Well, the earthquake we all waited for finally hit. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled his budget proposal for the next ten years. Originally expected to include $4 trillion in cuts, it ended up with more than $6 trillion. As expected, the liberal media was apoplectic and the knives have been drawn to cut him down. Within hours of its release, the condescension flowed.
Derek Thompson in the Atlantic started off well, insulting the intelligence of Republicans in general and Paul Ryan specifically.
“Republicans faced mockery in the last few years for inventing their own words. Rep. Paul Ryan did them one better. He invented his own math.”
It doesn’t get any better; it’s mostly filled with ad hominem attacks with one or two attempts at criticizing some small points. Sitting upon his safe perch, not required to deal with the realities of the situation the country finds itself in, Mr. Thompson is unable to even suggest a possible solution beyond the Status Quo.
I’d like to extend Mr. Thompson a helping hand, explaining some things here. Without some serious reduction in future entitlements, the United States will be insolvent sooner than later. Following the profligate spending of the last few years, the current deficit is equal to GDP. That can’t go on.
In any event, Mr. Thompson specifically lays down fire on the Medicare/Medicaid section of proposal. Clearly, the best way to do this is through fear-mongering. Seniors are going to lose all their medical care! Panic! He also takes issue with the fact that, instead of the Federal government overseeing Medicaid, it would reduce the amount put in and let each state work it out to the best of its ability. Never mind the supercilious idea that only the folks in Washington can run this stuff. The fact is, the closer to the final recipient is to the management team/ bureaucracy, the more efficient the system is. So yes, “Less Federal Spending + Less Local Spending = Better Care,” since the providers won’t be worried about dealing with a one size fits no one federal mandate.
Thompson tries to make fun of Ryan’s idea that cutting federal spending will produce jobs. This is counter-intuitive! The source of all good and all work is, of course, the central government. Empirically, that’s just not true. The last two and half years are proof of that. An increase in federal spending of unprecedented proportions has not only failed to create jobs anywhere but in the public sector, but has heralded in an era of staggering unemployment. Even the government sector has seen a loss of about 350,000 jobs.
So, let me tell Mr. Thompson something: reducing the scope of the federal government leaves a vacuum for certain services. Those services will be provided by the private sector at lower cost and greater efficiency leaving more money in the private sector to invest and, guess what? Yeah, create more jobs.
Really, the only one with the fuzzy math here is Thompson. They say gambling is a tax on the mathematically challenged, so what do you call doubling down on ideas that have proven to be a failure?
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