Yesterday, Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP's next up-and-coming cretin released his Republican budget plan to reduce the deficit and reign in government, because government spending is out of control, or at least it has been since 2008 when George W. Bush left office (that's a strange coincidence). It'd be nice to think that Representative Ryan were sincere in his recommendations to reduce spending and balance the budget, but when he marks 2008 as a good point to return and then strictly stabilize spending, it's only political posturing. GWB increased the federal budget by 104%. In comparison, Pres. Bill Clinton increased the federal budget by only 11%. If Rep. Ryan were truly sincere about reducing the government, he might choose a better marker than the notoriously poor fiscal policies of George W. Bush. But besides this glaring omission from Ryan's reasoning, let's examine a few other interesting points, perhaps treating Rep. Ryan to a little history lesson in the meantime.
15 years ago, Pres. Bill Clinton balanced the budget and created a surplus. He did it with common sense fiscal austerity, not the extremely dangerous musings of the Tea Party-elected freshman in the House. Tthese people cry that cutting Planned Parenthood and NPR (just to name two examples) will magically fix our budget crisis it's almost laughable. But then you have polls released that show Americans think the government spends nearly $200B a year on such programs and you have to wonder how dumb this country actually is. But Clinton balanced the budget with those programs still wholly intact. Pres. Clinton did not make sweeping changes to Social Security or Medicare. He did raise taxes, but only 4.6% on the highest earners in the country. And in spite of Republicans' continued arguments that tax cuts lead to more jobs and tax increases lead to fewer ones, the economy boomed. Maybe Mr. Ryan should have just taken up a chair next to the former president to learn a thing or two.
Secondly, piggy-backing off the comment that Pres. Clinton created a surplus prior to leaving office, is that the current deficit was largely created by only two factors: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003. Yet Rep. Ryan likes to talk up that "entitlement" programs have been the main driving force behind our deficit problems, which just makes no sense mathematically.
And lastly, it should be noted that Pres. Obama has increased the federal budget. For a Democrat, that's not terribly surprising. But Rep. Ryan and all the other GOP windbags pout endlessly about some huge socialist agenda implemented by the President. Yet again there selectivist memory about history has quickly forgotten that the President increased spending so quickly because the country was on the verge of a depression and money needed to be poured into the economy or else it would have failed completely. And again, it should be said that George W. Bush watched idly as the housing bubble inflated and burst, without action- except of course to reward the companies that inflated the bubble. It would be nice to take Rep. Ryan's budget proposal seriously, but it'd just fill me with a lot of hot air.
