Paul Ryan our new Speaker of the House

I listened to Paul Ryan's speech today. It was nice to be reminded by him how important the House is to the people. We tend to forget this, but the founders made the House the most important of the branches in Section 2 of Article 1, by listing it first. It has the power of the purse, the power to make law, the power to impeach, override vetoes, vote on members of Supreme Court and impeach them. Then the Senate, section 3, which originally were not elected but appointed by the states. Then comes the executive branch, in Article 2, section 1 where the President's duty is explained as Commander in Chief of the military who can make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate and gives occasional speeches to Congress. Then coming in 3rd in power is Article 3, the judicial power, with no mention that they should make law or invent rights as they did in Obergefell decision. The founders did not want the government to control the churches, as it does now, when it tells churches they can’t offer the Gospel if they have food pantries receiving government food, nor did they want the courts to have the power they had in Europe. Instead it was to be power for the people, the House of Representatives.

It was a revolutionary idea in the 18th century—and maybe still is since we haven't been able to hang on to it.

Can Paul Ryan be Speaker of the House?

Glenn Beck is beside himself and full of “righteous anger” (his words) at the freedom caucus for supporting Ryan.  I’m not sure why he thinks Ryan is so bad, but he feels that he (Beck) was lied to when he was asked to get his listeners to support Webster.  Also, why can Ryan be so feisty about family time when he had agreed in 2007 to be the Vice Presidential nominee?  Didn’t he know that was a heart beat from President?

These 13 points are from the Daily Signal. (Heritage Foundation) All are expanded at this link.

1) Abortion: Ryan has supported pro-life legislation and efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. (And that’s basic for my vote.)

2) Budget: Ryan has spearheaded several budget proposals during his time at the House Budget Committee.

3) Education: Ryan voted for No Child Left Behind in 2001 before supporting the A-PLUS Act to give more control over funding to local communities.

4) Energy: Ryan opposed President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade initiative.

5) Financial Bailout: In 2008, Ryan voted for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

6) Gun Rights: Ryan has been a strong proponent of gun rights, voting numerous times against background checks and in favor of pro-gun legislation. A bow-hunter, Ryan is also member of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus.

7) Health Care: Ryan has opposed Obamacare since its passage and recently helped spearhead partial repeal by means of the budgetary tool known as reconciliation.

8) International: Ryan wanted to lift the Cuban embargo before supporting it.

9) Immigration: Ryan has supported immigration reform bills that included amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants in the past.

10) Labor Unions: Ryan remains unwavering in his support of federally mandated, prevailing wages.

11) Marriage: Ryan voted in 2006 in favor of the Marriage Protection Act, a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

12) National Security: Ryan voted to go to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, later opposing an early military withdrawal.

13) School Choice: Ryan has supported increasing school choice options for families.

Joe Biden’s biggest slip of the evening

Good ol’ Joe.  You can count on at least one big, huge, massive gaffe. I thought this one was the biggest slip of the evening--claiming the WH had no knowledge of the security requests when millions of people watched the hearings on Wednesday which laid it all out. It made Obama look like a fool who'd been hanging out with Letterman and Jay-Z instead of minding the store. Oh wait. He was!

Two State Department officials admitted in Congressional hearings under oath that those requests were denied. Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya during the summer, testified that Charlene Lamb, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, turned down his request for more security.  Also, during the hearings it came out that no one who was in Benghazi had reported the video was a problem nor was there a protest going on—and everyone in the State Dept. knew it was a planned terrorist attack, yet Obama, Clinton and Rice continued to stir up hatred in the Middle East with that ridiculous story.  A week later Obama was still telling tales at the U.N.  And the filmmaker is in jail on trumped up charges.

First, Biden blamed the intelligence community for the administration’s confusing public explanations of the 9/11 anniversary attack in Benghazi, Libya. Moderator Martha Raddatz asked Biden directly why administration spokesman “were talking about protests” in Benghazi. “When people in the consulate first saw armed men attacking with guns, there were no protesters. Why did that go on?”

“Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community,” Biden said. “The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.” . . .

But it was what Biden said next that made that answer so interesting. Raddatz turned the debate to Iran, saying: “There’s really no bigger national security issue facing this country.”

Biden, in an attempt to parry an attack from Ryan, suddenly expressed his belief that the U.S. intelligence community is omniscient. There’s no need to consider war right now, he argued, because “we’ll know if they start to build a weapon.”

So the same intelligence community that failed to deliver information in its possession about the attacks on Benghazi is suddenly so all-knowing on Iran that we needn’t worry about the mullahs going nuclear?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-throws-intelligence-community-under-bus_654268.html

From Paul Ryan

“We don't need sugar high economics. We don't need synthetic money creation. We need economic growth. We want wealth creation. We don't want to print money. We want opportunity and growth.”

Can’t say for sure, but I assume he’s talking about QE3, the fed’s plan to print more money to goose Obama’s campaign with artificially high profits for investments in the next 2 months, then of course, the plunge. Printing money makes the stock market look good and some crony capitalists might make a profit, but it doesn’t create solid jobs. Today a good friend confided her fears for the economy—she’s a single, professional woman and very scared.

Another Catholic under attack by Obama administration—Paul Ryan

Henninger in today’s WSJ mixes some metaphors, with fortress, ICBMs, carpet-bombing, drinking the Kool-aid,  and encyclicals, but he’s on target—one dare not attack the Democrats at the heart and soul of their beliefs—big government even if it collapses under its own weight  is good for you personally and for the nation. Paul Ryan outrages them into launching the big religious guns:

“What Mr. Ryan actually said is worth quoting, because it should revive the debate over the proper relationship between individual citizens, including the poor, and the national government:

"A person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private. So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?

"To me, the principle of subsidiarity . . . meaning government closest to the people governs best . . . where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.

"Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto a life of independence." “

Ah, he gutted them and they know it.   “. . . one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent .”

The Obama administration will have to fight to the death over this one truth. So they have to bring down what formerly was the largest social agency in the country (before the War on Poverty), and is still the largest globally, the Roman Catholic Church.

Paul, please run for President!

Paul Ryan has old-fashioned goals, says Real Clear Markets.com, like saving America from fiscal bankruptcy, economic stagnation, and a European-style entitlement state.

Paul Ryan's old fasioned American vision

In a White House meeting this year, Ryan's superior knowledge of health care baffled Obama and left him speechless. And the serious Ryan budget, which lowers spending by $6.2 trillion and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion over ten years, totally outflanked the White House. It embarrassingly exposed the Obama administration's flimsy and inconsequential 2012 budget, which even rejected the findings of Obama's own Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission. (Another Oval Office embarrassment.)

And when Ryan unveiled his first Medicare-reform package, which featured patient-centered consumer choice and market competition, the White House went nuts. Team Obama whipped up a Mediscare panic, resorting to a fictional caricature of Ryan forcing old ladies off a cliff. But the charge that the Ryan plan "ends Medicare" couldn't be further from the truth. The website PolitiFact labeled this "the lie of the year."

Ryan later amended his Medicare reform to keep the existing system as an option, and bolstered it with a menu of market-based private insurance plans to promote cost-cutting choice and competition. But he did so with the bipartisan support of Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. How did the White House react? It went rhetorically ballistic, although it couldn't put together a serious response.

Democrats lie about Ryan's plan, and don't even blush

Tonight on Fox I watched a Democrat being interviewed about the lack of specificity in Obama's budget speech, and instead of answering about Obama, he chose to attack Republicans, and even then had no specifics except they want to destroy Medicare. Huh?

Wall Street Journal has unpacked the Democrats' criticism of Ryan's plan, which many people really like, even though he doesn't provide any specific tax cuts. And no, unlike Obama, he doesn't suggest raising taxes during a recession (which technically is over, aren't you glad?)

Here are some highlights, but read the whole editorial.

Federal deficits have increased 259% over the last three years and the Ryan budget starts to repair the damage. It would bring next year's deficit below $1 trillion, down from estimates of roughly $1.6 trillion for 2011. . .

Mr. Ryan proposes smaller deficits for the next 10 years, falling to 1.6% of GDP in 2021 versus 4.9% for the White House. According to CBO, debt held by the public falls to 67.5% of the economy a decade from now from about 69% today, while it rises to 87.4% in Mr. Obama's version. . .

Mr. Ryan's plan [called premium support] is that it offers the true health-care reform that Mr. Obama promised but which vanished in the political drive to put 30 million more Americans on the government rolls. Economists from the center-left to center-right have been recommending premium support for decades, and it was first proposed by Stanford's Alain Enthoven in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1978.

Some version has since been endorsed by everyone from President Clinton's 1999 Medicare commission, chaired by Democrat John Breaux, to Bob Dole and Tom Daschle in 2009. Another iteration was floated this week by a group of Nobel laureates including Ned Phelps, Vernon Smith and George Akerlof.

Heritage says that one of the key provisions of Ryan's plan is eliminating Fannie and Fred.

Ryan's Roadmap

Until recently, Americans were known and admired everywhere for their hopeful determination to assume responsibility for the quality of their own lives; to rely on their own work and initiative; and to improve opportunities for their children to prosper in the future. But over time, Americans have been lured into viewing government – more than themselves, their families, their communities, their faith – as their main source of support; they have been drawn toward depending on the public sector for growing shares of their material and personal well-being. The trend drains individual initiative and personal responsibility. It creates an aversion to risk, sapping the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for growth, innovation, and prosperity. In turn, it subtly and gradually suffocates the creative potential for prosperity.

Fiscal Year 2012 Budget from the House Committee

Let's hear it for Representative Paul Ryan who takes us on the Path to Prosperity. ". . . it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion." (WSJ, April 5, 2011)

I don't think they'll get these cuts--no guts no glory, it's the same old story. Too bad the Republicans only get fiscally responsible when the other guy's in office.

"The current path – which the President’s irresponsible budget commits us to – will result in a debt-fueled economic crisis, the shredding of the safety net, and a diminished future. Americans deserve better than empty promises from a government going broke. The budget advanced by the House Budget Committee ensures real security through real reform. The House Budget Committee’s FY2012 Budget Resolution helps spur job creation today, stops spending money the government doesn’t have, and lifts the crushing burden of debt. This plan puts the budget on the path to balance and the economy on the path to prosperity."Fiscal Year 2012 Budget | Committee On The Budget

Review & Outlook: After You, Mr. Ryan - WSJ.com

Yes, let some adults try to clean up the spending, taxing, waffling mess. "Amid his Reaganite sunshine and new admiration for the wonders of private enterprise, President Obama's political message in Tuesday's State of the Union address boils down to this: Republicans, it's your budget problem now."

Review & Outlook: After You, Mr. Ryan - WSJ.com

Paul Ryan leading us away from the welfare state

They missed the budget deadline (April 15)--you try missing that one! The budget the president sent Congress has $2 trillion in higher taxes, doubles the debt in five years, triples the debt in 10 years. He’s accelerating the tipping point, says Congressman Ryan, the guy who would get my vote for President were he running now. He says he’s not running, but we could sure use him--he believes it’s not too late for our country. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid14599856001?bctid=79427084001


Paul Ryan: Obama Leading America on ‘Dangerous Path’ to Welfare State