In Praise of Paul Ryan

by Dave on February 8, 2010

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(Or, What Happens When Somebody Puts On Their Big Boy Pants)

Paul Ryan is a boyish, six-term Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the ranking member of the Budget Committee. And he is a grown-up: he is willing to risk his office by putting forward a budget proposal that actually fixes the problem and erases the deficit, but one that opens him up to all manner of attack from the agents of the status quo.

Ezra Klein, in yesterday’s Washington Post:

The boyish Ryan is a conservative darling and the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, but there’s nothing conservative about this document. It does not respect, much less preserve, the status quo. But then, that’s a point in Ryan’s favor. The status quo does not deserve our respect. It is unsustainable. Left unchecked, it will bankrupt our country. On that, Ryan’s radicalism is welcome, and all too rare. The size of his proposal is shocking, but it is proportionate to the size of our problem: According to the Congressional Budget Office, which examined a simplified version of his proposal, it would wipe out our projected long-term deficits.

Obviously, any plan that actually takes on these challenges must be radical in scope — because that is how bad the problem is.

Robert Samuelson, in today’s Washington Post, illuminates the genuine scope of the problem

First, from 2011 to 2020, the administration projects total federal spending of $45.8 trillion against taxes and receipts of $37.3 trillion. The $8.5 trillion deficit is almost a fifth of spending. In 2020, the gap is $1 trillion, again approaching a fifth: Spending is $5.7 trillion, taxes $4.7 trillion. All amounts assume a full economic recovery; all projections may be optimistic. The message: There’s a huge mismatch between Americans’ desire for low taxes and high government services.

Second, almost $20 trillion of the $45.8 trillion of spending involves three programs — Social Security, Medicare (health insurance for those 65 and over) and Medicaid (health insurance for the poor — two-thirds goes to the elderly and disabled). The message: The budget is mainly a vehicle for transferring income to retirees from workers, who pay most taxes. As more baby boomers retire in the 2020s, deficits would grow.

Third, there is no way to close the massive deficits without big cuts in existing government programs or stupendous tax increases. Suppose we decided to cover all future deficits by raising taxes. Taxes would rise in the 2020s by roughly 50 percent from the average 1970-2009 tax burden.

That’s the guts of it. At age 65, average Americans live for another 18 years. Government now subsidizes each of them an average of about $25,000 a year (almost $14,000 Social Security, $11,000 Medicare). We cannot sensibly afford all these subsidies without oppressive tax increases (see above), deep cuts in defense and other programs or immense budget deficits that someday might trigger another financial crisis. Bond buyers might balk at swallowing so much government debt. By the administration’s estimates, that publicly held debt (the accumulation of all annual deficits) balloons from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $18.6 trillion in 2020.

It is that massive problem that Ryan seeks to solve. If I tried to lay out the plan, I’d manage to miss something, so I refer you to the web site to review it for yourself.

You will undoubtedly hear the protectors of the status quo, those who would comfortably lead us off the cliff we’re approaching, attacking Ryan’s plan for its audacity. And there are not nearly enough steel-spined members of Congress to let a plan like this even get a committee hearing. So the actual solution to our problems dies before it ever had a chance, and we take another step toward that cliff.

But when that day comes, remember that somebody tried to prevent it.

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Checking In/A Mishmash

by Dave on February 7, 2010

It’s been six days since I posted so I thought I’d check in:

First thing’s first. Holy snow. I’ve only seen more snow than this once in my life — winter of 1993 in Syracuse, NY. Wow.

Second, a little reflection on Wednesday’s Tweetup in Newark. It’s worth noting the atmosphere of the DelTweet event matched perfectly with the themes I introduced in my “Reflections on a Few Days Away” post. In attendance were diverse political luminaries like the Governor, Rep. Kovach, Charlie Copeland, Treasurer Velda Jones-Potter and Newark City Councilman Paul Pomeroy, media types like WDEL’s Rick Jensen, Doug Rainey from The Business Ledger, and a wide variety of business interests, including representatives of the State and County Chambers, PR-types from major DE companies and many others.

And there was a great spirit of togetherness in the room, the idea that we were all united in something that was going to change the way we operated the government and the economy. I even gave the Governor a hug.

That kind of buy-in for social media in Delaware was awesome, and is a big step toward a sustainable new economy. A big thanks to hosts Ken Grant, Major Highfield, The Borg, Maya Paveza, Whitney Hoffman and Kildare’s in Newark and to Markell staffers Brian Selander and Felicia Pullam for pulling all of that off.

Third, (and speaking of sustainable new economy), part of the reason I’ve been so quiet on here lately is that I’ve been working on a new project that’s going to help take these concepts of Economy 2.0 to the next level. But that’ll have to wait for another day.

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Sustainability & Food

February 1, 2010

One area of great concern in the sustainability field is food. Anyone who has seen the documentary Food, Inc. or read Fast Food Nation or The Omnivore’s Dilemma knows this. If you haven’t here’s a little video crash course to stir your mind.
Here is the fascinatingly awesome Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virginia, [...]

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What It’s All About Now

January 30, 2010

sus·tain·able (sə stān′ə bəl)

adjective

capable of being sustained

designating, of, or characterized by a practice that sustains a given condition, as economic growth or a human population, without destroying or depleting natural resources, polluting the environment, etc. sustainable agriculture
governed or maintained by, or produced as a result of, such practices sustainable growth

We must create [...]

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Master Class

January 29, 2010

An amazing thing happened today in Baltimore, maybe the most important political development of my adulthood. The House Republican caucus invited the President to come to a discussion with them, including a Q and A session. He accepted, and he asked that CSPAN be allowed to televise it.
This is what happened.

First, it was an absolute [...]

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This Week’s Magazine

January 28, 2010

This week’s Coastal Sussex Weekly magazine: Restoring Fort Miles, The Bald Eagle’s Comeback, CAMP Chorus & more. Click on the image to enter.

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Dear Mr. President,

January 28, 2010

Small businesses don’t need TARP money. They need stability. They could have used the swift and sure distribution of billions that Goldman Sachs got at the time, but by now the damage is done.
Part of the problem with targeting funds to small business is that the federal government defines small business as 500 employees or [...]

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Transfers of Wealth

January 27, 2010

Umair Haque, today on the Harvard Business review blog, discusses the acceleration of massive, unsustainable transfers of wealth going on under the Obama administration, calling them ‘fatal vectors’:

A transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. As Robert Reich has noted, the freeze disproportionately hurts Main Street. Wall Street got bailed out — and [...]

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