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That's a damned good start. Included in the proposal are cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and spending caps on ALL government programs. Paul Ryan, writing in today's WSJ...

The GOP Path to Prosperity

Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt.

Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year's deficit—is important. It's a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut.

But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act.

No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses. ...
Here are its major components: [editor's emphasis and summary in brackets]

• Reducing spending [freezes domestic spending to below 2008 levels for 5 years]
• Welfare reform [Builds on Clinton's now-shelved reform; sends Medicaid block grants to the States; encourages WORK instead of unceasing benefits; kills Fannie and Freddie; kills any more chances of Fed's bailing out Wall Street; kills 'Green Energy' handouts]
• Health and retirement security [Saves Medicare; doesn't affect current or close-to- retirees; after 2022, new enrollees will have premium-supported plans. Reform Social Security in order to save it.]
• Budget enforcement [Budget-process reforms, to stifle the irresponsible spending Congresscritters like to dole out to enhance their re-election bids]
• Tax reform [Streamlining and cutting brackets; top corporate and individual rate 25%; no more loopholes]

We can reform government so that people don't have to reorient their lives for less. We can grow our economy, promote opportunity, and encourage upward mobility. This budget is the new House majority's answer to history's call. It is now up to all of us to keep America exceptional.

This is the best budget to come from any Congress in my memory. Paul Ryan, you are one of the very few elected officials in existence for whom I have a measure of respect.

How many Lefty heads will explode today, do you think? If that sort of money is cut, dirty socialists and moochers would be set back to, oh, to 2008 at least. And we'll finally start the long-needed conversation about Social Security that Barack Obama has dodged for these past 3 years.

Speaking of head-asploding lefties, via Memeorandum, here's the TPM twerp and mental midget extraordinaire Josh Marshall...

Why on earth did the Democrat speaking for the Democrats just now on Hardball say it was "courageous" but "politically stupid" for Paul Ryan to put up a plan to abolish Medicare and other federal social programs? That's the best he can do? "Courageous"? That's simply amazing. If ordinary people who look forward to being able to rely on Medicare once they retire can't even get advocates who don't think it's "courageous" to try to abolish Medicare, why are Democrats even in this game?

You can respect people's contrary opinions. But presumably it's wrong to abolish Medicare because it's wrong. And that Dems are the party who believes it's wrong.

It's a separate matter that so many people are creating this cult about Paul Ryan that he's some sort of visionary leader when he's just putting forward policies that the right of the GOP has been advocating for decades. But really, even the Democrats think that this is "courageous"? I guess in a way it was courageous for the Delaware GOP to run Christine O'Donnell.

Well, you know, there are people (not so many in YOUR party, Josh) who realize that when the money runs out, when the debt bomb asplodes and the U.S. government fails (remember what happened to the Soviet Union? WE are not too big too big to fail, either) there will be NO MONEY for any government programs. We will be living in ruins, in conditions third-worlders would envy.

The time for pandering to moochers for votes is nigh about over. We are spent to disaster; listen to Erskine Bowles tell you the hard truth.

If this budget isn't enacted, we will have collapse. There's no way out. And you can rest assured that every damned one of those congresscritters who will come out screaming about this budget will have an escape hatch planned in advance. The writing on the wall is clearly visible; there’s not enough time or wiggle room left to steer this massive sinking vessel that is the USA to safety. What with so many people expecting absolutely nothing to change despite the warnings, what can any but the most drastic political maneuvers do, really?

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Attributed to Ben Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville and/or Alexander Fraser Tytler, that scenario is playing out real-time, every day, when someone gets a 'stupid check' from the government. Both parties share blame; but Democrats are not even trying to stay shy about offering moochers monies for their votes.

I sometimes wonder if any of our political elites deserve anything but the boot.

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