Entitlements

But at least Paul Ryan told some hard truths about entitlements.

At first blush, universal basic income sounds like something dreamed up on a California commune or in a late-night college bull session. The idea: Just give people money. Ask nothing in return. Impose no requirement to work or to look for work. And don’t just give taxpayer money to people living in…

The end of free speech? Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason has an excellent cover story about how "the left eats its own and the right shows its true colors." Here's my favorite part:

There are fewer and fewer economic principles on which Democrats and Republicans can agree, and any point of consilience will surely be forgotten as some momentary partisan need overwhelms reason and sense. Surely, however, we can all agree on a few points:

There are fewer and fewer economic principles on which Democrats and Republicans can agree, and any point of consilience will surely be forgotten as some momentary partisan need overwhelms reason and sense. Surely, however, we can all agree on a few points:

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will defend the White House's budget request in front of the respective congressional committees Wednesday and Thursday. The administration's goal on Capitol Hill this week, according to a White House source, is two-fold: to make a…

The math isn't complicated. If the federal government doesn't reform entitlements soon, the country will face a debt crisis. There is no disputing this. It's inevitable. The only unknown is timing. And the stubborn determination of some leaders in both political parties to ignore runaway…

Near the end of World War I, there was an alleged (almost surely apocryphal) exchange of telegrams between German and Austrian officers whose units were fighting side by side, in difficult circumstances, against the Allies. The German cabled: “Our situation is serious, but not critical." The…

The math isn’t complicated. If the federal government doesn't reform entitlements soon, the country will face a debt crisis. There is no disputing this. It's inevitable. The only unknown is timing. And the stubborn determination of some leaders in both political parties to ignore runaway…

Some heretofore-skeptical commentators are declaring that February 28 is the date Donald Trump truly became president of the United States. That might signal some good news, but it was closely followed by bad: March 1 could go down as the date of death of the Tea Party movement in America.

The players in this election season are, it seems, not interested in talking about the deficit. Too much of a downer. Still, when the giddy days and nights of campaigning are done and the cold grey dawn of governing breaks, someone is going to have to face the facts. Namely, that spending is…

As Trump speeches go, his address to the Detroit Economic Club was a good one. Donald Trump cleared the low bar of actually staying focused on what is mostly a pro-growth economic policy. But for a speech on economics, it was also remarkable for what it didn't say. There was absolutely nothing…

Democrats have won votes by alleging that Republican positions amount to a "war on women." Yet politicians and pundits are now saying that a constellation of liberal policies favored by Democrats, on issues ranging from entitlements and healthcare to education and the economy, constitutes a war on…

Carly Fiorina says she disagrees with her Republican rival for president Donald Trump on the issue of Planned Parenthood. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday that "we have to look at the positive also for Planned Parenthood" and said abortions were just a "small part" of what the…

On Tuesday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie became the fourteenth Republican to join the presidential race, promising in a rambling announcement in his hometown of Livingston that he would bring “strong leadership” to Washington. Christie also argued the country should not turn control over to…

Nashua, N.H.

It can be hard to say anything nice about a man whose administration would malevolently inflict a traffic jam on residents of the Tristate area, but Governor Chris Christie’s recent proposal aimed at fixing the country’s broken Social Security system may make him deserving of forgiveness. The plan…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Fred Barnes. Hosted by Michael Graham.

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan knocked President Barack Obama for "shadowbox[ing] a straw man" in his inaugural address. Speaking Tuesday morning on the Laura Ingraham Radio Show to guest host Raymond Arroyo, Ryan responded to Obama's statement that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security "do not…

President Barack Obama won't touch the eligibility age for Medicare, Senator Dick Durbin told reporters. The AP reports:

Glenn Hubbard, appearing live on CNBC Wednesday morning, was struck by a falling piece of the set. Hubbard, who was the chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and an economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was discussing the need for Congress…

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, blasted President Barack Obama for not leaving anything on the "fiscal cliff" negotiating table this morning in remarks on the Senate floor.

First off, it’s not a “fiscal cliff.” What we’re slated to hit as of New Year’s Day, as the Wall Street Journal notes, is a tax cliff. Our fiscal cliff, which drops off into a far deeper canyon, is what looms because of our $16,000,000,000,000 debt and the runaway entitlement spending that fuels it…

President Obama the self-proclaimed compromiser sounds the same as Obama the partisan politician running for reelection. At his press conference Wednesday, he harped on what had been a chief talking point of his campaign—raising taxes for the wealthy.

A new chart put together by the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee finds that, since 2001, the "number of non-citizens on food stamps quadrupled." Here's the chart detailing the growth in regards to non-citizens:

Yesterday, when speaking via video to the AARP, President Obama said, “But what I’m not going to do, as a matter of principle, is to slash benefits or privatize Social Security and suddenly turn it over to Wall Street.”

The Villages, Fla.

“Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces; and we never, or rarely see a soul that in growing old does not come to smell sour and musty. Man grows and dwindles in his entirety.”—Montaigne Before the sun had set on Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan, the Obama campaign was out with…

Kirsten Powers, writing for the Daily Beast: 

A striking chart showing that, over the last decade, 65 percent of federal expenditures went to pay for entitlement commitments, not wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense, or national security: 

Robert Samuelson has a strong column today on how one of the biggest obstacles to Social Security reform might be psychological. Though FDR's original vision for the program was a "contributory pension plan" and most Americans are still under the the impression that this is what it is, the reality…

At a lunch time speech today, President Obama is expected to attack Paul Ryan's budget by calling it "a Trojan horse."

Paul Ryan unveils the House Republican budget proposal Tuesday, as Illinois Republican primary voters go to the polls. I dare say the Ryan budget will be much the more consequential of the two events, and that victory or defeat in the intellectual and political battle over Paul Ryan’s budget will…

Michael Barone: "Obama kicks can down road on Iran, entitlements"

Mitt Romney needs a big idea. And it’s not the one he cited at the beginning of his speech after his humiliating loss to Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary Saturday. Executive experience matters, Romney said. He has it and Gingrich, like President Obama, doesn’t.

Friday afternoon at the Dublin School in Dublin, New Hampshire, Rick Santorum offered a preview of his own general election argument against President Barack Obama. He quoted Juan Williams's account of how the Obama administration rationalized its plan to push forward on passing Obamacare, even…

Jake Tapper: "Gingrich Tells ABC News: ‘I’m Going to Be The Nominee’"

During Tuesday night’s debate, Michele Bachmann twice said that the federal government is spending about “40 percent more” than what it takes in. If only we were in that good of shape. The federal government has actually been spending about 75 percent more than what it takes in. For every $4 that…

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan has decided for a final time that he will not run for president in 2012, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. Ryan, who began seriously considering a bid in late May after Indiana governor Mitch Daniels took himself out of the race, had consulted with top Republicans,…

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Paul Ryan responded to Standard & Poor’s downgrading of America’s long-term debt by explaining to host Chris Wallace that Republicans in the House “passed a budget, which according to somebody from S&P yesterday, would have prevented this downgrade from happening in…

In today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson argues that it was liberal protectors of the entitlements, not the Tea Party, that "won" the most in last week's debt deal. The military, he says, was the real loser:

Max Boot makes the compelling case that "Cutting Defense Spending Could Hasten America’s Decline as a World Power."

The Heritage Foundation has created a useful chart, showing that even if military spending were completely eliminated, the U.S. would still face major financial problems:

Politico: "Biden: Tea partiers like 'terrorists'"

On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives voted to increase the debt ceiling in exchange for cutting, capping, and balancing the out of control spending that has left us $14.5 trillion in debt. In marked contrast, the Senate has not voted to increase the debt ceiling, and President Obama has…

The problem with socialists, according to Margaret Thatcher, is that “they always run out of other people’s money.” We haven’t hit that point just yet, but we have hit our nation’s legal credit limit of $14.3 trillion. To avoid defaulting on our loans, policymakers must raise that limit.

The CBO’s newly released 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook forecasts that federal spending will soon exceed spending during parts of World War II. In 1942, federal spending equaled 24.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) (Table 1.3). Less than 25 years from now (in 2035), according to the CBO,…

Obamacrats think their man is in trouble because (as usual) he’s got “communication problems.” He seems to suffer from these all the time, which is odd given that he was elected mainly because of his flair for communicating; given that the queen of England is still, no doubt, enjoying the audio…

In June 2009, President Obama said, “Medicare and Medicaid are the single biggest drivers of the federal deficit and the federal debt by a huge margin.” Two years later, Paul Ryan and the House Republicans have advanced a serious proposal to deal with these two biggest drivers of our debt. Obama…

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will vote against increasing the debt limit unless President Obama agrees to spending cuts and long term reforms that satisfy the bond market, as well as foreign investors, and “astonish the American people.”

You see what happens when you bring rapacious lawyers and San Francisco politics together?:

Paul Ryan, architect of the Republican budget for 2012, sat in the front row at George Washington University as President Obama delivered his thoughts on the deficit, debt, and Ryan’s spending plan. The White House had seated him there, directly in front of the president.

"Welcome to Potemkin, Iowa."

Paul Ryan’s dissection of Obama- --care at the White House health care summit on February 25, 2010, elevated him to a stature in Washington rare for a House member. The summit dawdled along for seven hours. Six riveting minutes of analysis delivered by Ryan, as President Obama listened a few seats…

Talk about a successful budgetary proposal: House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s budget would cut 46 percent and $4.4 trillion from proposed deficit spending under President Obama’s budget, reform Medicare and Medicaid to put these programs on solid financial footing, and repeal Obamacare.…

Lately, I’ve been staying up late at night because I’m just too stressed over the state of the union. Unable to sleep, I often find myself toggling between scores of Excel spreadsheets, crunching all sorts of numbers to get my mind around the gaping budget deficit that is threatening the country.…

Mackenzie Eaglen, of the Heritage Foundation, writes:

Barack Obama responded to Paul Ryan's budget proposal yesterday, and the GOP congressman and chairman of the House Budget Committee will give his rebuttal today. The event is hosted by the think tank e21, and Fred Barnes will be the moderator. Here are the details: 

In February, Defense secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sounded a cautionary note at a congressional hearing on the defense budget. "We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril," Gates warned members of Congress. "Retrenchment…

President Obama always lets you down. Just when you think he’s ready to deliver a lofty speech chocked with specifics on handling the spending and debt emergency, he offers up a hyper-partisan attack on the leading Republican proposal, gives practically no details of his own plan, and then…

In proposing to cut another $400 billion from U.S. defense budgets over the next ten years as part of his deficit reduction counter-offer, Barack Obama’s words were few. Yet they were revealing.

The White House communications operation has expended considerable effort over the past week to portray President Obama as serious about dealing with debt and deficits. Most of their scrambling came after House Budget chairman Paul Ryan presented a 2012 budget blueprint that included significant…

Chris Wallace’s interview with David Plouffe on Fox News Sunday suggests an administration that’s afraid to argue for what it really wants, isn’t sure what to say it really wants, and isn’t saying anything very well. During the course of the interview, Plouffe incorporated many of the…

Conservatives are on the verge of victory—if only they can take yes for an answer. The situation on Capitol Hill is fluid, but it appears House Republicans will soon be presented with a choice: accept dramatic cuts in spending for the rest of fiscal year 2011 that, while less than the amount passed…

If there is one thing that political strategists, pollsters, and elected officials of both parties have agreed on for decades, it’s that entitlement reform is a sure political loser. Social Security is the “third rail”—touch it and you die. Suggest changes to Medicaid and you don’t care about the…

One of the reactions to Paul Ryan’s budget from the left and the press has been the canard that it doesn’t address the real elephant in the room – a supposedly bloated Pentagon. Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin said today that “When he doesn’t address savings in the Department of Defense and…

Hot off the transom from the Connecticut senator's office:

Connecticut senator and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, on Paul Ryan's budget: 

Paul Ryan on the GOP's path to prosperity.

Social Security’s looming deficit can be handled, for the time being, by adjusting benefits a tad downward. Medicaid’s runaway spending can be restrained by giving state governors more flexibility in administering the program. These are modest solutions. Medicare is different. It needs a big…

As Republicans contemplate what sort of budget they should propose (real budget solutions, not continuing resolutions), it's important to realize that they are in a somewhat enviable position: What is clearly best for the country is also likely best for them politically.

How much is entitlement spending the real source of our budgetary woes? Here’s a stat for you: In President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates (in Table S-4) that mandatory spending this year (2011) will be $2.194 trillion, while total federal…

House Republicans scored major points last week when President Obama agreed to $4 billion in cuts for fiscal year 2011. The spending reductions were part of a stopgap continuing resolution that will fund the government through March 18. True, $4 billion may seem small when compared with a $1.5…

"They are suckers,” one senior Democratic congressional aide told Politico.

No need to do a careful analysis of the budget President Obama dropped on the desks of the Congress last week – a few broad brushstrokes paint the picture. Debt triples from 2008 levels by 2021; debt as a percent of GDP goes from 41 percent to 77 percent. Not a word about how to reform Medicare,…

This afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute, New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he wants House Republicans to "put up or shut up" on entitlement reform and had a message for those candidates he campaigned for in 2010: "If the people who I campaigned for don’t stand up and do the right…