An American Lion

I'm not going to take sides in the dispute between Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Somewhere out there is a third answer to the solution as to what to do to bring our fiscal house in order, and I haven't found that third way as of yet.

If I were to dedicate myself to finding the answer, here's what I would start with--no tax cuts and massive cuts in entitlement spending. I would cut defense spending by twenty percent and end the wars we are in. I would reduce the American footprint overseas. I would means test all spending programs, especially Social Security. Do you collect a government pension? I would cut your Social Security. Do you not need your Social Security? I would cut it. And everyone would pay Social Security on every penny of their income. I would remove the cap and never look back.

I would be the most hated son of a bitch in America (I'm used to it, sir). But I wouldn't raise income taxes and I wouldn't spend a penny more than the government needs to spend. I would eliminate HUD, Education, and most of the Department of Agriculture. I would freeze spending at last year's level and lock this country into three years of consecutive budgets that draw down our deficits and leave us with a measure of austerity that we can tolerate. You cannot stop spending and you cannot keep spending well in excess of what we take in. You can find yourself in worse shape by doing nothing.

What Ryan and Krugman advocate are extremes on an issue which no one will touch, because the answer is a series of politically tough choices that could kill someone's reelection. No one will admit this; no one will touch on the bitter pill that has to be swallowed, and soon. What you get is this nonsense from Megan McArdle:

Though I've only met him once, everything I've heard about Ryan indicates that he genuinely loves this stuff--if he could have more time with the CBO and JCT staff, he'd be in heaven.  I think it's absolutely fair to point out that his Roadmap would be a heroic political sell, and would probably be watered down in ways that would seriously weaken it.  I also think it is absolutely fair to point out that the tax rates needed to raise the necessary revenue would probably--not definitely; the TPC is not omniscient--be considerably less popular than what is outlined in the Roadmap.

But it is not correct to accuse Ryan of deliberate dishonesty; he asked the CBO to score it, and they turned him down.  Nor is it correct to imply that this is somehow out of the ordinary.  If you supported the health care plan, you supported the exact same process that Ryan is now proposing to use to tweak his proposal.  Were they all brazen liars because the tweakery turned out to be a lot harder than they'd hoped?

Update:  I emailed Ryan's people around noon to ask whether my recollection was correct that he was unable to get staff time from the JCT.  Within 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, I had emails from two staffers, one of whom was on vacation.  They affirmed that he asked the JCT for an analysis, and was turned down.  Which tells us a few things:  first, that Paul Ryan's people are exceptionally hard-working and responsive.  Second, that Paul Ryan did his best to get the revenue side as well as the spending side scored. And third, that Paul Krugman could easily have gotten answers to his questions if he had wanted them.

I don't care how "hard working" his people are--his proposal as presented is thus flawed. McArdle's fan-girl crush on Ryan glosses over the fact that Krugman is essentially correct--Ryan's proposal doesn't flesh out because he couldn't get the numbers and never disclosed up front that he couldn't get the numbers.

The dishonesty of McArdle's position is laid bare by yet another commenter on her blog and is not answered:

Dear Miss McArdle,
According to an article written by Douglas Holtz-Eakin (that would be the former Director of the CBO) titled 'Dynamic scoring' on page 86 in 'Encyclopedia of taxation and tax policy' your claim that 'the JCT, not the CBO, typically handles the official scoring of tax legislation' only applies to tax bills 'reported out of committee' (i.e. it does not apply to Rep. Ryans proposal). Holtz-Eakin continues: 'Both CBO and JCT also provide numerous informal estimates of proposals earlier in the legislative process' (which applies to Rep. Ryans proposal). The reason that Krugman is not aware that the JCT, not the CBO, typically handles the scoring of tax proposals like the proposal by Rep. Ryan is probably that that is actually not the way it typically works.
By the way, it took 3 minutes on Google to find this information.

McArdle is punked again. And no one even bothered to call her names this time. There's nothing intellectually clever or sound when Paul Krugman can pick apart your economic proposal in minutes because it tries to use incomplete numbers. With such nonsense, the conservative movement is not advanced forward. This anti-intellectual bullshit hurts conservative ideology.

You do not put up fudged numbers and hope no one notices. You propose completely sound ideas and ignore criticisms that aren't valid; you put your case to the American people and let them decide. In the end, conservative ideas will always triumph when soundly reasoned and applied. If you can't provide the heft, don't surround yourself with dazzled sycophants and pass that off as a movement. I'm a big believer in the ideas that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are putting forward because he has the distinction of creating enemies on both sides.

Let's put this into perspective. One of the great criticisms of President Barack Obama was that he had never held executive office prior to becoming President. I think that that criticism has borne fruit in that he certainly doesn't appear to be up to the job in a number of respects. Well, then why am I to believe that Congressman Ryan has the answers? The man was a speechwriter for Jack Kemp. He's never held executive office. Give me a Chris Christie who can and will wield executive power and the Veto pen. Enough said.

A proposal to balance our budget carries a little more credibility with me when it comes from someone who has actually had to balance a budget and work with a recalcitrant legislature. No sane proposal should ever come without "enemies" on both sides. With sanity comes the hurt, and, brother, we are in for a world of hurt in order to fix what ails us. It's just the repackaging and selling of old snake oil when we pretend there is no hurt due to an out of this world and over the top spending nation of credit card users who have long since maxed out what they can consume and spend. The first politician who says we can fix things without suffering is the last person you'd want to vote for.

Until and unless people have that moment of clarity--we are spending ourselves into oblivion because the political class has promised us everything, delivered nothing, and is accountable only to themselves--and realize that we must cut entitlements, defense spending, and hold taxes at the level they're at, forget it. We will not restore the American dream.