The Ryan Plan -- Not Enough
Considering the situation we are in today, the size of government, the level of our debt, the continuous violations of our economic and personal freedoms, free-market advocates should be breathing fire everyday and fight for truly smaller government. This plan isn’t enough.
It doesn’t balance the budget in the next ten years. ...
It will spend $4.9 trillion in 2022. ... That’s only 13 percent less than the president’s plan.
It focuses on a few villains like high-speed rail and the president’s healthcare law but it fails to propose the elimination of programs, agencies, or departments that should be terminated either because they are the responsibility of the state and local governments or the private sector.
It once again fails to reform Social Security. ...
It reneges on sequestration-induced reductions in military spending (it finds the “savings” elsewhere). I think a serious plan would put everything on the table. ...
This plan doesn’t close the emergency loopholes. This means that spending cuts brought about by the BCA caps or the Ryan budget can be easily restored by claiming that the spending is an emergency.
On Medicare reform: Why push off urgent reforms for a decade? ...
This is a good example of dessert-now-spinach-later policy. In this case, however, older people are the only ones eating desert and younger people are left with the spinach and little prospect of any dessert at all.
The proposal includes no credible plan to force future Congresses to implement its reforms.
... Considering the level of compromises and the amount of watering down that Congress will do once they put their hands on this or any budget, the original document should have been much stronger.
via A Critical Look at the Ryan Plan - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online.