The Die is Cast

It seems we have our man with a plan. The Ryan budget doesn't represent the first serious attempt to address the nation's economic woes, the Simpson-Bowles commission was. But the president never endorsed his commission's recommendations. With the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate the Republican nominee has placed himself squarely behind something that looks a lot like Simpson-Bowles. If Romney is elected spending reductions and entitlement reforms assumed in the Ryan budget have a serious chance of becoming law. This election is shaping up to be the sharpest choice in my lifetime.

There is a lot to demagogue and more than a little room for serious debate. US Catholic Bishops have already weighed in with letters to congressional leaders arguing for fewer cuts in welfare programs to be paid for with higher taxes and more cuts in defense spending. That's a reasonable argument but defense spending will be cut in any case, deeply. Do we want to mothball the Navy? This is still a dangerous world and, despite our numerous wars, pax-Americana has been a very real factor in global stability since WWII. And surely this is no time to be raising taxes. Ernst & Young estimate President Obamas proposal to have the wealthy pay their fair share will cost about 700,000 jobs. That may or may not be a good estimate but I can't believe tax increases will stimulate growth.

Jim Wallis on his God's Politics blog calls the Republican budget immoral, paying for tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing benefits for the poor. That sounds more like Harry Reid's politics to me. Democrats wasted no time going after Ryan in a big way but I'm not sure that's such a good idea. They really don't want to talk about the economy. They may just be shifting the discussion back to that, giving Republicans a renewed opportunity to remind people of all these trillion dollar deficits, 8%+ unemployment, sluggish growth projections as far as the eye can see, and what to do about them. With no budget of his own President Obama might much rather have his surrogates accusing Governor Romney of not paying taxes, and of killing cancer patients.

I'd be happy to see the conversation change. I sympathize with the Bishops in their concern for the poor, though not so much with Jim Wallis. Poverty in this country is real and it has gone up, though it can be hard to measure. Some of it is chronic. A lot of people are poor through no fault of their own and even if it is their fault nobody wants to see drug addicts dying under bridges. I don't like cutting anti-poverty programs but I really don't think Mr. Ryan is proposing to introduce the sort of grinding desperation represented by the World Bank standard of subsistence on less than $1.25 per day. We'll still have subsidized housing and food stamps.

What most of our poor really need is a job. Both candidates say they are all about getting the economy moving again and creating said jobs. We now have a plan on the table. I hope we can talk about it in a serious way. I don't hold out much hope for that from the mainstream media, and less from the blogosphere. What I see, hear, and read in the MSM is mostly political gamesmanship, who scored points today. The blogs are worse. They are almost entirely consumed with Wallis style demagoguery.

The think tanks can be useful. Some of them even try to be non-partisan.  It would be helpful if the president had a competing plan. The presidential debates should be interesting. We certainly have something to talk about.