Here’s what freaking Fred Hiatt has to say about Paul Ryan’s dangerous, intentionally vague budget plan:
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said Mr. Ryan’s plan would reduce revenues by an eye-popping $4.6 trilllion — and that’s on top of the $5.4 trillion cost of making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Moreover, no matter what deductions are curtailed, the benefit of the lower rates would flow overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans, while Mr. Ryan would take a machete to programs that help the least fortunate.
Witness the insanity of Republicans saying that $10 trillion in lost revenue isn’t good enough:
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a conservative member of Ryan’s Budget Committee, said he would vote against the plan, saying it broke the GOP’s “Pledge to America” and did not cut spending deeply enough. Huelskamp voted for the Ryan budget in 2011.
“It’s not good enough,” he said during an appearance with six other conservatives at an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.
Huelskamp said he was troubled by a lack of specificity on tax reform and the budget’s failure, in his view, to hold to spending levels that will be lower because of $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts set to take effect next year.
The half-dozen other members of the Heritage panel said they were undecided on the budget resolution.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) criticized the proposal for not cutting spending at the levels promised in the 2010 Pledge to America.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to vote for it or not,” Gohmert said. “I appreciate so much the great work of Paul Ryan, but we took a pledge a year and a half ago, and we said we would cut more than is being cut. So that’s my struggle.”
Paul Ryan wants to increase defense spending while chopping $10 trillion out of the budget. And he says that this will help balance the budget. And that’s not good enough. That violates the pledge the tea partiers took. That’s what we’re dealing with from a reality standpoint.
The GOP cannot die quickly enough.
