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Home » On Ryan’s budget: let the games begin

On Ryan’s budget: let the games begin

The New Neo Posted on by

When I first began this blog and resolved to write pretty much every day if I possibly could, my initial worry was that I’d lack for topics. And although I suppose that could still end up happening, so far it’s been the very least of my worries. Far more often the problem has been too many topics, too little time.

Or so many angles and approaches to one topic that writing all of them, or even most of them, would be a full-time job and then some.

For example, with the Ryan budget proposal alone we’ve got quite a variety of opinions, and that’s only the ones cited at memeorandum on one thread; there are more here on the very same page. There’s everything from the predictable Krugman/Yglesias scoffing and ridicule to the also predictable defense from National Review, and so on and so forth with the usual suspects saying the usual things and the usual arguments and counterarguments.

Budget proposals such as Ryan’s, as well as the previous HCR statute that set up Obamacare, are inherently complex things that require not only a fairly good grasp of economics but also make a great many assumptions and projections about the way things will go afterward. This makes them a fertile field for each side to say whatever it wants, sometimes through distortion and even outright lies, sometimes through wishful thinking, and sometimes simply through the different economic theories that underlie the true philosophical differences between left and right.

What’s an ordinary person such as myself, one who is not especially well-versed in economic matters, to do? Read, read, read, and think, think, think, weigh the different points made, as well as trying to go to some of the arguably less-biased sources to try to find what might be the closest thing to an objective opinion out there.

For the latter I sometimes read Megan McCardle, since she’s especially into economic issues and has been mostly somewhat middle of the road. So far she hasn’t done any in-depth analysis of the Ryan proposal; I’m waiting patiently. But here are her first impressions, containing this gem: “As of this evening, the Democratic policy plan consists of yelling ‘You suck!'”

As with McArdle, most commentators are giving general impressions right now rather than delving into the minutiae. This take by James Capretta is pretty good, although I disagree somewhat with his statement that “with a Republican plan on the table, the media will surely start to ask Democrats, ‘Hey, where’s your plan?'” Only the fairer ones will, I predict.

And this piece by Riehan Salam seems to make some interesting and balanced points (he quotes Capretta, as well). Here’s an excerpt from Salam:

We’re seeing a strange political reversal. Republicans haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years when it comes to questions of fiscal sustainability. The classic Republican position has been to call for tax cuts without calling for commensurate cuts to mandatory spending, i.e., the party has advocated shifting the tax burden from today’s workers to future workers, without saying so explicitly. Republicans have had the luxury of taking potshots at Democrats without offering a plausible path to fiscal sustainability of their own. This allowed Democrats to claim to be the more fiscally responsible party, despite the fact that they too were offering a pie-in-the-sky approach, in which hikes in marginal tax rates on high earners were offered as a cure-all.

Now, in contrast, we have prominent Republican legislators getting behind deep cuts in entitlement spending as a strategy for forestalling future tax increases. One could counter by arguing that higher taxes on the non-poor ”” that is, on middle-income as well as high-income households ”” are preferable for reasons X, Y, and Z, and that a centralized approach to cost control is better than a decentralized approach to cost control. We definitely hear the latter argument here and there, at least from left-of-center wonks. But it’s only a doughty handful few critics who explicitly make the case for higher middle-class taxes to fund a progressive welfare state. As Matt Yglesias recently, er, tweeted,

“I think Obama taking all middle class taxes off the table makes something approximating Ryanism inevitable: http://ygl.as/hg0Kdb”

That sounds about right.

So yes, let’s continue the debate about whether Rep. Ryan’s cuts are too deep. But it’s time for the other shoe to drop. If the cuts really are too deep, which taxes should we increase? There is, after all, only so much revenue we can squeeze high-earners.

One thing I’ve noticed already is that many writers call Ryan’s Medicare proposal a voucher program. It is not; it is a premium support program, although how much of a distinction that represents is also up for grabs.

It always especially interests me when either praise or criticism—however slight—comes from unexpected sources. In this case we have liberal Jacob Weisberg in Slate calling the Ryan plan “brave, radical, and smart.” Hmmm (he also says it involves vouchers, but he’s hardly alone in that). Here’s a sample from Weisberg (and note that it includes the very call for an alternative plan from Democrats that Capretta aluded to ):

If the GOP gets behind his proposals in a serious way, it will become for the first time in modern memory an intellectually serious party””one with a coherent vision to match its rhetoric of limited government. Democrats are within their rights to point out the negative effects of Ryan’s proposed cuts on future retirees, working families, and the poor. He was not specific about many of his cuts, and Democrats have a political opportunity in filling in the blanks. But the ball is now in their court, and it will be hard to take them seriously if they don’t respond with their own alternative path to debt reduction and long-term solvency.

And before they reject everything in Ryan’s plan, liberals might want to consider whether some of what he proposes doesn’t in fact serve their own ultimate goals. Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher provides an easy political target. But it’s hard to make a principled liberal case for the program in its current form.

One could spend days just reading the opinions on the plan. But now it’s your turn to add to them—fire away!

[NOTE: By the way, Weisberg writes, “Democrats have been more fiscally responsible, producing an actual budget surplus during Bill Clinton’s second term.”

But Congress was Republican during Clinton’s second term. ]

Comments

On Ryan’s budget: let the games begin — 22 Comments

  1. “’Democrats have been more fiscally responsible, producing an actual budget surplus during Bill Clinton’s second term.’

    But Congress was Republican during Clinton’s second term.”

    Oh, those pesky things called facts!

    But Neo-neocon, as per your opening regardng fear of a lack of topics and the variety of opinions. Please accept our thanks (and I have confidence in speaking for us regular commenters) for your efforts. More than many other blogs I’ve visited and commented on, this site seems to have developed into an extended family of sorts where often contradictory opinions can be argued with both passion and mutual respect.

    The breadth of knowledge and interests of both hostess and guests here is quite astounding. I haven’t yet decided whether this is a reprise of the Algonquin Round Table, or Gertrude Stein’s parlour.

    In a word, “Thanks!”

  2. First off, second T’s thanks.

    Second,

    But Congress was Republican during Clinton’s second term. ]

    Isn’t it amazing how few people – and apparently including virtually no liberals – grasp that it is Congress and not the President who controls the purse strings?

    In debating liberals my exasperation on this point knows no bounds when said liberals will bleat about the respective merits of the Clinton or Bush budgets. Numbskulls, the President asks for money in his budget; Congress decides what he actually gets. Only if the same party controls both houses of Congress and the White House is it legitimate to hold the President responsible for the budget.

    You’d think liberals would grasp this fact, since for decades they’ve advocated that Congressional Democrats defund various Presidential actions they didn’t/don’t like.

    But much like their proposing taxes to discourage, e.g., CO2 emissions, while simultaneously proposing raising business taxes to “create jobs,” they never seem to make the connection between their analysis at time t and that at time t + delta t.

  3. I look forward to a democrat counter proposal. The Ryan plan may be enough to force them to behave like adults. However, (the dread however) with Reid and Pelosi in charge of the respective senate and house democrat caucuses, I do not hold out much hope.

  4. One could spend days just reading the opinions on the plan. But now it’s your turn to add to them–fire away!

    yup!
    dont do anything useful, pretend your in a coffee house in 1933, and your thoughts and ideas and such mean something… for you are the revolution!!!

    otherwise your just pissing in the wind wasting time prattling along… which is what enables them, as they know you will not act! talking is safe, acting, not so.

    and most of the talk is opinion, and has little grounding in history, ideological purpose, and never understands dialectical reasoning, dialoging to consensus, history of manipulators and what they did, and always pretends as if everything that is happening is always natural, and that gamesmen have no effect…

    so it tends to be for consumption..
    like rat poison.

    it never actually gets anywhere, as everyone cant even organize themselves to get anywhere… it just be bops from point to point, with most trying to make some comment to get an atta boy, and entertain themselves…

    it amounts to waiting till we cant talk anymore…

    at least thats how i see it most of the time when it comes to discussing…

    look how long it took for us to even consider that there may be something not nice about our leader and his friends? years?

  5. remember PRAXIS?

    theoria, poiesis and praxis

    Contemplation, deep thought..

    and do we bring up the people who knew these terms and inform? nope…

    Martin Heidegger refers to it as a ‘bringing-forth’, using this term in its widest sense. He explained poiesis as the blooming of the blossom, the coming-out of a butterfly from a cocoon, the plummeting of a waterfall when the snow begins to melt. The last two analogies underline Heidegger’s example of a threshold occasion: a moment of ecstasis when something moves away from its standing as one thing to become another.

    His best-known book, Being and Time, is considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century [4] and he has been influential beyond philosophy, in literature,[5] psychology,[6] and artificial intelligence.[7] Heidegger remains controversial due to his involvement with Nazism and statements in support of Adolf Hitler.

    The 19th century socialist Antonio Labriola called Marxism the Philosophy of praxis. Marx himself also alluded to this concept in his Theses on Feuerbach when he stated that “philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Simply put, Marx felt that philosophy’s validity was in how it informed action.

    Georg Luké¡cs held that the task of political organization is to establish professional discipline over everyday political praxis, consciously designing the form of mediation best suited to clear interactions between theory and practice.

    hey! those same names i keep bringing up.

    maybe one day, when the communists have control, we will ALL HAVE to read them and then understand. until then, lets just make up stuff, and play pretend…

    In her The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt argues that Western philosophy too often has focused on the contemplative life (vita contemplativa) and has neglected the active life (vita activa). This has led humanity to frequently miss much of the everyday relevance of philosophical ideas to real life.[2] [3] Arendt calls “praxis” the highest and most important level of the active life.[4] Thus, she argues that more philosophers need to engage in everyday political action or praxis, which she sees as the true realization of human freedom.[5] According to Arendt, our capacity to analyze ideas, wrestle with them, and engage in active praxis is what makes us uniquely human.

    “Arendt’s theory of action and her revival of the ancient notion of praxis represent one of the most original contributions to twentieth century political thought.”[6] “Moreover, by viewing action as a mode of human togetherness, Arendt is able to develop a conception of participatory democracy which stands in direct contrast to the bureaucratized and elitist forms of politics so characteristic of the modern epoch.”[7]

    hey! and while we complain about schools too.

    Praxis is used by educators to describe a recurring passage through a cyclical process of experiential learning, such as the cycle described and popularised by David A. Kolb.[8]

    Paulo Freire defines praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.” Through praxis, oppressed people can acquire a critical awareness of their own condition, and, with their allies, struggle for liberation.[9]

    so really… can you all sit around and discuss a card game in which you don’t know the players, don’t know the rules, don’t know the game at all..

    but yet, everyone talking talks as if they are EXPERTS, and when someone points the obvious out, what is the response? do they go learn? no. do they at least read? no, they in fact want it all cut down to clever sound bites that entertain. kind of shows you how important their lives are to themselves.

    Praxis is also used in schools of community education, basically, practise and reflection.

    In social work theory, praxis is the reflexive relationship between theories and action. It describes a cyclical process of social work interactions developing new theories and refining old ones, as well as theories directing the delivery of social work interactions.

    ie… designing and making new experiments to subject common people to in mass, so you dont need permission… you just see what happens after they impose some change to the rules. like now with health care in england…

    or when they come up with several educational pedagogies, and impose that on the children and then see what happens…

    at least mengele was honest…

  6. What I understand Art to say is, “Do something, no more talk.” I agree.

    There are not a lot of cards for us to play, budgetwise. Zip, nada from the Dems or Baraq Hussein.
    The voting public cannot put a card on the table. Neither can us smarties here assembled.

    What we have are 1) the Ryan plan; 2) legislative sausage of dubious quality; or 3) the Baraqis left in ruinous charge.

    I’m done. I’m going with 1), praying we get it; then on to Round Two.

  7. through praxis as freire poitns out, women suddenly became aware that for millions of years the people they chose as mates and helpmeets were their enemy and that the world would be much better without them. and even through praxis learned that no woman should bear children since no man does.

    the rest was history…

    When a young woman married in the early years of the Roman Republic she left her childhood home and the authority of her father and entered not only the home of her husband but his power and control as well. In law her status was not very different from that of her husband’s daughter. As Rome’s empire grew and more and more money poured in things began to change. Any amendments to the law probably seemed quite insignificant at the time they were made, but the reality of day to day life gradually began to transform the way society viewed women and the way they viewed themselves. By the end of the First Century women had achieved a level of freedom they would not see again in Western Society until the last half of the Twentieth Century.

    and why did they not see it again?
    because of what they did with it… just like today..

    Life was hard in the Ancient World and death, disease and hunger lurked around every corner. If told about the new liberty for women, those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder would have laughed and said it did not apply to them for they were too busy earning a living to take advantage of whatever liberation was going on elsewhere in society. Outside of the lower classes women could not work but they did not want to do so either. In fact “work” was seen as something to be done by slaves and low class people who did not know any better. Nevertheless women were demanding and getting greater freedom. Some men objected, of course, but their cries of protest were in vain. Emperor Augustus introduced a series of laws to promote traditional values but even he was unable to stem the tide of progress.

    Many Athenian men seem to have regarded their wives as at best essential inconveniences, but Roman men placed a very high value on marriage, home and the family and this made quite a difference to society’s treatment of women. At no time in Rome’s history were women allowed to hold public office or work in the government. In the early days of the Republic women were not even allowed to make suggestions, but by the beginning of the Empire many men were seeking and even following the advice of their wives. It was all right to do so, provided the advice was given in private and the husband did not make a big deal of it. Respectable women were not supposed to be wandering around alone outside, but somehow they managed to have a life beyond the home.

    and from that point on… rome declined and fell, hoards of multicultural immigrants moved in, the place fell apart..

    kind of like what we just did over the past 40 years..

    we built a vibrant western society of freedom and plenty, and once we had all that, who THEN steps up to play? after how many millions of men died to make it?

    this whole budget game reminds me of a man whose wife is liberated and she is spending more money than he can make. if he tries to tell her no, she says he is oppressing her and so on… if he uses force to stop her, then what?

    we are in the exact position as a feminized party are doing the same thing as the liberated woman who has a bottomless hunger to shop.

    now what is the outcome for both?

    in the old days, he would dump her and save the family… but thats not allowed.

    so what can they do? nothing… just let her tear it all apart, and hope she comes to her senses before the end while there is still something left.

    but alas… the left is already winking and making eyes at the strong men of the world with values and ready to defend them… islam.

    so like in rome..

    women will lose the freedom that the men were able to make for everyone.

    no one can stop this but them…

    anything that may seem to stop it, is only holding back the tide… they are the tide…

  8. Islam who mistreats women, is about to replace western culture that revered them.

    why?

    because the respect the men in the west had for women, allowed outsiders to capture their minds, and hearts and give them ideas like your mates are all rapists..

    the disrespect and such allowed islam to actually NOT progress…

    now many would say thats bad..

    but Rome progressed… into the dark ages..

    Charlemagne and the church repaired it after a thousand years or so.

    and now the west, abandoning the ideas, morals, ethics and so forth… (which was copied from Rome and expanded), are progressing…

    into a dark age..

    and who has remained whole, true to their faith, and now can overturn a modern state?

    how can that be so? well ask the veil wearing women of now, code pink, etc.

  9. It’s not necessary to minutia-ize! The mere fact that tea party Republicans are involved helps. Not enough to be sure, but it helps. It’s like when an adult appears and even the children are happy because they have grown tired of chaos. (Note: that doesn’t mean the die-hard progressives are children in this metaphor. They are more like infants who will never stop crying)

    Now, if anything adult and responsible is passed, that is the first step towards salvation because it will signal to the investors that it is okay to invest again. Then, a new energy policy. And we’re on our way. But along with these practical national policies we are going to have to win the war with teaching the next generation. We are so close (Prosser losing by a thread!) to losing the majority who has wisdom.

    Personally, I think good things are going to happen because we are going to suffer a financial disaster. We don’t have to but we will because the force of the progressives plus RINO’s is greater than the tea party force. Therefore, the education will occur and experience will be the educator. Who will survive lean times? The progressives? No. This is a case where natural selection will cull out the lazy, irresponsible, and stupid.

  10. Artfldgr: no, it didn’t take us years. Many many people on this blog noticed long before the election that there was something “not nice” about Obama and his friends.

    Reverend Wright, for example, and Bill Ayers, were being discussed fairly early in Obama’s campaign. I wrote quite a bit about what Obama did to Alice Palmer in the early days.

    The MSM may have worked very hard to pooh-pooh the connections, but the right side of the blogosphere and the media tried to get the word out. That includes this blog and many of its commenters.

  12. I third what “T” said (OB already seconded).

    Off-topic, but I should say here that for all paying attention (or arguing on one side or the other) to the running discussion between T and myself about the “firmness” remaining in the American majority, there was a good test case last night in the Prosser/Kloppenburg election in Wisconsin.

    I would say that even if Prosser loses, as now seems likely, the outcome suggests a lot more firmness than I expected to see (I would have predicted a 2-4% Kloppenburg win).

    So in the spirit of free and fair accounting, T proved more correct than me on this one. If it’s any indication of the national scene, things are much closer than I’ve been assuming.

    Oh, and needless to say, as I always add, I’m overjoyed to be losing this argument.

    T – onward to victory!

  13. Tom says, ” ‘Democrats have been more fiscally responsible, producing an actual budget surplus during Bill Clinton’s second term.’ But Congress was Republican during Clinton’s second term.” Oh, those pesky things called facts!”

    Ahh, and even that iconic budget surplus was an illusion. It was a house of cards built by spending every single dime taken in from social security payroll deductions and issuing the SS administration a worthless IOU. In reality, there was no Clinton surplus.

    Occam says, “Numbskulls, the President asks for money in his budget; Congress decides what he actually gets. Only if the same party controls both houses of Congress and the White House is it legitimate to hold the President responsible for the budget.”

    Numbskulls indeed. Yet, I do object. No matter what the party affiliation of the president might be, the house still holds the power of the purse strings. That is the essence of the separation of powers.

    Artfldger says, “and now the west, abandoning the ideas, morals, ethics and so forth… (which was copied from Rome and expanded), are progressing…into a dark age..”

    We’re on the same page on this fragment. I hope its not too late to change course, but fear there will be no effort made to put shoulders to the grind stone.

    Curtis says, “Personally, I think good things are going to happen because we are going to suffer a financial disaster. We don’t have to but we will because the force of the progressives plus RINO’s is greater than the tea party force. Therefore, the education will occur and experience will be the educator. Who will survive lean times? The progressives? No. This is a case where natural selection will cull out the lazy, irresponsible, and stupid.”

    I agree this is a probable (but not the only possible) scenario. However, an economic collapse within the next 3 to 10 years will not even remotely resemble the 1930s. Society is different now. It will be painful, violent, and extremely ugly far beyond the last depression. And it will last longer because there will be no one left standing to start another world war.

    Oldflyer: Please note the above comments are merely my opinion, I’m not an expert. 😉

  14. I must speak to Neo’s comparison of the Ryan Plan with the HCR bill; she says in part, above, “Budget proposals such as Ryan’s, as well as the previous HCR statute that set up Obamacare, are inherently complex things….”

    HCR was >2000 pages of statutory prose, deliberately indecipherable, even to the Congresscritters who voted it in.

    Ryan’s text is straightforward, lucid, plain English.

    It never hurts to have a handle on basic economics when deliberating economic matters, but if one has that, it is wonderfully straightforward. Which is why the Dems are demagogueing the hell out of it. It is NOT complex; not at all.

  16. Parker,

    Regarding no effort made to put shoulder to grindstone, see Wisconsin. Even after the left engaged in a scurrilous campaign and thugish tactics to secure a Kloppenberg win, she only won by 234 votes out of 1.4 million votes cast, if she won at all (wouldn’t a reverse Franken decision be sweet here?). And this was the left’s best result in a state considered a progressive citadel.

    The war is not won, even the battle is not yet over, but I submit that the message is getting out. I keep thinking about Adm Yamamoto’s words after Pearl Harbor (“We have awakened a sleeping giant.”). Here’s hoping that the left has no conception of the sleeping giant it has been kicking, and here’s hoping that the sleeping giant is, indeed, awake.

  18. T says, “Adm Yamamoto’s words after Pearl Harbor (”We have awakened a sleeping giant.”).”

    Lets hope so.

  19. neo, i was more referring to people like Hux, who kept the doubt going far longer in the interest of looking like the calm, smart, reserved thinking man…

  20. An aside comment: One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how people will include themselves in a group in a conversation of which if you ask, they obviously dont belong.

    so if i say that we didnt know for years, i am pointing out a critical level of homogeneity on the issue across a majority accepting and wanting to proceed to the next point.

    if you were one of the people who DID see something wrong, why include yourself in the set that didn’t then proceed to correct me when no one ever meant the people in the other set of those knowing.

    you talk about the cannibals, and someon pipes up that they re not a cannibal, and so blah blah. i guess narcisism of the cultural kind makes everyone think your talking directly to them and about them all the time, and cant accept that another group defined by some point is the focus of loci of discussion.

    this happens most when it comes to ideology, and describing some negative aspect of something that someone partially supported (as if you can support an elephants tail and not be responsible for the trunk)

    i will report that feminists – not women who say they are feminists, not women who aling themselves with feminists, not women who are weekend warriors for the cause, not the common woman who cares not, not the non left women, but real femnists, ie LEADERS who define the ideology, support its core definitions, organize the rabble, promote law changes, advocacy judges, etc…

    the knee jerk reaction that is most common is to equate women and feminism as if they are the same, and as if there are no other kinds of REAL women…

    ie… your either a feminist or your not a woman, because all women are feminists because feminism IS woman, and nothing outside of it can be.

    personally i think that the VAST majority do NOT follow such a tenet at all. so right there, they can weed themselves out of being the subject of my derision, as they are not even in the sights.

    the idea of a personal version which you get to pick and choose what parts you like so you can support something that if you looked at as a whole, would be horrified is a unhealthy way to negate responsibility in the world (and to have some allegiance to something else when there are no allowed alternatives which women are not attacked!)

    your not a member of a group if your not sharing the defined tenets and goals fo that group. there is no such thing as going along for a partial ride when there are no alternatives. if that’s the case, better support yourself, your family, your local friends and have no big group that uses your power to do things you don’t like because you like one aspect of it.

    like accepting all that a pseudo deity like Satan does because you like his wings and ignore everything else about the whole.

    [and i use that being because he is commonly known, we can use Oni if your japanese, or any number of things – its not the point]

    a christian who calls themselves catholic then marches up for sacrament because THEY believe they should not be denied such because they don’t agree with how the institution should be run and what tenets it has.

    the same trivialization of meaning can be seen in the movie, eat drink pray love (or something like that).

    imagine that worshipping baal was acceptable again.

    can you see how people would say “you know, i really dont agree with the sacrificing of babies, but i support the rest of it”, and how acceptable and normal that becomes?

    it disarms good people from preventing any bad idea from taking hold… it prevents them from the freedom to question and say “your going to do what with the power i give you?” and pretend that a rotten apple is really not rotten because there is this tiny part in which the worms have not crawled.

  21. While I hope Yamamoto’s admonition is correct, I also hope our side takes to heart Tojo’s fear and prepares accordingly. “Near the end of World War II, the Japanese leader Tojo once said that the reason Japan never invaded the mainland of the United States was because ‘there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass’.”

    That ‘behind every blade of grass’ reinforces a commonly held opinion that there is no 1st Amendment without the teeth of the 2nd. I fear, were a serious recession/depression to hit, thanks to the housing bubble, ethanol using up food crops (both animal and human), inflation, electrical/food/fuel shortages, and the whole plethora of horrible scenarios, it will be quite unlike the civil demeanor exhibited by our populace back in ’29 through WWII. My Mom has told me many times of how there was no violence on anything approaching a large scale during the Great Depression. This time it will be different. We have the armed urban gangs, ultimate takers, plus those looking to Uncle Sugar for their handouts/livelihood. Our police this time are mostly unionized, siding with the takers (as we saw in Wisconsin). Were the StoHTF, rhetoric will be quite empty and useless, just as useless as an empty magazine.

    So I do hope the progressives have awaken a sleeping giant, The Silent Majority, and that things can be turned around before a collapse occurs, but I also hope that that Silent Majority is prepared for the worst. Because this time around, it will get real ugly real fast, as we’ve witnessed with the riots in Greece and elsewhere.

  22. Really? Really?? I know that the doomsday rhetoric provides some sort of perverse satisfaction from bolstering yourself to take on the hordes of “the [violent] ultimate takers” (let’s just be frank, and call them black people/Mexicans), but really? Because we all know that liberals have a giant propensity for violence. They love their guns and are constantly threatening “2nd Amendment remedies” to government action they disagree with.

    I’m all for discussion of budget issues and what the nature of federal government should be, but you’re starting to sound like Glenn Beck.

    Also, if you think that either party is actually fiscally conservative or supportive of limited government you are sadly mistaken.

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