Credit where credit is do

I am one of those people who constantly says that Republicans have offered precious little in the way of actual substantive policy prescriptions during this trying times. So though I vehemently disagree with it, I have to point out that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), actually provided a very detailed budget proposal.

Ezra Klein does an excellent job of relating the salient points here, and even has an interview with Rep. Ryan here. As I have said, I do not agree with it, but at least it is a fully realized plan with actual numbers, and proposes actual cuts in spending. I will turn it over to Mr. Klein:

As you all know by now, the long-term budget deficit is largely driven by health-care costs. To move us to surpluses, Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent. Medicare is privatized. Seniors get a voucher to buy private insurance, and the voucher's growth is far slower than the expected growth of health-care costs. Medicaid is also privatized. The employer tax exclusion is fully eliminated, replaced by a tax credit that grows more slowly than medical costs. And beyond health care, Social Security gets guaranteed, private accounts that CBO says will actually cost more than the present arrangement, further underscoring how ancillary the program is to our budget problem.

After the last couple of years you would think that the topic allowing Wall Street access to Social Security would be verboten. Also with the screams of bloody murder we have seen over last year, with the relatively minor changes the Obama Administration has suggested, it is as Mr. Klein suggested "audacious".

This is at least an idea. The risk it would transfer from the federal government to senors, notwithstanding, it does substantially bend the cost curve.

So as I said, credit where credit is due.

I am happy to see this, in a strictly partisan frame. It does reveal the republican Id, but also shows some of the differences between the parties. Republicans do not even like the flimsy social safety net we have today, as a matter of principle.

-Cheers