Paul Ryan Proposes Serious Budget; The Left Attacks, Offers Nothing

On Tuesday, Congressman Paul Ryan proposed a serious governing document for America, called The Path to Prosperity (read the plan here), it’s a great place to start the national dialogue about so many issues.  The response from the Left is typical.  They have begun to attack Ryan, the GOP and the budget proposal, all of this while never offering a serious proposal of their own.

First, you should read Congressman Ryan’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.

Second, you should read this tweet from Leftist San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi: “The #GOP Ryan budget is a path to poverty for America’s seniors & children and a road to riches for big oil #GOPvalues” When you stop laughing at poor Nancy and her standard madlib, fill in the blank template, you should contact your congressman and make sure they are on board with this budget.

Finally, in my recent posts, I have been calling for Transformational Change. This governing proposal is a small step in the right direction. Government will still play too large a role in our lives under this proposal, but this proposal is a step in the right direction.

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The Examples Just Keep Coming

In my efforts to look at Transformational Change in government, this is an amazing time to be a news junkie and writer. This video below of a speech that Leftist Harry Reid actually delivered in the US Senate chamber, is an opportunity to see the largesse that needs to be cut from the things that the federal government spends money on.

Here is the text of that video so that you can actually see this stupidity:

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1,, eliminates National Public Broadcasting…It eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts. These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

I don’t think you can watch this video, and then read the words, and still believe that government spending is not out of control and that Transformational Change is not needed.

And before you attempt to tell me that we need PBS, NEA, NEH and NPR and all this other nonsense, realize that I don’t want the federal government funding this sort of leftist propaganda in any case. The Constitution does not call for this sort of heavy-handed intervention. If PBS and NPR are so great, let the market place decide that and fund it. Pacifica Radio is also full of leftists who hate America, but unlike NPR and PBS, Pacifica finds fellow travelers to pay the bills. The same should apply to NPR and PBS. It’s time to stop paying for these things. Let’s minimize the functions of government, keep more money in our communities and keep more of our own earnings.

ObamaCare vs. the Post Office – Should Government Handle Either?

There was a great, short post over at The Weekly Standard today that is certainly worth looking at.  So much was said in so little space.

“The problem is, America’s Founders wrote the following words (penned at Independence Hall) into our Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power…To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” Meanwhile, Obamacare may contradict the Founders’ vision of limited government and liberty more completely than any legislation ever passed in our nation’s history. The only good thing about Obamacare is the backlash against it, which has reignited national debate over the proper scope of government and has generated renewed interest in fiscal responsibility, limited government, and our founding principles. But it doesn’t help to advance those principles to suggest that Obamacare is like the Post Office.

It didn’t take 2,700 pages to found the Post Office. The Post Office doesn’t try to run what will soon be one-fifth of our economy. It doesn’t cost more than $2 trillion over ten years. It doesn’t compel Americans to buy health insurance.  It doesn’t consolidate heretofore unthinkable levels of power in the hands of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other unelected officials.”

As my readers know, I think the Post Office has become an unmanageable system for the federal government to handle.  The Post Office has not turned a profit in many years.  But, the larger points here are fantastic and it’s good to see validation for what I’ve been talking about here in previous weeks.

How Many More Ways Could We Possibly Stifle Small Business?

I came across an interesting column today over at OpenMarket.org, discussing how to help small businesses across America. I recommend the entire column, but the three highlighted sections below merit particular attention.

“Paychex, Inc., a payroll service provider that works with many small businesses, recently commissioned a survey. They asked small business owners their thoughts on the economy, and what the biggest obstacles are to growing their businesses. The most common gripe? Regulation. 47 percent of small business owners say that regulations have “slowed or prevented” their business from growing.”

This is where bureaucracy gets in the way of real economic growth. Damn, just get out of the way and let those with initiative and drive and capital investment put people to work.

“If Congress is genuinely interested in helping small businesses while speeding up economic recovery, it’s time for a different approach.”

Can you join me in saying “Transformational Change”?

“Federal regulation alone costs $1.75 trillion to comply with. Congress should lighten the load. 47 percent of small business owners say that regulation has made their business grow more slowly. Letting that 47 percent grow more quickly would go a long way toward getting the economy growing again.”

Almost $2,000,000,000,000 (yes, that’s 12 0’s) just to comply with regulations!

National Start-A-Business Month

I can’t speak to anything specific about LegalZoom.com, I have never used their services and frankly I don’t know anyone else who ever has. But March is National Start-A-Business Month over at LegalZoom. Find out more about it here. Even if it’s just a set of reduced prices for their services, the idea of someone encouraging entrepreneurs to try something new is a good idea to me.

WSJ Blurb – Brief Post for Now

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting little blurb in one of it’s two editorials that I’m going to come back to in an upcoming post, but I figured the blurb was worth posting now.

Medicaid isn’t in trouble because it is badly run, though of course it is. The problem is that it has become so vast and is meant to fill so many political demands that no one can truly control it. Given the Obama Administration’s rigidity, this is not the best reform moment, but unlike his predecessors, Mr. Cuomo seems to recognize that these liabilities can’t be repaired at the margins. The real test will be if he starts to do the politically difficult work of scaling Medicaid down.

My readers will note that their reference to “repaired at the margins” sounds a lot like the “tinkering around the edges” phrase I often use. It all means the same thing. Again, I’ll come back to this editorial in a day or so, but I felt this was worth posting now. The final point of focus, is that Medicaid has simply gotten out of control. As the editorial suggests, this is no time to make marginal changes, to “tinker around the edges”, it’s time for an overhaul. More later.

The Time Is Now

Friends, the time is now, to figure out where this country is headed. I figured I would say this at some point during the Obama Regime’s Reign, but I figured it would be closer to the Marxist-In-Chief’s re-election run, and not now, in February 2011. Shoot, it’s not even April 15th, Tax day. It’s just a Tuesday night in America.

I don’t yet know the format this will take; meaning I don’t know what the blog posts will look like, what the graphics will look like or what the overall approach will be. It might vary and not flow well at all, but the theme will be the same.

The bottom line is, we can no longer continue down our current path as a nation. We cannot keep spending on everything that our government views as necessary for one reason or another. But, saying “stop spending” is not enough. What does that really get us? Cut a few billion dollars here or a few billions dollars there; drops in the ocean. This is what I refer to as using a teaspoon to clear water off the deck of the Titanic.

What we need is transformational change. That means tough decisions. No, it won’t be easy, certainly not as easy as continuing the spending that got us to this point of disaster in the first place. If you want more tax increases, we’ll you’ve gotten them. Have you paid attention to the prices rising all around you? Everything you buy has increased in price since January 20, 2009. So your cost of living has increased, you want to pay more taxes on top of that? What are you getting in return for your taxes each year? Where does is stop? When does it stop? The time is now.

I think the first question needs to be; What do you view as the fundamental role of the federal government? I think we’d all agree that a military is necessary. But, I’m not even willing to make that assumption definite. In my mind, we have to get back to finding out what the basic functions of the federal government need to be, then we build up from there. So, you tell me, let’s start with that.

The time is now.