The Club for Growth put out an odd statement in response to Paul Ryan’s proposed budget. “Despite containing several important reforms and pro-growth policies, the Ryan Budget falls short in two critical respects,” president Chris Chocola said.
He continues: “First, it does not balance for decades. Secondly, it violates the Budget Control Act by waiving the sequester. By waiving the automatic spending cuts required under the Budget Control Act, this budget is asking Americans to trust future Congresses to do the hard work later. It is hard to have confidence that our long-term fiscal challenges will be met responsibly when the same Congress that passed the Budget Control Act wants to ignore it less than one year later. On balance, the Ryan Budget is a disappointment for fiscal conservatives.”
I have my disagreements with some of the Ryan plan’s elements and some of its omissions, but the idea that a plan that commits to $5 trillion in cuts from Obama’s budget, the prevention of a major tax increase, the reform of Medicare and welfare programs, and the repeal of Obamacare is “[o]n balance. . . a disappointment” strikes me as a failure of perspective.
