Paul Ryan Spin-Balancing The Budget

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I happened to catch Rep. Paul Ryan on the early morning C-Span call-in show on Thursday. The subject of the debate was the budget, and Ryan came out right away with how the Bush tax cuts produced more tax revenue, and the only way to produce balanced budgets is to cut spending. Throughout the show, Ryan’s primary focus stayed on the tax cuts and budget projections while offering nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing about what programs he proposes to cut.

He produced a wonky chart which showed the democrats creating a surplus after 2010 but only with the assumption the taxcuts expire. He then explains that he can balance the budget producing a smaller surplus while keeping the taxcuts in place after 2010. But if you believe all of his rhetoric about how taxcuts produce more revenue, why would the Democrats surplus be larger if the tax cuts expire? Ryan implies that the Bush tax cuts were responsible for increased revenue but offers no proof whatsoever less revenue would have been produced had the tax cuts never happened. To prove his theory correct, one would have to assume that IF the taxcuts remained intact after 2010, his projected Republican surplus would dwarf the democrats tax-expiring budget. His projection showed no such thing.
The fact is, the increase in tax revenues beginning in 2003 happened despite the Bush tax cuts. Economic growth had nowhere else to go but up after the bottom fell out from 9-11. That the income tax revenue increased soon after the Bush tax cuts was merely a coincidence with this upsurge and it is extremely likely that had the taxcuts targeted only the middle-class, the budgets from the past three years would have balanced - even with the Iraq war.

Six years after 9-11 and with the economy flattening out, now would be a good time to introduce some tax cuts to boost the economy. Unfortunately, Bush went to that well too often and put our country seriously in debt. Now when the country could use a well placed tax cut, it can’t afford one.

Paul Ryan also went on to say that entitlement programs like Social security and Medicare are going bankrupt and will be insolvent in the near future. The Democrats want to increase funding to these programs by 4.7% a year, Ryan insists he wants to save these important programs by cutting the democrats increase down to 4.1% a year, he said this could be done by “growing spending cuts” or something like that.

Again Ryan insists over and over again that Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, instead they have a spending problem but offers absolutely nothing about spending cuts. He just talks about the importance to not increase taxes. Ryan said his budget calls for a freeze of non-military discretionary spending over the next five years and when asked by the C-Span host which programs he intends to freeze, he went on to say it would take two hours to explain it! The show was taking phone calls, and soon afterwards a caller also pressed the same question, only for Ryan to sidestep answering and instead talked about a handful of smaller programs he will add funding to – not cut from. Make no mistake, the programs Ryan refers to as “non-military discretionary spending programs” are the programs he intends to cut or freeze. They are arts, education, labor, benefits (such as housing, child nutrition, food stamps and other agricultural programs) for people and families with incomes below certain levels, federal programs like Social Security and Medicare, unemployment benefits, veteran’s pensions, drug control programs and health care services for low-income seniors and families - programs just like Senior Care in Wisconsin. See, that didn’t take two hours.

Now, Ryan voted against funding the troops in Iraq because of what he calls pork. Past Republican appropriation bills loaded down with corporate handouts, Big Oil subsidies and bridges to the North Pole were never vetoed by Bush – not even once. This emergency bill has domestic funding like $1.7 billion extra toward veterans care along with other important programs. When both Ryan and Bush get serious about spending cuts – they mean it. Even if it means no money for the troops.

Watch Ryan/Spratt Debate Here 45 min.
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