these people with certain expectations, if Boehner and Ryan don't plan to follow through with those expectations they need to be replaced.

Going along with the washington business as usual is how we got in this horrible financial shape to begin with. The culture needs to change, even it means changing the culture through legislation. No one in washington is going to change on their own. Feeling some pain is the only way to break the old spending habits. But it won't just be the politicians feeling the pain, millions of Americans need to come to the realization that we are broke, and that no one is entitled to anything...

by Wes Barrett - FoxNews

Tea Party leaders ripped into House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as other House Republicans, saying any vote to raise the debt limit without major fiscal policy changes will amount to selling out the Tea Party, adding the group will work to unseat those who vote for an increase in the next election.

"We're telling Boehner and all of the House Republicans, they came into office with Tea Party help. We now expect them to keep their promises and hold the ceiling on the national debt," said William Temple, head of this fall's Tea Party National Convention. "The Tea Party will not be in a very forgiving mood this fall, nor as the GOP primary season opens, if House freshmen and others elected by the Tea Party cave to Obama. We will find replacements for them this fall."

He added the group could go along with a small increase in the debt ceiling, but only if Republicans were able to win a major policy battle such as a repeal of health care or the passage of a balanced budget amendment.

Temple appeared at a Washington press conference dressed in colonial garb and was especially critical of the 2011 budget compromise Boehner worked out with Republicans last month. The deal cut $37.8 billion in spending and narrowly avoided a government shutdown, but was short of the $100 billion in cuts Republicans originally sought.

Temple noted the emotion the house speaker famously wears on his sleeve and suggested Boehner and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., caved during the 11th hour negotiation.

"I wish our tearful House Speaker would just show some compassion for American taxpayers and our children, but he and Mr. Ryan have already surrendered to President Obama," Temple said. "It's a cowardly act of treason against coming generations, and we may be able to give Boehner something to really cry about in 2012."

Chair of the Congressional Tea Party caucus Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., echoed the idea that the 2011 vote was a missed opportunity, saying the debt ceiling vote offers a chance for a do-over.

"The debt ceiling vote will offer an opportunity that was squandered during the vote for the 2011 Continuing Resolution," she said in a statement.

In a Monday night speech to the Economic Club of New York, Boehner is expected to challenge Obama on the debt limit, warning that a hike in the ceiling without major spending cuts and reforms will actually hurt the economy and destroy more American jobs.

"To increase the debt limit without simultaneously addressing the drivers of our debt -- in defiance of the will of our people -- would be monumentally arrogant and massively irresponsible," Boehner says in prepared remarks released to Fox News. "It would send a signal to investors and entrepreneurs everywhere that America still is not serious about dealing with our spending addiction."

Economists who side with the Tea Party point to the idea that a no-vote on a debt increase should be easy for conservative Republicans, dismissing downsides of allowing the U.S. to hit the ceiling. CATO Institute Senior Fellow Dan Mitchell says the government will still be able to pay interest on the current federal debt even if there is no increase in the ceiling.

"The Treasury Secretary is being deceitful, the Fed chairman is being very misleading on the issue as well," he said. "Default is not the issue, the issue is whether we get government spending under control. The debt and deficit are the symptoms. The underlying problem of a government that is too big."

Read the rest at the link above...

The Grand Compromise

Someone in our government should recognize the absolute genius of Charles Krauthammer and put him to work for the good of our Country. I have never read a single word he has written that I didn't agree with. Without a doubt, he is smarter than the entire obama administration combined.

obama is quick to citicize the Ryan plan without offering anything of substance himself. It is standard operating procedure. Just like Libya, he refuses to make any kind of a plan that can be pinned directly to him. Instead he lets others do the heavy lifting and attempts to take the credit. What a small person he is.

He pulled the same stunt in congress, voting "present" on the tough votes to avoid a record that could be quoted later. But the silence in those "present" votes is deafening. He has spent his entire political career being non-commital yet critical of those who dare to make a commitment.

The rudimentary plan he did devise is more of the same liberal crap, tax and overspend. It's the only answer their limited range of vision can come up with.

2012 can't come soon enough for me. We need to clean house on election day...

by Charles Krauthammer - Human Events

The most serious charge against Rep. Paul Ryan's budget is not the risible claim, made most prominently by President Obama in his George Washington University address, that it would "sacrifice the America we believe in." The serious charge is that the Ryan plan fails by its own standards: Because it only cuts spending without raising taxes, it accumulates trillions of debt and doesn't balance the budget until the 2030s. If the debt is such a national emergency, they say, Ryan never really gets you there from here.

But the critics miss the point. You can't get there from here without Ryan's plan. It's the essential element. Of course Ryan is not going to propose tax increases. You don't need Republicans for that. That's what Democrats do. The president's speech was a prose poem to higher taxes -- with every allusion to spending cuts guarded by a phalanx of impenetrable caveats.

Ryan reduces federal spending by $6 trillion over 10 years -- from the current 24 percent of GDP to the historical post-World War II average of about 20 percent.

Now, the historical average for revenues over the last 40 years is between 18 percent and 19 percent of GDP. As we return to that level with the economic recovery (we're now at about 15 percent), Ryan would still leave us with an annual deficit in 2021 of 1.6 percent of GDP.

The critics are right to focus on that gap. But it is bridgeable. And the mechanism for doing so is in plain sight: tax reform.

Real tax reform strips out exclusions, deductions, credits and the innumerable loopholes that have accumulated since the last tax reform of 1986. The Simpson-Bowles commission, for example, identifies $1.1 trillion of such revenue-robbers. In one scenario, it strips them all out and thus is able to lower rates for everyone to three brackets of 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent.

The commission does recommend that, on average, about $100 billion annually of that $1.1 trillion be kept by the Treasury (rather than going back to the taxpayer) to reduce the deficit. This is a slight deviation from revenue neutrality, but it still yields a major cut for the top rate from the current 35 percent to 23 percent. The overall result is so reasonable and multiply beneficial that it rightly gained the concurrence of even the impeccably conservative (commission member) Sen. Tom Coburn.

That's the beauty of tax reform: It is both transparent and flexible. That flexibility and transparency can be applied to the Ryan plan. If you need a bit more deficit reduction to bridge the 1.6 percent GDP gap that remains after 10 years, you can get there by slightly raising the final rates.

Ryan's tax reform envisions three brackets with a top rate of 25 percent. There's nothing sacred about that number. In principle, you could raise all the rates slightly with the top rate going to, say, 28 percent -- the top rate that came out of Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reform. You're still much lower than the current 35 percent. And yet that final boost could bring you closer to a fully balanced federal budget at roughly 20 percent of GDP.

Nor would any great conservative principle be violated. The historical average of revenues -- 18 percent to 19 percent of GDP -- could be raised one point or so on the perfectly reasonable grounds that we are a slightly older society, and that we wish to avail ourselves of the extraordinary but expensive medical technology that can increase both the quality and length of life.

This one concession would yield a fully balanced budget more quickly than Ryan's plan and would reduce the debt/GDP ratio even more steeply (because GDP would be growing, while debt would not). The effect on America's financial standing in the world would be dramatic: Restored confidence in U.S. fiscal health would reduce interest rates, which would lower the overall debt burden, which could allow lower taxes, which could stimulate yet more economic growth. A virtuous circle.

That's the finish line. But it starts with spending cuts. Serious cuts, as Ryan suggests -- not the smoke and mirrors the Obama speech shamelessly presented as a plan.

Given the Democrats' instinctive resort to granny-in-the-snow demagoguery, the Republicans are right not to budge on taxes until serious spending cuts are in place. At which point, the grand compromise awaits. And grand it would be. Saving the welfare state from insolvency is no small achievement.

Ryan Budget Aims to Help a Nation of Government Addicts Recover

Ryan has taken the budget debate to a whole new level. He is addressing the actual issues our Country is facing. Entitlement spending has been ouot of control for a long time and no politician has been willing to touch it. In the past, any mention of cutting entitlement spending was he kiss of death for a politician, but the time may be right for it. Millions of people are realizing that we are headed for disaster.

If something doesn't change now, there won't be money for ANY entitlements for ANYONE...

by Gary Bauer - Human Events

I’m glad Republicans, led by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), are having “an adult discussion” with the American people about the kind of sacrifices needed to avert economic collapse. We are a nation of adults who appreciate candor and boldness from our elected representatives.

But we are also a nation of addicts hooked on government largesse. Breaking our deep dependence on government will take patience and perseverance.

To a nation of government addicts, Rep. Ryan has taken on the role of addiction interventionist. His budget is rooted in a sobering reality: that without fundamental change, America faces “economic collapse.”

It would slash federal spending by $6.2 trillion over 10 years, cutting the federal budget deficit from 9% of the gross domestic product (GDP) to 1.6% by 2021. It would freeze government spending at 2008 levels, end corporate welfare, and reform the tax code and health care.

Ryan’s is the first legislative attempt to address the major source of our long-term fiscal imbalance: entitlements. Ryan doesn’t tackle Social Security, but he does propose fundamental reforms of Medicaid and Medicare.

Any former addict will tell you that the first step to recovery is to admit that there’s a problem. But many Democrats won’t even do that, and are blasting Ryan for his bold proposal. In unveiling his budget plan, Ryan himself acknowledged that he was handing the Democrats a “political weapon.”

And they’ve been firing that weapon with typical abandon. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) claimed that the Ryan budget would “deprive seniors of meals” and amounted to a “war on women.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the new head of the Democrat National Committee, said Ryan’s plan was a “death trap for seniors.”

Another liberal critic claimed that the proposed budget cuts amount to a “repeal [of] the 20th century.”

I support Ryan’s goal and admire his courage. But let’s not forget just how many Americans benefit from some form of government assistance, and therefore how many Americans we can expect to resist budget cuts.

Call it government mission creep. Over the last century, government has taken over large segments of the economy that the Founders never intended. Economist Gary Shilling estimates that 58% of Americans are dependent on the government for “major parts of their income.” These include scores of millions of teachers, bureaucrats, entitlement recipients, government contractors, those who live in public housing, and much more. Shilling predicts that the share of Americans highly dependent on government will grow to 67% by 2018.

Polls show most Americans understand that government spending has gotten out of control. A recent poll found that most Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling.

But other polls find that most Americans don’t want cuts to the programs they benefit from. The most recent Gallup poll shows that two-thirds of Americans oppose cutting Social Security benefits, and that a clear majority is against cutting Medicare.

I have heard from a lot of conservatives frustrated over what they consider Republican unwillingness to make substantial budget cuts. Their impatience is understandable. The last time Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, they did not win high marks for budget responsibility.

Read the rest at the link above...

Rep. Paul Ryan Raises Profile With 'Bold' Budget Plan

Paul Ryan is a badass. He understands the shape we are in financially. He's also willing to step outside of the washington box and take charge, unlike obama who wants to sit on the sidelines and bitch about the big boys who are trying to clean up the mess.

I would probably vote for a ticket where Ryan was the VP...

By Stephen Clark - FoxNews

He's a rising star on the right and a growing target on the left.

Washington is buzzing about Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's take-no-prisoners approach to budget cuts -- manifested in his budget proposal that would slash federal spending by $6.2 trillion over 10 years and overhaul health programs for the elderly and poor.

As Congress wages an epic budget battle that threatens this weekend to shut down the federal government for the first time in 15 years, Ryan's willingness to offer specifics on how to tame deficits and preserve the American safety net is boosting his profile among Republicans and stirring speculation that he may be on the short list of GOP vice presidential contenders.

"I think that Paul Ryan is the brightest light in the Republican Party right now," said former Sen. Bob Kasten, a fellow Wisconsin Republican who once employed Ryan. "And the courage he's shown is unlike anyone in Washington today, including the president."

"Whether for president or vice president or for further leadership in Congress, he's on everyone's list," he said, adding that the choice would be up to him.

Ryan, 41, is chairman of the House Budget Committee and known as the Republican go-to guy on fiscal policy, a position that has placed him at the center of the most contentious Capitol Hills debates in recent years, including Obama's health care overhaul. But his new budget proposal is elevating him to a new level of fame or notoriety, depending on which side you're on.

He wants to tackle the $14.3 trillion national debt while reducing the deficit by $4.4 trillion over the next decade. He wants to cut the top tax rate for both individuals and corporations from 35 percent to 25 percent. He also wants to transform Medicare into a system in which the government would pay for private health insurance plans instead of paying doctors and hospitals directly.

While Republicans have called it a good starting point, Democrats are dismissing it as an attack on senior citizens.

Ryan says he's not surprised by the reaction.

"I always knew if you put bold reforms out there, you'll have the partisan demagoguery," he told Fox News Wednesday, contending that's why nothing gets done in Washington.

"We can't keep doing that in this country," he said. "We got to stop spending money we don't have."

Read the rest at the link above...