It's a miracle! After much high-minded posturing and finger-pointing, an agreement on the federal budget was reached late Friday, and a government shutdown was averted. This was a disappointment only to some Tea-Bag tyros in Congress, who gathered earlier in the week to chant, "Shut it down! Shut it down!" (When certain public servants are loudly calling for closing the very institutions which allow them to serve in the first place, we've really stepped through the looking glass.)
The whole damn thing was an exercise in silliness. Both sides had already agreed to some fairly hefty spending cuts, then decided to have a last-minute stand-off over chump change. Yes, it was a few billion dollars, but in the context of the total budget, it was the precise equivalent of trying to buy a $20,000 car and arguing about $40. Jeez! Sucking up to the Tea-bugs, Boehner even tried (in vain) to defund Planned Parenthood. What a shameless turd. Anyway, it all worked out somehow and we're done with it (until the next time).
Prior to the agreement, in the midst of the haggling and negotiations, those on the far-right wing of Congress stirred the pot by unveiling their very own 2012 wish-list budget. It was presented by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, boy wonder and supposed budgetary savant. I think the savant's been hittin' the sauce!
Paul's Big Plan claims to save us $12 trillion (ooh, that's big!) by repealing the Patient Protection Act, privatizing Social Security, and abolishing Medicare, which it would replace with cheap-ass vouchers for private health insurance. And of course, Paul's Plan has lots and lots of tax cuts, all of which magically increase revenues! (Sure they do!)
This reckless budget proposal is a complete bad-math crock without the slightest chance of actually being implemented. It's a stunt, just the Tea Baggers itching to show us how their minds work. (And it would seem they work crazily.)
When Ryan introduced his happy horseshit, he said, "This isn't a budget, it's a cause." No, dude, it's just a budget and a bad one at that, and you're just an opportunistic ass.
[To read an excellent opinion piece on this topic, read Paul Krugman's column of 4/8/11 in the NY Times.]