Paul Ryan: The Most Rational Man in America

Representative Paul Ryan lays out the path to prosperity, at Wall Street Journal (via Memeorandum):

No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses.

The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, 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.

RTWT.

Also, an analysis at National Journal, "The Ryan Budget: Big Cuts, Bigger Questions."

If there's time, I'll work on a roundup of left-wing reactions to the Ryan budget. The question isn't so much are things "workable" or that Ryan's economic projections are "ambiguous." The issue is that Ryan's serious about changing the mindset of unlimited government largesse. And for that he'll be pilloried by the radical left's entitlement mandarins and the demon-screamers of the Democrat-Socialist Party.