Have you studied Mr. Ryan’s ‘plan’? I have. It is akin to something Bill Clinton would have proposed in 1995. It postulates a slightly smaller (maybe 10% in the extreme case) government 7-10 years in the future. In the here and now, it sets the government spending level at just under 25% of GDP, approximately $111 billion dollars less than the current baseline ($3.5 vs $3.6 trillion) and then assumes a slightly less steep growth in spending thereafter. Nothwithstanding the government’s control of 25% of the economy, the charts and graphs also assume steady, sustained growth in GDP, so that, voila, in 10 years the spreadsheets say that Mr. Ryan magically reduces government spending as a percentage of GDP. That outcome is not possible absent a fundamental rethinking of the role of government in our lives, and NOWHERE in the document is such a shift in thinking evident.
Mr. Ryan and the GOP want to sit atop a government that spends $3.5 trillion. Mr. Obama has the same goal, but ups the loot to $3.6 trillion. There is no fundamental difference other than WHO is in charge, and in neither case is the answer THE PEOPLE! (See earlier C.U.R.E. piece here).
There is nothing radical about saying, as the Ryan Plan does, that we need to ‘save’ a system(s) that is bankrupting the country. Social Security and the other entitlement, ‘safety net’ programs should not be saved or given another extension of life support. They should be eliminated. They are cancerous. Their goals and purposes are [arguably] moral and their supporters ostensibly well-intentioned, but those goals and purposes are NOT properly within the purview of the federal government. They encourage irresponsible behavior and imprison men and women who become dependent on the state for their lives. Until someone crosses that line in the sand, we’re doomed. Stealing [a little bit less] from Peter to pay Paul is no more sustainable or moral than what we’re doing today. It certainly isn’t radical.
America needs a better brand of politicians – ASAP.
