Leaders with Ginni Thomas: Paul Ryan for President

This was posted today at the Daily Caller.

Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, articulates the contrasts between the Progressivism of the current administration and the dire need for the Conservatism of the next, better than anyone.

Paul Ryan: Pro Growth Tax Reform

Paul Ryan, unfortunately, chose not to run for president in 2012, but he'd make a great Secretary of the Treasury (haven't had one of those for a while).

If It's Good Enough for Thomas Sowell, It's Good Enough!

Surely we're all sick to death of hearing about the debt ceiling debacle still ongoing in Washington. Late yesterday, Peter Robinson of The Hoover Institution, posted this at Ricochet.com after he said he'd been listening to Sean Hannity on his car radio yesterday:

Sean spent an hour lambasting Speaker Boehner and everyone who supports Boehner's proposal to raise the debt ceiling, including the Wall Street Journal and Bill Kristol.

Then Congressman Ryan came on the air. Sean asked if Paul Ryan agreed with those who believed that voting against the Boehner proposal would "play into Obama's hands" in a tone leaving no doubt that Sean expected Ryan to prove as dismissive of the Boehner proposal as was Sean himself. "I absolutely believe that voting against the Speaker's proposal would play into Obama's hands," Ryan replied. (I'm quoting from memory here.)

Respectfully but firmly and--very much worth noting--cheerfully, Ryan explained, a) that Boehner's proposal would cut federal spending by more than it would raise the debt ceiling, b) that the Boehner proposal would do so without raising taxes, and, c) that, even though Obama and Geithner have been misleading the public about the likelihood of a default, if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling the markets would indeed be disrupted, doing damage to a weak economy. Ryan continued to say that the conservative movement was split "right down the middle on this." While urging listeners to support Boehner's proposal, he nevertheless insisted that "after this is over we're going to unite as conservatives to keep on pounding and pounding."

The interview lasted only a few minutes, but it was as deft a performance as I've ever heard. Also, in its way, courageous. Sean, Rush, others--Ryan surely knew that they had devoted their air time today to attacking the Boehner proposal, and that they were speaking for a lot of the people who most admire Ryan, including much of the Tea Party. Ryan stood his ground.

If Paul Ryan's endorsement of the Boehner proposal is not enough to convince you (it does me), read the below article posted at National Review Online today by Thomas Sowell. Here's a bit of it:

Is the Boehner legislation the best legislation possible? Of course not! You don’t get your heart’s desire when you control only one house of Congress and face a presidential veto.

The most basic fact of life is that we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available. It is not idealism to ignore the limits of one’s power. Nor is it selling out one’s principles to recognize those limits at a given time and place, and get the best deal possible under those conditions.

That still leaves the option of working toward getting a better deal later, when the odds are more in your favor.

Boehner’s Plan Will Do - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

It shouldn't have to be pointed out that both Paul Ryan and Thomas Sowell are endorsing the Boehner proposal now - not what it might look like after Harry Reid's senate takes a shot at it.

Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" Excerpts II

An Unsustainable Path

The recent sovereign debt crises in Greece and other highly-indebted European countries provide a cautionary tale of the rough justice of the marketplace – lenders cannot and will not finance unsustainable deficits forever, and when they cut up the credit cards of profligate countries, severe economic turmoil ensues.

Over the past few years, Americans have seen just how quickly a severe financial crisis can create widespread pain and chaos. But the last crisis was foreseen only by a small number of perceptive individuals who recognized the implications of unwise decisions being made in Washington and on Wall Street.

By contrast, nearly every fiscal expert and advisor in Washington has warned that a major debt crisis is inevitable if the U.S. government remains on its current unsustainable path. The government’s failure to prevent this completely preventable crisis would rank among history’s most infamous episodes of political malpractice.

Nearing a Debt Crisis

Like a household or business, a nation’s indebtedness is best understood in terms of how much it owes relative to how much it makes. By that measure, debt held by the public – money that the U.S. government owes to others – will reach nearly 70 percent of the entire U.S. economy this year.

If this were merely a temporary rise in the debt, it would not be so alarming. However, the spending spree of the last two years, combined with the coming retirement of nearly 80 million baby boomers, threaten to turn these recent deficit spikes into a permanent plunge into debt.

Debt in excess of 60 percent of the economy is not sustainable for an extended period of time. That is bad news for the United States. According to the non-partisan CBO, the President’s budget would keep the debt climbing as a share of the economy in the decade ahead, from nearly 70 percent this year to over 87 percent of the U.S. economy by 2021. University of Maryland economist Carmen Reinhart testified before the House Budget Committee that 90 percent is often a trigger point for economic decline.

How a Debt Crisis Would Unfold

Spiraling interest rates

The first sign that a debt crisis has arrived is that bond investors lose confidence in a government’s ability to pay its debts – and by that point, it is usually too late to avoid severe disruption and economic pain. Right now, the U.S. government is able to borrow at historically low rates, partly because of the Fed’s interventions in the market, but also because the bonds of most foreign countries are looking even riskier. Neither of these conditions is going to last.

Interest rates – and the burden of paying interest on the debt – have nowhere to go but up. Interest payments are already consuming around 10 cents of every tax dollar. But as interest rates rise from their current historically low levels and debt continues to mount, interest payments are projected to consume over 20 percent of all tax revenue by 2020. That means that one in five tax dollars will be dedicated to making interest payments by the end of the decade – and that’s according to optimistic projections about interest rates. If interest rates increase by a higher-than- expected amount in future – which appears to be more likely – then the nation’s interest payments could cost trillions of dollars more.

Paul Ryan's "Path To Prosperity" Excerpts

One of the controversial parts of Congressman Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal, aptly called "The Path to Prosperity," addresses the burgeoning federal bureaucracy (especially burgeoning since Barack Obama became president).

This will not find much support among federal employees or the unions purporting to represent them, but it should get the attention of those tax payers who, although their futures are not as bright, continue to pay the salaries and exorbitant pensions of those federal employees.

Here's the section dealing with the topic (emphasis added):

Slowing the bureaucracy’s explosive growth

The federal government has added 155,000 new workers since the President took office. It is no coincidence that private-sector employment continues to recover only sluggishly while the government grows at breakneck speeds. To fuel the public sector’s growth, Washington must either tax the private sector or issue debt (i.e. impose a deferred tax upon the private sector).

The federal government’s responsibilities are dependent on a strong federal workforce. Federal workers deserve to be compensated for their important work, but pay levels, pay increases and benefit packages need to be reformed to be in line with the private sector.

Salaries for federal workers continue to outpace pay for their private-sector counterparts. Average wages in the federal civilian workforce ($74,311 in 2010) far eclipse the $49,777 median wages in private industry. When generous benefit packages are included, the advantages enjoyed by government workers are even more pronounced. The roughly 2 million federal civilian workers received average compensation packages of $101,628 in 2010, far in excess of their private-sector counterparts. Immune from the effects of the recession, federal workers have received regular salary bumps and cost-of-living-adjustments, regardless of productivity or economic realities.

The reforms called for in this budget aim to slow the federal government’s unsustainable growth, and reflect the growing frustration of workers across the country at the different set of rules enjoyed by government employees. It reduces the public-sector bureaucracy, not through layoffs, but via a gradual, sensible attrition policy, permitting the federal government to hire only one new employee for every three federal workers who retire. By 2014, this reform would result in a 10 percent reduction in the federal workforce.

Additionally, it freezes federal pay through 2015. And it reduces taxpayers’ disproportionate share of the financing for the Federal Employee Pension Plan by requiring federal employees to pay for half of the defined benefit they receive at retirement, an increase from their current contribution of 0.8 percent of payroll. This proposal takes its cue directly from the Fiscal Commission.14 When combined, these proposals will save taxpayers approximately $375 billion over ten years.