Democrats "blowing smoke" on the budget, says Paul Ryan
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., accused Democrats of "blowing smoke" on the budget during a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, touting his own fiscal roadmap as a cure for what ails Washington's balance sheet.
Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the 2012 Republican nominee for vice president, did nothing to encourage speculation that he will mount a bid for the presidency in 2016, confining his remarks largely to the fiscal fracas that consumes much of his day job.
"This has been a really big week," Ryan noted. "We got white smoke from the Vatican, and we got a budget from the Senate."
"But when you read it," he said, "you find the Vatican's not the only place blowing smoke this week."
"They call their budget a balanced approach," he said, but "the thing is, they never balance the budget, ever."
That unfortunate truth, Ryan said, makes one thing very clear: "They are the party of shared hardship, we are the party of equal opportunity."
"I am proud of our budget because it's changed the conversation," he added, and that much is assuredly true. Friends and foes alike have elevated Ryan's budget, with Republicans calling it a profile in courage and Democrats lambasting it as a body-blow to the social safety net.
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"Our budget expands opportunity by growing the economy," Ryan said. "It strengthens the safety net by retooling government...we balance the budget in 10 years without raising taxes."
Ryan did not address the most controversial element of his plan - a proposal to replace the guaranteed benefits of Medicare with a private insurance subsidy for people 55 years old and younger. Instead, he spoke at length about the budget as an expression of morality - a blueprint for governing priorities in an age of scarcity.
"The crucial question isn't how we balance the budget," said Ryan, "it's why we balance the budget."
Aligning revenues with expenditures is not just "an accounting exercise," he said. "We are trying to improve peoples' lives...We don't see the debt as an excuse to cut with abandon, to shirk our obligations. We see it as an opportunity to reform government, to make it leaner and more effective."
"Our debt is a threat to this country," he explained. "We are on the verge of a debt crisis. Our obligations are growing faster than our ability to pay for them."
And with its fiscal imprudence, Ryan said, "the government is sending us a message: It is saying, if you plan ahead, if you make sacrifices for your kids, if you save, you're a sucker."
The government is "brazenly stealing from our children," Ryan said, "and it has to stop."
Ryan also took aim at the seemingly endless series of fiscal deadlines and dramatic last-minute negotiations that have supplanted the regular budgetary process in Washington. "When politicians budget by crisis, what happens? They make deals in the dead of night, far from the public view...and government grows," he said. "Our budget offers an end to the brinksmanship. It restores regular order."
"The other side can join us in this common sense goal, or they can choose the status quo," he added. "But they must choose."
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Democrats created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to assist consumers against banks and credit card companies. Name something from republicans?
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was spawn from that bill that was written by lobbyists and named for two of the most corrupt members of Congress?
The CFPB will cost taxpayers almost half a billion dollars per year and is useless in a lot of ways and harmful in others. Abuses that it was designed to protect consumers from are already handled by existing federal agencies, while others, it simply can't do anything about.
It was designed to protect consumers from high fees on debit card transactions, but as usual when government get involved there are unintended consequences. After the new rules kicked in, the banks started looking for ways to make up for the lost revenue, and there you have it, the days of the free checking account are gone.
The law provides no oversight for the housing industry that was at the center of the financial crisis.
As Mittens said, Dodd-Frank is a gift for to big to fail banks. Armies of lawyers and accountants are needed to interpret this colossal law of nearly 9000 pages, so unless the to big to fail banks give their knowledge to their smaller competitors, the small banks will have the same costs as the to big to fail banks.
It enables those too big to fail banks to borrow money at lower rates than their smaller competitors. Nothing like the government picking winners and losers.
I could go on and on and on and on, but there is no point.
Back to my original point, both parties are in this for themselves, they are selfish, greedy pigs. They could care less about ordinary americans.
Ann Richards Former Texas Governor and Democrat
Name any republican legislation that favors ordinary Americans over corporations, big oil, big pharma orr the super rich?
Now watch them avoid it like vampires avoiding crosses and sunlight.
Paul Ryan, go away already.
BTW.....you never responded to me proving you wrong about obama being late on his budget 3 years in a row!!
again....you are a JOKE!!!!
I think a chugging contest between Ryan & Cheney* would be a CPAC draw. Druggie Rush & 30 Gram Steve Stockman can handle the hangovers with their drugs of choice. Ann, "....a glass or two, write 4 or 5, (snort) at lunch" Coulter can slobber 'commentary'.
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A President has a brief sexual encounter in office; the nation spends a hundred million, and several 'investigating' the incident'; impeachment proceedings waste more money, and allow al Qaeda to plan attack, the next President who SUED his way into office ignores, presumably on Saudi orders.
HIS VP shoots a man after "..a drink, maybe TWO OR SO...at brunch..."; not only do CONscum not demand an investigation, they claim it was the VICTIM'S fault. As for the idiotic CONdumb line that the Monica Show was because of perjury, it could NOT have been. Perjury requires that a lie be material to the case at bar; consensual sex isn't relevant to sexual harassment. But CONs let the US be attacked, and that will not be forgotten.
So Ryan made a commercial that gets huge airtime from the foreign news outlet FOX; he remains a useless drunk, and the teabaggers will again be rejected in 2014, 2016, and beyond.
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bobbi replies:
Above you said how much we need the legislation, here you blame the legislation on lobbyists. You clearly contradict yourself. And that is the big problem with intervention by government into the free-market, government always gets it wrong and the taxpayers always take the shaft.
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Sorry, but interpreting my statement the way you did, as "needing legislation," is not only WRONG again, but highly disingenuous!
I merely said that the lobbyists write our legislation for the congresscritters, that benefits BIG BIZ and CRONY CAPITALISM, not the vast majority of Americans. You just want to argue, and apparently are not happy until you can belittle and demean others in your silly juvenile game!
Actually, I have many libertarian traits like you, so we probably have more in common than you want to admit, but you would rather just shoot first and ask questions later!
FOX_PARROTS_LIE replies:
WRONG, I've said capitalism is broken, and that has nothing to do with "fairness," and as long as we have unfettered capitalism run amuck, we cannot let BIG BIZ regulate themselves.
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bobbi replies:
"Who broke capitalism? People like you, intervening for the interests of cronies".
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So at least it sounds like you admit that capitalism is indeed broken, but blaming people like me for it is childish, since it is obviously the politicians and special interests in their pockets that broke it!
I already told you, I was not political for the majority of my lifetime, and if any mis-administration epitomized CRONY CAPITALISM, it was the bush/cheney regime and all the WAR Profiteers they created like halli-cheney-burton and the blackwater killers/Xe Int'l/Academi LLC mercenaries!
Just like the latest lyin' ryan budget, his "balancing act" requires the $716 billion in Medicare savings from the PPACA; it requires all the funding mechanisms in the PPACA while proposing to repeal the rest; and it requires cutting back further on Medicare with vouchers and the rest of the safety net, just to give the wealthy and corporate elite more tax breaks and an added bonus to the bloated military-industrial complex of $500 Billion!