"After Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released the Republican budget plan for 2014, he received public kudos from small-government groups such as Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). He won praise despite proposing a 42 percent increase in annual federal spending over the next decade and locking in tax increases pushed by President Obama."......................
"Indeed, in its unwillingness to confront directly near-term and long-term issues with the size and scope of government, the GOP budget is simply one more example of how similar both major parties really are. For all the talk of historically high levels of polarization and acrimony in D.C., this latest budget season will almost certainly prove yet again that the two parties have far more in common than either side wants to admit.
Republicans and conservatives more generally are never slow to bitch and moan about how libertarians refuse to get in line and support a first-best or second-best or even third-best option. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and all that. But by any serious measure, the GOP budget simply doesn't "...............................
While I am sympathetic to libertarian ideas, there is just too much of the economy dependent on the Feds. I was eating dinner with friends and 75% of us were either employed by the federal or local goverment, or more than 50% of their employer's work was for federally contracts.
It will take a long time to wean the economy off that tit. Especially when Obama is spreading doom and gloom about the mild sequestration.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Poison me fast or poison me slow. Do you remember when budgets and budget projections were done year to year, when the only 10 year plans were in the USSR?
And when NPR and CBS describe the Ryan budget, they will say it is extreme and cuts to the bone, when really it is only a few less trillion in spending over the time period.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
FredHayek wrote: While I am sympathetic to libertarian ideas, there is just too much of the economy dependent on the Feds. I was eating dinner with friends and 75% of us were either employed by the federal or local government, or more than 50% of their employer's work was for federally contracts.
It will take a long time to wean the economy off that tit. Especially when Obama is spreading doom and gloom about the mild sequestration.
Fred, at some point we have to chose. You sound like a democrat. I live off a USN pension that I feel like I earned. I am ok with being fucked as long as we are all fucked together. After all it is for the children.
At some point one generation is going to have to step up to the plate and say that they are willing to accept less so that the generations behind them can start providing for their own retirement during their working years instead of having to pay for the retirement of previous generations.
It is one thing to confiscate 12% of one's earnings for their own benefit in later years, quite another entirely to confiscate it for the benefit of others who feel that they have "earned" an entitlement to your earnings by paying for the benefits of others themselves.
We also have to end corporate welfare for once and for all. The subsidies we give out are ridiculous, like paying a generous allowance to your wealthy kid out of your penurious pension. No one should get rich off of taxpayer money.
chickaree wrote: We also have to end corporate welfare for once and for all. The subsidies we give out are ridiculous, like paying a generous allowance to your wealthy kid out of your penurious pension. No one should get rich off of taxpayer money.
My father-in-law's brother has gotten rich out in Eads CO with farm subsidies and very little farming.
The left is angry because they are now being judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
