The Ryan Budget: The Law of the Jungle

The Ryan Budget: The Law of the Jungle by MSW

My comments:  Libertarianism is no cancer. Indeed, the hierarchy of the Church could use a decent respect for liberty and tolerance, which they seem to be deficient in, even as they call for respect of their conscience rights while ignoring the conscience rights of church employees (or, for that matter, members). Speaking in our name on issues in the public square while being tone deaf to our wishes is not sufficient for us to follow their lead, so most of us don't.

Catholic Randians (and there are more libertarians than Randians) like to think that charity is a private matter, which it is. What they are tone deaf to is the demand for justice, which is a matter for the state. It includes the responsibility to either require a living wage or, if this would be a hardship to most employers, to have the state backstop the ability to pay one with tax subsidies for families. Randians in the Church can be forgiven for not highlighting this, as the Church is notorious for underpaying its staff. Indeed, there would be no birth control issue if every pregnancy were met with a $12,000 a year salary boost (after taxes and tax benefits are factored in).

The GOP is just tone deaf enough to pass the Ryan Budget, even if it is political suicide. Ryan's own district won't like it, so his career in Congress won't be long if he has any kind of decent opponent. This is not a negotiating document or a political document, its a fundraising document.

If the GOP were willing to negotiate, premium support actually works in the context of health care reform, as long as they drop the pipe dream of repeal. It does not work outside of it, where seniors can be excluded. It is a key part of Social Insurance, which is necessary in the interests of justice to hold seniors and their families harmless for accidents of birth and death. Large families or families where the parents have died are no more entitled to a windfall on this front than small families or families with living seniors are responsible for bearing the cost of their support and care. Social insurance gives every family an equal standard of living in relation to the responsibility to care for their elders. Providing the emotional care is bad enough without having the prospect of bankruptcy going with it. Of course, a free market might have families with seniors demand the ability to cover them on the family insurance policy, which means everyone still pays for the care of seniors, but unevenly.

The Church's opposition on assisted suicide would be strengthened, no weakened, if it would return to its tolerance of letting people die when it is there time, essentially passive euthenasia. The tribalist buy-in to the pro-life's fetish for preserving all life, even when hopeless, needs to stop, as is the implicit acceptance that people die early when you ease their pain aggressively. The purpose of suffering is personal epiphany, not some egotistic desire to appease an angry God with self-torture.

The Medicaid changes are a throw-away. Reagan's New Federalism, as well as several tax reform proposals actually have Medicaid being entirely federalized in exchnage for dropping tax deductions for state tax payments. Droppping these deductions in tax reform AND block granting Medicaid will be a non-starter for most governors, even Republicans.

To be fair to Ryan, the responsibility to close loopholes rests with the Ways and Means Committee, not the Budget Committee. I don't see him instructing Ways and Means to do tax reform that drops all deductions, which is what it would take to get this done - however the 25% rate that Ryan wants needs to be replaced with a 27% rate, unless you enact a VAT on top of it and drop special rates for dividends and capital gains. Then you can go lower, but probably need to drop the 10% rate in doing so and take most families off the tax rolls.

Not cutting defense is a non-starter, although merely going with the cuts the Pentagon proposed might be middle ground. Budget balance will never be the goal with either party, just structural balance until the nations which buy our debt complain.