Thursday, August 01, 2013

Ryan's Budget: Not Bad, Not Great

Despite Paul Ryan's Double-Talk Express problem with immigration reform (see here and here) and his love for NSA snooping, his budget proposal isn't bad at all.  It's not great, but not bad.

However, under Boehner's "leadership" there are problems--mostly because Boehner spends too much time crying, I suppose.

...Moderate Republicans may have all voted for Ryan’s budget blueprint this fall, but now that the reality of those spending cuts are becoming clear, they are balking.

The Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill pulled Wednesday, for example, cut spending on the Community Development Block Grant program from $3.8 billion in FY 2013 to $1.6 billion in FY 2014. The CDBG is a classic big government/crony capitalist boondoggle long objected to by limited government conservatives.

But the “Tuesday Group” of moderate Republicans said they could not vote for the bill unless their districts got their CDBG spending restored, and even after House leadership agreed to put back $350 million of pork back into the bill, the moderate Republicans still walked.

...Spending is not the only area where libertarians have been giving Republican leaders headaches. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., forced a close vote on the NSA’s domestic surveillance program this week...

The Statists, including Ryan, won that vote, but not by much.  No wonder they're getting sweaty palms over at RNC HQ.

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