Paul Ryan On The Latest Senate "Gang of Six" Proposal

On Tuesday evening, I caught Paul Ryan's interview on Sean Hannity's Fox News program. It was quite revealing.

I think I was most surprised and, in a way, heartened, by Ryan's reference to an old House saying,

'The other party is your adversary but the Senate is the enemy.'

And so it seems this week.

Smarmy Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, who never met a tax hike he didn't like, declares earnestly that his mix of taxes increases, called 'reform' by the suspect Conrad, entitlement 'reforms,' and spending cuts will address the country's deficit problems.

But Conrad already tips his hand by piling on other issues to what is a spending problem, not a deficit problem, per se.

What is inexplicable is why Tom Coburn joined this latest travesty.

Ryan was quite sanguine and blunt in saying that the alleged several trillion dollars of lower deficits from the Senate plan were neither clear nor specific, with no details whatsoever on what spending was to be cut. But what was clear is that the Senators are playing games, claiming cuts from 'baselines,' rather than absolute cuts. The Senate, meaning Conrad, hasn't passed a budget in 800+ days, or nearly three years.

Since the House originates funding bills, and Ryan is chairman of it's Budget Committee, I take Ryan's comments to heart. He doesn't trust the Senate, and he doesn't mention party affiliation.

Once more, I find solace in the midst of this comedy involving the debt limit by seeing the Founders' checks and balances at work.

It seems to me that Ryan sees the Senate as detached from reality, not focused on what Ryan and his freshman, Tea Party-backed colleagues, understand, which is that, more than anything else, Americans want federal spending cut.

Yes, entitlement and tax reform are good things to accomplish. But lumping them in with the debt limit and spending cuts suggests that all these items are negotiable.

I think Ryan and his House colleagues realize what Senators do not, i.e., the debt limit issue is about current and near-term spending. Not taxes or entitlements, per se.

From Ryan's answers to Hannity, it doesn't seem likely that House GOP members are interested in budging from passing a debt limit increase only upon cutting current and near-term spending significantly. Period. Rand Paul was interviewed on Sean Hannity's program last night, and his position is essentially identical to Ryan's positions. Paul castigated Conrad's so-called 'plan,' saying it's not a plan and legislation written to implement it would result in another multi-thousand-page bill finished only hours before a vote to pass it, like the stimulus and health care bills.

Right now I'm hearing Democratic blowhard Barney Frank whine and complain about House GOP members, calling them inflexible, too conservative, etc. In short, they are getting in the way of his need to wastefully spend more of your tax dollars, and whatever borrowed Chinese money he needs, too.

Thanks to the Constitution's checks and balances, Wonderboy's attempt to rush through tax increases and future spending cuts that will never occur, in order to get his debt limit increase, look unlikely to succeed.