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James Pethokoukis reacts to the claim by some hack that Paul Ryan is not serious.
Paul Krugman attacks Paul Ryan as an “unserious man” because, as Krugman does the math, the Ryan budget plan doesn’t add up. Using Tax Policy Center data, Krugman says Ryan’s tax reform would lose $4.3 trillion over the next decade while his budget cuts would only save $1.7 trillion. “Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars,” Krugman writes in his New York Times column today.
Now let’s recall that referring to this budget, the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said the following:
As with last year’s budget, Chairman Ryan deserves a lot of credit for his proposals to get spending under control over the long-term. Even taking out any claimed savings from no doc fixes and leaving in the sequester, the House Republican budget still looks better than most other prominent plans out there by putting debt on a clear downward path — a very encouraging element of the plan.
But that’s an appeal to authority. Let appeal to math and economics instead. …
Commenter on Ace of Spades Blog lets fly.
As a small business owner all I can say is that I think the current sentiment in the small business community is that we didn’t sign up for this shit. Y’all can vote for whatever the hell you want but we are not going to be a part of it.
I have seen more owners get out of the business or retire in the past couple of years than ever before and with the ACA on the horizon the jobs these businesses produced will not be replaced. The economics no longer work. This is why unemployment is always so high in socialist countries. What you have to go through to have employees is just brutal.
But here’s the thing about what Obama said — he has it exactly backwards. The government didn’t build any of that shit he is talking about — we built it. We are the ones who paid for it. Not only did we build our businesses we built the schools and the roads and everything else he thinks was generated out of thin air. If you want to get technical about it the businesses and taxpayers that came along before we did built it all and now we are building what comes next.
And not only that, but we did it with the albatross of a predatory, corrupt and overbearing government hanging around our necks at every juncture.
And now we have had enough.
I haven’t made more than $50k from my business but one or two years of the past 15. But now that it is time to cash out after providing literally hundreds of jobs I get the stink eye and get castigated for being a member of the 1%. Even though I can remember sitting on the edge of the bed and holding my head in my hands wondering what I had done risking everything I had to create a business and wondering how it would all work out when I had just finished working several days in a row with no sleep…
Breitbart post on how Valerie Jarrett runs the government.
During a presentation at the Wall Street Journal’s “CEO Council” in November 2011, Democrat Erskine Bowles placed blame for the failure of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform on a “cabal” of Chicago politicians surrounding President Obama. Bowles said the group convinced Obama to stand aside and let Rep. Paul Ryan lead the way on budget reform in order to gain a political advantage over Republicans.
In November 2011, The Wall Street Journal assembled over 100 CEOs of top companies to hear from political leaders on a range of financial topics. There were dozens of featured speakers from both sides of the aisle including Eric Cantor, Timothy Geithner, Jon Huntsman, Jack Lew, Paul Ryan and both co-chairs of the Simpson Bowles commission. During their presentation, the two men were asked why their recommendations were not adopted or advanced by the President.
Bob Reynolds, Putnam Investments: Your presidential commission delivered your report in December. How surprised were you that your commission gave the president tremendous coverage to do something, and it wasn’t even mentioned in the State of the Union?
Erskine Bowles: If you think you were surprised, you should have looked at us. I negotiated the budget for President Clinton. And every investment banker will tell you the key to success is knowing your client and defining success up front. So, I knew what success was on his part, and I could go in there and negotiate the deal. I did not know President Obama, and neither did Alan. So, we spent a tremendous amount of time with him and his economic team up front defining success. And we negotiated a deal that got a majority of Republicans to vote for it, so he had plenty of cover on the other side. It also exceeded every single one of the goals that he had given us. I fully expected them to grab hold of this. If it had been President Clinton, he would have said, “God, I created this, this is wonderful. It was all my idea.” So we were really surprised.
My belief is that most of the members of the economic team strongly supported it. Like every White House, there’s a small cabal of people that surround the president that he trusts and works with, and I believe it was those Chicago guys, the political team that convinced him that it would be smarter for him to wait and let Paul Ryan go first, and then he would look like the sensible guy in the game. …
John Podhoretz on Todd Akin.
On Sunday, a six-term Congressman from Missouri running as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate went on a newsmaker program and, in defense of his pro-life views, reported that doctors say the body of a woman who has suffered a “legitimate rape” will somehow contrive to prevent a pregnancy: “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The moral, intellectual, and spiritual ignoramus who spoke those words is Todd Akin. He won the Missouri primary two weeks ago in a three-way race against two other conservatives, taking 36 percent of the vote—his two major rivals together won about 60 percent. He was supported in his bid by, among others, the Democrats who believed he would be the weakest candidate to face incumbent Claire McCaskill, widely viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent running for Senate this year. They ran ads attacking his rivals and helped him prevail.
Smart move. Akin is likely to join a list of Republican primary winners who have seized defeat from the jaws of victory …
In Contentions, Bethany Mandel says the Akin/Biden flaps highlight the difference between the parties.
This month two prominent politicians have said remarkably stupid things: Vice President Joe Biden warned that Republicans were going to put a largely black crowd “back into chains” and the Republican running for the Missouri Senate said that women who experienced “legitimate rape” could naturally prevent pregnancy. Both statements were incredibly stupid, even for politicians, and were the definition of offensive; but the responses of each party highlights their differences quite clearly. …
How about something important? Cincinnati Reds have a rabbit in the minors who’ll come to the Show in 2014 or maybe late 2013. In the meantime the NY Times says Billy Hamilton’s making waves.
… Tales of Hamilton’s incredible speed are collected and passed around the lower levels of the game the way folks used to tell stories of the great Negro leagues speedster Cool Papa Bell, who was said to be so fast he could hit a grounder through the box and be hit by the ball as he slid into second base.
In Bakersfield, Calif., Hamilton scored on a sacrifice fly — to the second baseman. He also scored from third when the catcher threw to first to complete a strikeout. In high school, Hamilton once made a fine running catch on the warning track. Not so unusual, except he was playing shortstop at the time.
If feats of prodigious strength are considered Bunyonesque, then deeds featuring incredible speed must be considered Hamiltonian.
“He did something every day that made me raise my eyebrows,” said Delino DeShields, the former Montreal Expos speedster who managed Hamilton at Dayton in 2011, when Hamilton stole a mere 103 bases.
When Hamilton strolls languidly to the plate, the whole ballpark takes note. Infielders move in, knowing they will have to hurry throws to get Hamilton on a grounder. Fans sit up straight. Even the broadcasters pay closer attention.
“The phrase I use is ‘heightened sense of awareness,’ ” said the Pensacola radio announcer Tommy Thrall, who has had to adjust to the buzz Hamilton provides with every at-bat.
During a recent inside-the-park homer hit by Hamilton, Thrall looked to second to spot the dashing player, only to find “he was already rounding third.”
Hamilton grew up in Taylorsville, Miss., roughly midway between Jackson and Hattiesburg. A superb all-around athlete, he nearly went to Mississippi State in the Southeastern Conference to play wide receiver, until his mother stepped in.
“That’s her baby, and she had seen those big dudes in the SEC,” said Hamilton, who talks almost as fast as he runs.
The Reds picked Hamilton, who taught himself to switch-hit upon joining the organization, in the second round of the 2009 draft. While he has fulfilled his promise on the basepaths, Hamilton has also been steady at the plate, hitting .303 through Sunday. He is purely a slap hitter at this stage — of his 40 hits with Pensacola, all but nine have been singles — but makes up for it with patience and a good eye at the plate, and his walk totals have added about 100 points to his on-base percentage, which is .406. He is on track to join the major league club by 2014. …