in addition to the potential for mishandling by future Congresses, is the fact that there most likely will be a recommendation for a VAT by the Debt Commission. The Debt Commission is to release their recommendations in Dec of this year. I read something about Pelosi wanting to vote on the DC recommendations as soon as the report is released. They will try to get everything on the books before a possible Republican majority in the next Congress.

The most important point that Erick made, as to the VAT, is that Ryan is a member of the debt commission, and will have no out on the issue. I doubt that he would be hypocritical in going against the Committee recommending it. On that one issue, he has boxed himself into a corner, which unfortunately will affect his credibility. The good sections of the plan will be lost. I wondered why a majority of Republicans would not support his roadmap.

The entitlement reforms are very necessary, but, will the Republicans have the courage to tell the citizens that there benefits will eventually be changed or cut, even though the mood of the country is more in favor of that idea, now, more than ever. I would bet that the younger workforce would vote overwhelmingly for phased in reforms.

If we don’t have some specifics on how to “make the government smaller” we won’t have a mandate to “make the government smaller.”

2011 is likely to be a worse economy than the economy of 2010. Without a mandate to do some specific things, I fear that we will take a political beating.

I am not wedded to the Ryan plan or any other particular plan, but I do think we need a plan that won’t fit on a bumper sticker as as well as slogans that do fit on a bumper sticker.

I like one thing that Mitch Daniels has done where he requires all budget items to have a listing of “Why they are important enough to spend taxpayer money on” and “How are you going to measure the use of the money to make sure you were successful?”

on issues of budgets and taxes, everything is linked together. Tax cuts without spending restraint is a flawed approach because it lacks comprehensiveness. Non-comprehensive fiscal policy is just another way to say deficit spending.

Tax simplification and entitlement reform are going to require some level of comprehensiveness.

Every one of the bills passed this year by Congress has been so diluted with too many items in each bill. For example, the War supplemental was filled with Pork, and if I am not mistaken, the money for the Teachers unions was stuck in there also. The Financial Deform bill includes affirmative action initiatives. The unemployment extension bill originally had the Teachers union handout, small business loans, and the Doc Fix. This practice has been going on in Congress for far too long. One party really wants to pass something, and it may not be passed as a stand alone, so they combine it something that must pass, like the War supplemental just to get it through.

Every bill should include only the main point of the legislation. Every bill should be required to pass as a stand alone. That way the opposite party cannot overload unnecessary spending that couldn’t pass on it’s own merits. We really shouldn’t even be proposing any bills that have to pass to know what is in them, such as Obamacare and the Financial Deform bill.

I completely get where you’re coming from and I agree with it wholeheartedly. It shouldn’t take that long. Unfortunately, we’re talking about weening generations of people off of these entitlements.

Whether we like it or not, whether it was even Constitutional or not, the government made promises to people. We can’t just turn around and say “Well, you’re screwed.” now after living your whole life under the assumption that you were going to be provided something in exchange for sending part of your paycheck to DC. That’s simply wrong, and one of the very reasons why these entitlement programs are wrong… in some ways even evil. It’s like crack.

It is going to be a long and sometimes painful process, but the first step is to decide, as a nation, that we’re going to do it.

But it won’t happen overnight.

Waiting for the perfect solution or 100% agreement is a recipe for inaction.

More than willing to see other alternative starting points, but I don’t see too many (i.e. ANY) out there.

I am a fan of the Roadmap in the sense that it makes several bold swipes at the “untouchable” portions of the budget.

I have encouraged legislators to at least read it and speak with Mr. Ryan to generate a policy discussion. In an area where the country desperately needs drastic reform – the Republicans have a monumental opportunity to bring forward a bold vision to reform the RELATIONSHIP government has between itself and the citizen. Going back to a Constitutional relationship of limited government ought to be a FOCUS and we need simple, bold statements of why this is BETTER for the country.

The policy discussion on our side is what I am most interested in – and it seems Mr. Ryan is the only one who’s put a plan out there for people to shoot arrows at and propose some solutions to these BIG problems. That said I can certainly agree not everything about the Roadmap excites me.

My primary fear is that the Republican message still is and will remain our version of the Democrats’ anti-Bush: ‘the Democrats bungled this and we’re not them!’ That is not a message with staying power, and I am not interested in conservatives winning only in years where the field is slanted in our favor. I believe conservatives can win in ANY year if they simply sell the message of a limited-government relationship to the citizen.

Conservatives HAVE GOOD IDEAS and I am sick of them not selling it to the general public with conviction. At least Paul Ryan is trying.

I am a fan of the Roadmap in the sense that it makes several bold swipes at the “untouchable” portions of the budget.

I have encouraged legislators to at least read it and speak with Mr. Ryan to generate a policy discussion. In an area where the country desperately needs drastic reform – the Republicans have a monumental opportunity to bring forward a bold vision to reform the RELATIONSHIP government has between itself and the citizen. Going back to a Constitutional relationship of limited government ought to be a FOCUS and we need simple, bold statements of why this is BETTER for the country.

The policy discussion on our side is what I am most interested in – and it seems Mr. Ryan is the only one who’s put a plan out there for people to shoot arrows at and propose some solutions to these BIG problems. That said I can certainly agree not everything about the Roadmap excites me.

My primary fear is that the Republican message still is and will remain our version of the Democrats’ anti-Bush: ‘the Democrats bungled this and we’re not them!’ That is not a message with staying power, and I am not interested in conservatives winning only in years where the field is slanted in our favor. I believe conservatives can win in ANY year if they simply sell the message of a limited-government relationship to the citizen.

Conservatives HAVE GOOD IDEAS and I am sick of them not selling it to the general public with conviction. At least Paul Ryan is trying.

Please don’t disregard my argument based on a typo.

You know, that thing ColdWarrior is always going on about?

The thing that’s been described as the tea partiers hijacking the republican party?

That’s how you get conservative thought to the top of the GOP – by replacing the deadwood and dain-bramaged statist elitists who are currently running the GOP – largely by virtue of being in D.C., by the way – you replace them.

Once we replace someone with Steele in his name with someone with steel in his spine, things will change.

Mew

The true market distortion is the extra costs placed on US businesses selling products to US businesses compared to foreign businesses selling products to US businesses.

As a general matter, how much competition is there between corporations and unincorporated individuals? By definition, a sole proprietorship is not going to have the economies of scale to compete with a large organization. There are exceptions to that rule, for example law firms, IT services companies, etc.
but I don’t think those businesses pay a VAT.

Put another way, how many unincorporated businesses manufacture goods or sell goods to other businesses?

The true market distortion is the extra costs placed on US businesses selling products to US businesses compared to foreign businesses selling products to US businesses.

As a general matter, how much competition is there between corporations and unincorporated individuals? By definition, a sole proprietorship is not going to have the economies of scale to compete with a large organization. There are exceptions to that rule, for example law firms, IT services companies, etc.
but I don’t think those businesses pay a VAT.

Put another way, how many unincorporated businesses manufacture goods or sell goods to other businesses?

The coming elections should be a referendum on the Democrats and the disastrous Leftist agenda they ramming through.

No need to put the Roadmap front and center right now… having it in the background can’t hurt, though.

So, if the strategy is merely to veto the President, I am fine with that. However, in the meantime, the economy, deficit, and taxes and will be bad.

what should be obvious. After November, there will be a lot of new people in congress and then we might see a “plan” come forth or an existing plan might gain momentum. . . if time can be found from all the repealing that must be job one.

If Republicans must have a plan, how about “We’ll do for America what Governor Christie is doing for New Jersey.”

Loosen up Social Security while at the same time tightening them up.

Right now, Senior Citizens can’t opt out of it. At 65, they start having to take Social Security payments. What if someone would rather defer them because they want to work? Can’t. They also have to start taking distributions from retirement plans. Lose that requirement – let people retire at any point after 65 that they want to, don’t force ‘em out of the workplace.

This goes hand-in-glove with means testing – if someone is still working, odds are they would fail a means test, eh?

Mew

We may have to accept “To each according to his needs” to get reform, but we shouldn’t embrace it up front.

what’s the Book Notes project?

How does one participate

You said you’d update, summer’s almost over!

Beck is an entertainer, not a historian. He has many things right, but not all.
The city I live in was originally laid out on Progressive principle’s. Progressive essentially meant government was to be used for the betterment of Man, rather than a plaything for the rich (which at that time it was). In my city Seattle, that meant parks and good roads, and that the wealthy would also contribute to state and city government revenue.
Progressive-ism was most appealing in the West, at the turn of the last century. Wisconsin was the poster boy for progressive-ism. In Wisconsin it meant municipal control of certain sectors of the free-market. In Seattle, municipalism meant the city building electrical generation dams, and distributing lower electrical costs as dividends, instead of profits. It also meant the city took over the trolley services. Not very scary stuff. Beck doesn’t know this stuff, because he was born 80 miles north, in a flood-prone valley. They didn’t have the common sense, or will to spend the money to raise their houses five feet, to avoid being flooded every four years, till about twenty years ago. Seattle had the good sense to spend the money to jack-up houses and buildings, and re-grade entire hills, to make the city more commercially viable, and has reaped the rewards of economic domination of the state and region. They knew sometimes you have to agree to spend money and take risks, to make money.
Beck’s Skagit Valley is 85% owned by Dutch interests (flower bulbs).

HS

As I read through all of the posts to this diary that was exactly what I was thinking but could never articulate. Personally, I am grateful to Paul Ryan for stepping up with something that no one else seems to want to do. Reminds me of an old saying my father told me when I was young…

“Those who would dare the grand designs, must be proof against, the most frustrating delays, jealousy motivated ridicule, but worst of all, the judgement of those who know, little or nothing.”

As I read through all of the posts to this diary that was exactly what I was thinking but could never articulate. Personally, I am grateful to Paul Ryan for stepping up with something that no one else seems to want to do. Reminds me of an old saying my father told me when I was young…

“Those who would dare the grand designs, must be proof against, the most frustrating delays, jealousy motivated ridicule, but worst of all, the judgement of those who know, little or nothing.”

I didn’t mean to sound like I was knocking Wis.

Timber Baron thing looks interesting & no one tops Levin IMHO.