Why Would Anyone Call Congressman Ryan’s Plan "a Budget"?
More on the health-care later, but let me be clear:
Congressman Paul Ryan’s “plan” is NOT a budget.
Budgets show Sources and Uses. As the CBO analysis makes clear, this “budget” is no more a budget than Ryan’s last round of fakery. To wit:
The path for revenues as a percentage of GDP was specified by Chairman Ryan’s staff. The path rises steadily from about 15 percent of GDP in 2010 to 19 percent in 2028 and remains at that level thereafter. There were no specifications of particular revenue provisions that would generate that path. (CBO, page 11; emphasis mine)
This is the equivalent of my current household budget, which is heavily dependent upon winning the lottery sometime in the next three years even though there is no provision for buying tickets.
I’ll call Ryan’s proposal a budget when—as, for instance, Obama’s does—he specifies Sources as well as Uses. Until then:
And, with due respects to the alcoholic lout, sometimes a fantasy is not all you need.
Good question. Too bad it is better directed at the chattering beltway classes who insist on treating this farce as a serious proposal.
Ken, let’s clean up some of the semantics of how the sausage machinery enacts a budget. From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process
We first get a budget request from the president. Done!
The House and Senate then enact: “a Budget resolution
The next step is the drafting of a budget resolution. The United States House Committee on the Budget and the United States Senate Committee on the Budget are responsible for drafting budget resolutions. Following the traditional calendar, by early April both committees finalize their drafts and submit it to their respective floors for consideration and adoption.
A budget resolution, which is one form of a concurrent resolution, binds Congress, but is not a law, and so does not require the President’s signature. The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process. No new spending authority, however, is provided until appropriation bills are enacted.
House Resolution, a blueprint, is done.
Senate Resolution not done.
No point in defining the process any further until we have the Democrats in the Senate to issue their resolution. Democratic budget actions, using recent history as a measure, have been less than timely. Otherwise we wouldn’t be waiting for the remainder of the 2011 legislative budget actions.
So you are absolutley correct! Ryan’s Budget Resolution is not a budget, but a BLUEPRINT, for further legislative actions.
Plenty of angst over SOMEthing, in the face of nothing…
As we all know, the math is juvenile, and though redundant, it’s worth repeating..
As of now, they’re fighting over a few, tens-of-billions of dollars of budget cuts; from a $3.7 trillion budget; under a $15T debt.
Wanna do household comparisons.. lottery aside ??
A home with $250,000 income, is planning on spending $350,000 this year.. and they already have $1,300,000 mortgae on a $300,000 home, with a few hundred thousand on run-up credit cards….
And they’re squibling about whether or not to they should go out for a fast-food meal..
We should all be outraged and insulted.
OH.. as for taking any of this seriously… As “extreme” as Ryan’s plan might sound.. even IT would take a few decades to get us pointed in the right direction..
Any sane person was worried about a debt that was HALF of what it is now, just a few years ago.. if nothing else, it’s an “intervention”
CoRev is correct: it is a SPENDING plan, and a detailed one at that.
Tax revenues have been remarkably consistent as a percent of GDP. So much so that they call it Hauser’s Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser's_Law
So Ryan just uses this to approximate revenues. What is so wrong with using this as an assumption?
Sammy, it’s not a Dem assumption.
this (Ryan’s) plan is nothing more than a way to move the topic/focus, Overton Window even further right, so the unthinkable becomes more acceptable.
and Obama will buy it lock stock and barrel along with the rest of the Democrats.
America at its’ finest imperial depths of amorality.
Your’re obviously not familiar with how the Paul Ryan does his econometric analysis. Let me explain. It goes something like this:
Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
http://www.viddler.com/explore/loopytube/videos/644
Hauser’s “law” has been debunked numerous times:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/78256-lying-with-charts-wsj-edition
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/andrew-samwick/329/beyond-awful-wall-street-journal
http://elidourado.com/blog/debunking-hausers-law/
It’s about as much a “law” as Ryan’s plan is a “budget”.
Mark, after reading your references, now probably the third time, I hope you realize they DO NOT disprove Hauser’s Law, ” federal tax revenues since World War II have always been approximately equal to 19.5% of GDP, regardless of wide fluctuations in the marginal tax rate.[1]”
Your third reference does not actually reference “federal tax revenues”.
Your reference two does not address the period since World War II.
Your first reference may actually explain why Hauser was correct by defining the changing tax structure, while showing relatively stable revenue totals. BTW, the graphs in this article are horribly misleading. Deliberate?
Color me unimpressed with your research.
I read Mish everyday based on the way he approaches claims to truth we often hear in the media and stats tossed out. He then can re-visit his numbers in a separate post….
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/04/challenge-to-heritage-foundation.html
The Heritage foundation blew it with Ryan and their ‘model’. But that is for another day.
John Cassidy has a piece on ‘at least it was said out loud’. I put the link on open thread I think. It is too bad this important issue is so overlayed with other agendas.
Mike Shedlock (Mish) provided his analysis early on April 8. What he didn’t mention nor has Paul Krugman to my knowledge is the fact that the Heritage Foundation provided an update of its unemployment numbers originally provided to Chairman Ryan. The update was provided to Chairman Ryan on April 6, 5:03 PM.
I am disappointed in the ongoing commentary about Heritage’s analysis whenever the writers fail to note that Heritage provided an update for that column of data to Chairman Ryan. Whether that is an intentional oversight or pure research laziness on the part of such writers is unknown.
The problem I have with Heritage is that it’s Center for Data Analysis modified a pdf presentation dated April 5 and did not change the date of the pdf or provide a link to the corrected data in the original “modified” file. I thought the point of using pdfs was to provide data or information in a secure format that supposedly couldn’t be modified. Heritage has demonstrated that it doesn’t abide by that data protection or presentation policy internally.
I don’t know if the problem is with the model used by Heritage as it is a commonly used model in economic circles or in the input data. The general public doesn’t have access to the input data as Heritage and Chairman Ryan’s staff haven’t provided it.
I’ll post more information on this issue later on.