Paul Ryan Previews "Path To Prosperity" (Debuting Tomorrow)

Here's Ryan's roadmap to the roadmap at WSJ.

Actual numbers: It cuts $4.4 trillion with a t through the next ten years, and $6.2 trillion if you compare it to Obama's farcical budget (which was supposedly going to bring the budget into balance... and yet Ryan's budget cuts another $6.2 trillion from that piece of shit and still isn't balanced until 2050. So, yeah, whatever, Obama's plan balances the budget, huh?)

What you'll notice is that it is comprehensive. It seems to punt on Social Security, stating vaguely that it will "force" policymakers to propose common-sense reforms. Which means it itself doesn't touch them.

But everything else is in there... including tax reform.

You want hard, enforceable caps on spending? It's got those. You want to empower the states in their administration of Medicaid ("Welfare reform," it's properly called here)? It's got that.

It's got everything.

Except Social Security reform. Ah well. 90% now is better than 100% never.

Allah has his own reaction to it and background too, but maybe most interesting is his clip of Rush Limbaugh, giddy over the proposal, and noting that it's "politically brilliant," in that there's so much here the Democrats "won't know what to focus on."

I don't know if that will work out the way he's thinking -- "comprehensive" bills are usually not stronger due to being comprehensive, but rather offer opponents the opportunity to pick among a menu of options for attacks, and then focus relentlessly on one or two things, bringing it all down.

So I don't know if it's politically brilliant, as he says, just due to it being so comprehensive and wide-ranging. (And seriously, talk about comprehensive -- if enacted, I think this would pretty much set federal spending for like the next twenty years.)

But it is definitely very strong in substance.

One graph says it all:

posted by Ace at 09:41 PM

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