Paul Ryan - Reagan 2.0The Republican leadership seem to have
listened to Obama's claim that they mustn't crash the economy
because, you know, we have to pay our bills. The budget is the
time to cut costs, not afterwards when the bills come due. As a
result of this realization (or at least the realization of the
bad political optics of it) they are now claiming that they will
tie the Debt Ceiling raise to a plan to balance the budget in
ten years.  Before we get to this plan, let's take a moment to
step back and marvel at the ridiculousness of this bit of
political theater. They want to be seen as Very Serious. But
first and foremost, debt is not a problem—at least not now and
not until the economy is doing a lot better. Even if it were,
this congress can only budget for this congress. As we learned
all too well during the first years of the Bush Jr
administration: fiscal restraint from one administration can
easily turn into fiscal recklessness from the next.  Paul Ryan's
Budget: a Primer  Now let's talk abou