There you go again Paul!!!

One great thing about the Ryan plan is that it first focuses on spending cuts. It's the fact that it embraces the conservative theme of personal responsibility (vouchers, etc.) that drives Progressive morons like Krugman crazy.

Here's the thing. Nobody doing serious thinking about deficit reduction thinks we can get away without increasing the revenue side. That fight is over, and whether or not people like Ryan want to admit it, we're gonna have to have some changes in tax policy.

Some of Ryan's proposals on that front make sense, including the gross simplification of the tax code. I prefer something like the Fair Tax (http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer) but in any case, whatever tax code emerges, it MUST include all workers and income levels. The days of 47% of the country paying no income tax have to be gone.

But, as I said, the beauty of Ryan's proposal is that he starts by cutting spending. That's the key. It's like immigration; first you seal the border, then you address the "structural problem" of the 12 million illegals who are already here. The thing is, you stop digging the hole.

Then, once we've cut right to the frickin' marrow - across the board too, defense, everything - we see what we absolutely can't live with and find a FAIR revenue plan to address those shortcomings. Said revenue plan must be shared across all sections of the economic spectrum, not just those in the top 5% either.

I love the idea. Krugman and other idiots on the left want to start from the other side. They say, let's raise taxes and cover a higher level of spending, then stop the spending - at the higher level. Doesn't work, and they know it - once these programs are in place they never, ever go away - the only solution will be to keep increasing taxes as the programs grow organically to consume ever larger percentages of GDP. But, as long as we're paying people not to work, and subsidizing money-losing green-energy industries, people like Krugman will be happy.

We won't have many more opportunities to address our deficit problems on our terms. We have a populist wave of anger at the Democrats for spending, and a real enlightenment and mobilization around the deficit. As a new Republican Congress (I hope) takes over after the midterm elections, we could do worse than start embracing Ryan's ideas - they make a helluva lotta sense.

in reference to: Op-Ed Columnist - The Flimflam Man - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)