{"id":26593,"date":"2011-04-08T09:43:14","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T15:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=26593"},"modified":"2012-02-20T22:39:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T05:39:38","slug":"paul-ryans-budget-proposal-is-half-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=26593","title":{"rendered":""Paul Ryan\u2019s Budget Proposal is Half the Answer""},"content":{"rendered":"

Ian Murray at CEI wants more. While praising the Ryan blueprint as “the only serious proposal out there<\/a> to get America\u2019s finances back in order,” Murray offers a few notes:<\/p>\n

[…] as Margaret Thatcher found in the UK during the 1980s, spending is only half the battle. The nature of the bureaucratic beast is that it will expand again. That\u2019s why President Reagan\u2019s simplification of the Tax Code wore off, and we now have a far more complex tax code than we did before tax reform.<\/p>\n

We therefore need a similarly comprehensive reform of the federal government that will address what might be termed the \u201csupply side\u201d of the federal bureaucracy, to prevent it getting in the way of an entrepreneur-led recovery.<\/p>\n

This reform should include:<\/p>\n

* Abolition of whole government departments that have no valid constitutional purpose, such as the Department of Education and the Department of Labor
\n * The rechartering of valid existing agencies as performance-based agencies that exist to serve the public, not hinder them
\n * Reform of federal pay and working conditions
\n * A reduction in the use of federal contracts and grants, to tackle the \u201cshadow\u201d public sector
\n * Introduction of a single, fair tax system and a new Taxpayers\u2019 Bill of Rights
\n * End labor unions\u2019 privileges that put them above the law
\n * Privatization of appropriate government functions<\/p>\n

and, above all,<\/p>\n

* Genuine regulatory reform as proposed by Wayne Crews and Ryan Young.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with Murray — both in lauding Ryan’s blueprint and in noting that it is but a starting point.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I think Ryan knows this as well — and he has offered a politically viable<\/i> challenge that the American voter can get behind, that Democrats will have difficulty combating, and that, should fiscal sanity win out, will, as its structural reforms to spending take hold, create the conditions (and momentum) for the a much more direct attack on governmental excess and redundancy, and a groundswell of support for the kinds of federalist principles that obtain in, for instance, the move to block grant Medicaid money to the states.<\/p>\n

Meantime, Rand Paul and Mike Lee can begin prepping for the really big<\/em> shit that will finally get this country back on track and away from its horrific flirtation with European style social democracy \/ socialism and transnational progressivism, a flirtation that would, in the event of consummation, necessarily include a demand that the US manage its own decline down to a standard of “social justice” that requires it relinquish its super power status and join the community of the perpetually mediocre, burdened by high unemployment, a weak currency, and a bureaucratic-run cradle-to-grave nannystate where individual freedom has been traded for the sagging, swollen tit of state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ian Murray at CEI wants more. While praising the Ryan blueprint as “the only serious proposal out there to get America\u2019s finances back in order,” Murray offers a few notes: […] as Margaret Thatcher found in the UK during the 1980s, spending is only half the battle. The nature of the bureaucratic beast is that it will expand again. That\u2019s why President Reagan\u2019s simplification of the Tax Code wore off,<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9196393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37363,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593\/revisions\/37363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}