Let's just say it was entirely predictable

Now before we begin this discussion … let's point out that there is only one political party in Washington pushing for any spending cuts. Only one. And that is the Republican party. Obummer's budget even calls for spending increases. The only reason the Democrats are even willing to address spending cuts is because the Republicans – and the tea parties – have dragged them kicking and screaming to the issue. In Washington DC money equals power. When you take money away from politicians you take away their power. There are some politicians in Washington who will jeopardize the future of this country in order to maintain their power … and there are some who actually take their responsibilities to our children and future generations seriously. You figure out which is which.
Sadly, there are far too many Americans who believe that all we really have to do in order to balance our budget is to cut foreign aid and make the evil rich pay their "fair share" in taxes. More on that coming up …
The reality is that even if the federal government got rid of all foreign aid and earmarks, "we'd still have a huge problem, because most of our budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending, about 70 percent of the budget. Everything else we do is only about 30 percent of the budget." That's not a quote from Rep. Paul Ryan who just proposed his budget plan. That's not even a quote from a Republican. That's a quote from Barack Obama, our esteemed Community Organizer. I bring this up to show that Democrats, including Obama, are aware that entitlement spending is perhaps THE issue we are facing fiscally.
Now we have someone who has actually faced reality and come forth with a plan to do something about our debt and spending crisis … and a crisis it is! So somebody actually stands up and proposes we do something about it. That person was Rep. Paul Ryan. He suggests changing the way Medicaid and Medicare are funded and administered, putting more power back into the hands of the states. Uh oh. There's that power thing again. Taking power away from Washington and sending it back to your local government? Takes a rare breed of Washington politician to go along with that idea. Ryan doesn't even touch Social Security. But based on the reaction from Democrats and the media, you would think that he wanted to completely scrap entitlements in this country and "give" all of that money to rich people and corporations.
I'm serious, folks. Have you seen some of the reaction over the last 24 hours? Well let me give you a few of the highlights .. just in case.
- Princess Pelosi tweeted that Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal "is a path to poverty for America's seniors and children and a road to riches for big oil."
How childish – and how typically Pelosian. How absolutely ignorant must she believe her Twitter followers to be. "A path to poverty?" Letting the states administer these programs instead of the federal government leads us to poverty? Just because the federal government would play less of a role in Medicare and Medicaid doesn't mean that millions of Americans are going to be left destitute. It means that programs like Medicaid will be allowed to function more efficiently by spending money based on its states needs. It would give seniors under Medicare the freedom to purchase their own health insurance with a premium-support program. Choice! What an amazing concept! A retired person would be able to look at their own financial and health situation and select a program that best suits their needs! Democrats hate this, of course, because only Democrats can determine what these Seniors need. Giving people the power to chose leads them to poverty. Yeah .. right.
This country was founded on the principles of freedom and individual choice, and based on these ideals has created more wealth and opportunity than any other nation on the free planet. I don't buy this "Americans will end up poor if the federal government doesn't provide and make their choices for them" yak squeeze. And as for the "road to riches for big oil" .. I can only assume that Pelosi is referring to Ryan's plan to cap corporate tax rates at 25%. Understand something about Nancy Pelosi .. any money earned by a corporation does not belong to that corporation but belongs to the government and the government then decides how much of that money the corporation can keep. If the corporation is "allowed" to keep more of its money, this means .. in the bizarro liberal world according to Nancy Pelosi .. that we are "giving" money to these corporations. Got it?
- Illinois Democrat Senator Dick Durbin says, "When he doesn't address savings in the Department of Defense and doesn't deal with revenue, it results in dramatic cuts in Medicare benefits and Medicaid services."
In part, I agree; Ryan's plan does little to tackle defense spending (which has doubled over the last ten years) except to adopt Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon. There's plenty of excess in the Pentagon budget and military spending should not be treated as a sacred cow (no offense meant to the computer tech support industry.) But let's address this "doesn't deal with revenue" comment. When Dick Durbin says "deal with revenue," this is a code phrase for: "Ryan's plan doesn't increase taxes on the filthy, disgusting rich." On Meet the Press this week Durbin said that he was upset that the impending GOP budget, does "not imposing any new sacrifice on the wealthiest Americans." Remember … and I'll repeat this a few times today … the top 50% of Americans pay all of the individual income taxes, and the top 1% pay 40% of those taxes. When the top 1% of income earners are paying 40% of all personal income taxes I would say that the level of sacrifice is getting on up there. Doesn't matter to Democrats though .. .there's always more blood that can be drawn.
Democrats don't like to hear it .. but we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. You'll see what I mean elsewhere in the Nuze. You generate more revenue for government by growing and expanding the economy .. and under Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, the Heritage Foundation estimates that we would see $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year. Could you use that $1000?
- Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee:
"it is not courageous to protect tax breaks for millionaires, oil companies and other big-money special interests while slashing our investment in education, ending the current health care guarantees for seniors on Medicare, and denying health care coverage to tens of millions of Americans."
Again, note the language: "tax breaks for millionaires, oil companies and other big-money special interests." Tax breaks for millionaires? What is he talking about? Oh .. I remember! Not raising taxes on households and small businesses with over $250,000 in taxable income. Those people are "millionaires." At least Van Hollen didn't say "millionaires and billionaires." That's the new Democrat line, you know. I've made it clear that I do not support corporate welfare, but I also don't support the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. But what Ryan's budget does address are these asinine ethanol subsidies .. that charade would end. Oh and as for "slashing out investment in education," that should read: losing our re-election campaign funds from the teachers unions.
- Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow: (I'm sorry, but this insipid woman puts a new definition to "idiot.") "Pulling the rug out from under seniors who have paid into Medicare and Social Security their entire lives is wrong, and extreme plans that dismantle benefits seniors have earned will not pass the Senate."
Did this woman even read the proposal .. a summary .. anything? Or is it one of those things where we would have to pass the budget in order to find out what's in it? That seemed to work for Princess Pelosi. But Ryan's plan doesn't even touch Social Security and Medicare would still exist but would allow for seniors to have more choice over their health insurance options. Wow, talk about "extreme!"
- Democrat Senator Tom Harkin:"House Republicans are taking a meat ax to programs for the middle class, and especially our senior citizens – everything from cancer research to Pell Grants to Medicare. It's the same game plan: Give huge tax cuts to the wealthy, and give budget cuts to the middle class and the most vulnerable people in our society, including seniors and people with disabilities."
The Democrats will not be able to get over the fact that Paul Ryan's budget caps the top corporate and income tax rates at 25%. Let me remind you of these three historical lessons of lowering tax rates. In each case - the tax cuts of the 1920s, the Kennedy tax cuts, and the Reagan tax cuts – the top tax brackets were slashed and revenues increased big time.
- Democrat Senator Tom Harkin, again … "This new tea party budget proposal gives new meaning to the term extreme and it represents an assault on the middle class in Iowa and around the country that is breathtaking both in both scope and depth. It could not come at a worse time for working Americans, who are already under enormous strain.
There it is again! "Extreme." Oh, that's right. Almost forgot. Chuckie Schumer did instruct Democrats that they're supposed to use the word "extreme" in referring to Republican budget cut ideas. Other talking points to look out for in this debate: assault, draconian and pull the rug out.
- Iowa Democrat Congressman Bruce Braley:"What really got us into this fiscal mess was letting Wall Street run wild, fighting multiple wars for a decade at a time, and giving the very wealthiest Americans every possible break. Iowans didn't create this deficit or double the debt – but politicians want them to be on the hook for the all of it. That's just not right."
Actually …. you people in Iowa, and every other person who votes in this country, are responsible. You DID create this deficit. You created it because you continued to elect people into office who spent this money, grew the size of government and looted for the purposes of wealth redistribution. You helped to create it by Democrats to Washington who protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Bush 41s reform efforts. Nobody told you that you had to keep putting these people in office. You could have held them accountable. But you didn't and now you will pay the consequences.
- Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver already managed to make this budget about .. you guessed it .. race! He says, "It's clearly a nervous breakdown on paper and it will do enormous damage, I think, to the vulnerable populations of this country. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Ryan wants to do damage but it is doing damage nonetheless. And when you consider the unemployment rate for African Americans is reaching a 25-year high, it's 15.5 percent and rising, and that means that the people who are going to be impacted by layoffs, for example, particularly in the public sector, are going to be minorities. Minorities make up one-fourth of the federal workforce. They did that because they figured if they can work for the federal government there will be less opportunity for somebody to discriminate against them."
So now we can't cut the size of our government because it will negatively impact blacks in this country. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver seems to hold a rather low opinion of blacks in this country to suggest that they need the federal government to provide them jobs, otherwise they will not be able to make something of themselves in the private sector. Two words: "Work ethic."