Where’s the courage?
When House budget chair Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) announced his budget proposal for 2012, columnist David Brooks called it the "most courageous budget reform proposal . . . in our lifetimes." Ross Douthat praised it as "brutally honest." Jacob Weisberg said it was a "serious attempt to grapple with [our] long-term fiscal issues."
Ryan's proposal, which would overhaul Medicare and Medicaid and cut $4 trillion in taxes on wealthy people and corporations, is certainly aggressive, and it may prove politically risky. But that's not the same as honest, serious or courageous.
Ryan claims that along with trimming trillions from the federal budget over a decade, his plan would make unemployment plummet and federal revenues soar in the very first year. But he relies on assumptions that even conservative economists find unconvincing. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who advised George W. Bush and John McCain, called Ryan's numbers "implausibly optimistic." Reagan-era budget director David Stockman flatly dismissed Ryan's claim that his proposal would drastically reduce unemployment.
