democrats, please demagogue responsibly

by MaxEntropy_Man Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:44 am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-the-talented-mr-ryan/2012/08/12/1afaaaa2-e4ad-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html

by MaxEntropy_Man Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:57 am

not a fiscal conservative, just a small government conservative.

The crucial thing to understand about Ryan is that he is not a fiscal conservative. He’s a small-government conservative. These are very different things. The fastest-growing federal program in Ryan’s new budget is interest on the debt, which nearly triples from $234 billion next year to $614 billion in 2022. He doesn’t even pretend to balance the budget until 2040, and then only under utterly dubious assumptions.

These are not the choices a fiscal conservative makes. A fiscal conservative pays for the government he wants. Ryan wants government smaller than the one Reagan led even as America ages, and he doesn’t want to pay for it. Instead he adds trillions in new debt and makes no bones about it.

“Why would you choose to have debt, as opposed to saying we’re going to pay our own way now” via higher taxes, I asked Ryan back in October. This even after spending cuts that most Republicans think won’t command public support. “Why is that a conservative value?”

“Because of growth,” he said. “What I don’t want to do is sacrifice an entire generation to having less than optimal potential growth because their parents didn’t fix this problem.”

Huh? A cynic would say Ryan would do anything to avoid acknowledging the need for higher taxes as the boomers age. The conservative darling just won’t go there. The less charitable assumption is that the congressman is confused.

democrats, please demagogue responsibly

democrats, please demagogue responsibly

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