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Paul Ryan given power to bind and to loose.

Mostly 'bind.'

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  December 31st, 2010 at 02:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Elections.
Have.
Consequences.

And here’s one coming up, now: the incoming House majority will be establishing a rule that will give the House Budget chair the ability to set the spending ceiling for any 2011 budget.  This rule is currently causing House Democrats to freak out like koalas deprived of their eucalyptus leaves/junkies deprived of their heroin/hipsters deprived of their iPhones, for two reasons:

  • The Democrats never passed a budget in 2010, so this is going to affect spending for this fiscal year.  A lot.
  • Who is going to be the House Budget chair?  Why, Rep. Paul “Embrace the sweet pain that comes from cutting entitlements” Ryan.

And when I say “freak out,” I mean freak out: the Democrats are so upset about this that they’ve lost all control of their higher brain functions and have reverted to babbling about Social Security privatization.  And unilateralism!  We haven’t heard that one in a while.

More seriously, this is a good call: Rep. Ryan has a name for being a hardcore fiscal conservative who takes this sort of thing very seriously, and the country needs somebody with the moral strength to say “No” to people trying to raid an empty till.  That the House leadership is also giving Ryan the toolset that he’ll need for this is likewise welcome news… although not as welcome as the fact that they’re also genially mocking the Democrats for not passing a budget in 2010 (and thus giving the GOP a chance to start the Deep Hurting early).  All in all, a nice way to end the year, no?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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COMMENTS

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  • bs61

    That’s a hopeful way to start 2011 – and Paul Ryan is very familiar with progressive’s history being from WI.

  • speciallist

    bring-the-pain

  • freemanja1991

    We need to have a way to reward government employees for coming in under budget. like maybe when a certain level of government doesn’t use all of their discretionary budget or using other parts of their budgets smarter and shopping around, the employees benefit by getting X% (Maybe 15%) as a bonus. they then return the remaining surplus and save the taxpayers and reward the employees for them being smarter with taxpayer money. Everyone wins. And it gives the government employees an incentive for not just using money because they have it, if there is no incentive they will not quit wasting money.

  • michaelbowler

    The Adults have arrived.

  • spinoneone

    First, may we all have a happy and prosperous 2011, with a big thank you to Congressman Ryan!

    Second, don’t forget that the bureaucrats who are good managers always have a pot of money left at the end of the fiscal year [call that the August-September spending boom] to use to by “goodies” that they waited for. The mantra is to budget for what you think you will need and leave 10 to 15 percent for “emergencies.” Then spend the “savings” in August-September to get those cool computers, new cars for the motor pool, etc. Since, in many cases, that money really does not need to be “spent,” setting up a reward system for not doing so could be problematic.

  • ohiohistorian

    In my business, you blow your budget, you are out the door. Even if you just make your budget, you better look over your shoulder, because there is someone better looking for your job. You are EXPECTED to beat your budget.

    There are already Federal bonus systems; if you want one on budget, fine. But how about cutting every Federal budget by 3% in real dollars each year over the next decade? There is way to much bloat in every budget. Did you hear that CDC’s SPOT audit found that they lost or misplaced $6 million in goods? Tell me that is not multiplied by 10000X in the government, and I will believe you didn’t look.

  • gpclaw

    Let’s pretend that the federal government was at a size and scope we could be comfortable with. Even under those circumstances, why should the government directly employ anyone? It makes more sense to contract out to private companies, even multiple companies for the same services. If this were to happen, the companies who received the contracts would come up with their own compensation/bonus packages designed in a way that they felt makes them the most competitive and profitable.

    This model already works in areas that have been contracted in defense. People move to different companies to do the same job because of pay, benefits, managerial competency, all the sames things you or I would take into consideration when choosing employment.

  • gpclaw

    If the various federal agencies could be prevented from inventing new powers for themselves, that would alleviate much of the need for budget increases. It seems to me that one way to reduce spending would simply be to go through the libraries worth of regulations contained in the bureaucracy, get rid of what’s outdated and combine/simplify those that overlap or contradict one another.

    I think that would be the perfect roll for the next VP. I want a presidential candidate who states publicly that the ONLY roll of his/her VP will be to clean up and trim the fat from the mountains of regulations and red tape contained on our federal agencies. We can call him the “Efficiency Czar”; there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

    I’m sure there are others, but Romney, Daniels and Christie all come to mind as a good fit for that role.

  • Mike

    …made me wake several people with loud laughter :D

  • jimmyneutron

    until I actually see something to be enthusiastic about. After having to suffer through the agony that was the lame duck session – seeing absolutely no discernable plan or philosophy from the R’s – watching Reid and Obama appear to school our side once again I just can not get that excited or hopeful about anything. I want to see some sign that those people actually get it.
    I would really like to see from the Republican leadership
    - genuine anger over where Obama is leading this country
    - concrete steps taken to begin to reverse where we are heading economically
    - true leadership that does not look to compromise away the farm and that does not fall for bait and switch flim flams such as when, during the recent lame duck session, Reid proposes a ridiculous spending resolution loaded with pork that he knew would never pass so that he could get other items passed that he wanted (DADT, SMART).
    - The ability to bring to light all off the rotten things Obama is doing, both legislatively and through regulations imposed by his functionaries and then to put up firewalls to stop him.
    - Work to end funding for things such as NPR, Ethanol subsidies, paying for cell phones, internet service, etc for ‘the poor’, and any one of the other thousands of programs we have no business borrowing money from the Chinese or whoever to pay for.
    Show me some principled leadership with a real spine!

  • america1st

    The GOP worm emulations of the past two months were like watching a slow motion newsreel of the French “leadership” circa June, 1940.

    What we must have instead are Congressional & Senatorial contingents with spines led by those in the mantle of Churchill. We may see that in the House, but at this point I’m not too optimistic about the Senate, given the wimpy leadership in 2010 and the continued presence of dimocrap lites collins, graham & snowe (among others).

  • america1st

    but what immediately came to mind was the photo of pelousi and her supporters smugly marching to the House waving that big damn gavel replaced with the image of them being marched right back with the thing jammed down their throats (or other orifices) by the “Spirit of ’76″ and the real Americans they have ignored and insulted.

    Yes, elections damn well DO have consequences and now these curs are having the first taste of the wine of hubris they put down over the past two years. As they receive full measure, I can only hope it destroys them figuratively if not literally.

  • reddog53

    Having a little experience in this realm, I can say that unless the regulations are significantly changed (this won’t happen right away…), having private firms take over responsibilities that government employees are accomplishing is not a panacea.

    You have to create detailed contractual documents, manage the procurement and then monitor the results— because, perish the thought, sometimes the contractors are slackers themselves. In the end, it’s only marginally useful as a cost cutting tool.

    Your assertion that “the model already works in areas that have been contracted in defense” really doesn’t have a huge number of successful stories. In most cases, the agency could have done as well on its own with decent leadership.

    The best idea is to remove the task totally — downsizing what government is to do, rather than just downsizing the workforce that does it.

  • acat
  • jaydickb

    this is sort of what we did. I worked for an agency that I think was pretty well-manged, especially by government standards. We always spent sparingly so we would have a reserve. At the end of the year, we bought things we had been needing all year but had gone without. Computers and associated equipment were common purchases; staff training was another. Even so, we often turned back some unused money.

  • lesueur8

    I used to have faith in Paul Ryan. Then came TARP, the auto bailout, the failure of his team as Obama outwitted the dimwitted Republicans during the lame duck session. Like his peers, he does not have the strength to get our country moving in the right direction.

    Pledge to America? Really? We pass a pork-filled extension to the Bush tax cuts. We extend them for only two years?

    Do any of you really think real change will happen? I don’t. The optics of December should make it clear no one is serious.

  • Bobcat51

    Will wait and see if Santa delivered some backbone to the new team. Obama and his gang are in this game to win big , it’s going to take an awful lot of street smarts to counter his gameplan. No more Mr. Nice Guy, if it has to get ugly , make sure we are a little uglier. Stop playing catch up and stop the destruction ,that’s all we ask,please.

    Darrell Issa and committees, start your engines.Good Luck to the the team for 2011

  • carolina

    That is a big savings that you are forgetting.
    I was part of the team that took over the Nevada Test Site in 96. There was significant waste and inefficiency to address. In addition, I saw first hand how useless the govt accounting system is for managing and controlling costs.
    When I worked at the Savannah River Site I learned all about “paving all of the parking lots in Sept”. Govt entities have a “use it or lose it” mentality. If they don’t spend all of their budget in the FY – they are likely to get less the next year. Guess what……. they find a way to SPEND IT!
    Contract out as much as possible. The govt is not effecient at anything they ‘do’. Bureaucrats survive by NOT making decisions – so they never get in trouble. This is basically true of EVERY govt entity in existence……. including state and local. It is the nature of the beast.

  • carolina

    That is a big savings that you are forgetting.
    I was part of the team that took over the Nevada Test Site in 96. There was significant waste and inefficiency to address. In addition, I saw first hand how useless the govt accounting system is for managing and controlling costs.
    When I worked at the Savannah River Site I learned all about “paving all of the parking lots in Sept”. Govt entities have a “use it or lose it” mentality. If they don’t spend all of their budget in the FY – they are likely to get less the next year. Guess what……. they find a way to SPEND IT!
    Contract out as much as possible. The govt is not effecient at anything they ‘do’. Bureaucrats survive by NOT making decisions – so they never get in trouble. This is basically true of EVERY govt entity in existence……. including state and local. It is the nature of the beast.

  • jstjoan

    over at AoSHQ will begin a stalking campaign of Rep Paul Ryan like he did with Marco Rubio with visits from his little wookie bear (or whatever that thing is, lol!).

  • reddog53

    Contracts that are given to companies such as Lockheed, Bearing Point, Boeing and SAIC all have employees that accrue “benefits”….one can argue that the benefits are less, so there is some potential for savings.

    However, the transfer of labor for various tasks is accompanied by having to hire people to serve as contracting officers, technical representatives and cost analysts on the government side, to prevent contract fraud and waste.

    So, on balance, the savings end up being relatively small.

    Since the government has been contracting out things at least since the Clinton administration, there’s scant evidence that government is costing us less.

  • ss396

    With the heat up in the Services markets, the traditional ‘body shops’ found themselves in some pretty fierce competition to get competent folks on their roles. And these are no longer just clerks and junior AP accountants and secretaries – these include very highly skilled engineers, managers, specialists, etc. As a result, a lot of these places provide some pretty decent benefits packages to the people that they provide to us users.

  • redneck_hippie

    I think Paul Ryan could be perceived as The Lone Ranger. I’ll watch to see if he fires that bullet. ::cue William Tell Overature::

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td4RHvyAFsM

    Plus, I would suggest that we run a contest to try and guess what person or persons will be singled out for ridicule during The King’s SOTU address.

  • freemanja1991

    I have a friend who is in the guard. With a couple months left in the fiscal year his unit discovered they were way under budget. So they started to use the money up buy stuff for the unit members.

    What I am saying with this is parts of the budget, like what I’m talking about above, we can’t really do anything if they waste it. I am saying in the case like above we could use my idea. We would actually keep some money and there would be an incentive not to just spend it because they have it.

  • Common_Cents

    Many times its “use it or lose it” so people will blow their budgets to make sure they will get the same budget or more next time around.

    You are right, there is no incentive for reducing the budget.

  • Raven

    In fact, contracting out in the DoD has caused endless problems. Costs went up and options for extra duty punishments disappeared due to the landscaping and guard duty contracts.

    The installations which contracted out their housing want it back. Cost overruns, shoddy construction, shoddier maintenance, slow response times for maintenance calls…

    And the soldiers want Army cooks back at most of the DiFacs. At least when soldiers are cooking/serving/running things, there’s a way to get them improved.

    Contractors can ignore even the general pretty much with impunity. He can’t terminate their contracts or otherwise punish people for below-grade performance.

  • Raven

    Practical aplication of training for engineers and MPs and cooks and transportation and…
    has been severely curtailed at all installations because of the above contracts and more. because we want soldiers who have no real-world, hands-on experience building things and pulling security and making sure the quartermaster gets what he’s supposed to get. Among other things.

  • Raven

    for folks up the chain of command to short-shrift the soldiers on training and equipment.

    As if we don’t have enough of that already.

  • Raven

    The rules haven’t even been voted on, yet. Let alone passed with this one intact.

    We’ll see what happens…

  • lunaticrex

    …not ‘many.’ I served in the military for 23 years. Once I attained sufficient rank and experience, I began to learn a bit about the annual budget process. Not much, because the system seems skewed and opaque to all but the highest-level money people (and, I always figured, the commander) in a given unit. I did learn enough to know that if a unit (or agency or whatever – I was always working for units or HQ’s) spends less than its allocated budget for a given fiscal year (1 Oct – 30 Sep), the next year that unit’s budget will not increase (that’s called a ‘decrease’ in government funding lingo). And there is always the concern that if a unit spends less than it was allotted, the budget would actually decrease in real dollars.

    Commanders cannot risk losing money because it could make it difficult to accomplish the mission in the next FY, so to a one, commanders order their people to spend every last cent of allocated money each year. So, even though in some years there appears to be a surplus, the “Old Man” is always concerned about “getting his,” and with good reason. One does not wish to have one’s budget cut and then run out of money to do the mission. When that happens, the troops only know that they suddenly have a new boss, out of cycle. So, one spends the money. It is insane the way we ‘shop til we drop’ in mid-to-late September. We always had plenty of office supplies and fresh paint in October.

    One more thing: I have talked to a couple commanders about this. They (and others among us) understand the system is defective. We all try to be “good stewards of the taxpayers’ money,” but the mission is, rightly, the number one priority. In my experience, the only way to change this situation is a top-down reckoning, and a complete overhaul of how the federal government does business. Paul Ryan has his work cut out, and I’m behind him on this. If he can figure this out, they’ll write books about him.

  • Superheater

    Murkowski, Collins.. and the newest Chameleon.. Scotty Brown

    Brown might as well be a Democrat.. Last year his election was a repudiation of Obama..

    An election is a box of chocolates.. you never know what you’ll get.

    It would be good to keep watchful and keep up the pressure.

  • neomom

    the White House tried to spin the Lame Duck as a huge win for the President. Sure they got START and the DADT repeal, but they lost DREAM and the grand-daddy Omnibus.

    Killing Omnibus was a HUGE victory for fiscal conservatives and set up the House and Paul Ryan to do this.

  • jsim

    Hard core fiscal conservative? Surely you’re not talking about $7 Trillion dollar entitlement Medicare Part D voter Paul Ryan, are you? What about this TARP/Medicare Part D/Auto bail-out supporter makes you think that this man can be trusted? What a joke.

  • aesthete

    As Raven mentions upthread, contracting was a disaster for the military. The problem with contracting is that it tends to be a racket for businesses with political clout that want the insulation from market forces that a government contract provides, rather than an objective pursuit of the best option available. This is particularly true at the federal level. In general, localized contracting with strict safeguards against the scenario mentioned above work better than the government-provided alternative, and there are certainly cases where contracting has worked very well (IN contracted its road management out a while back quite successfully), but it is no panacea.

  • aesthete
  • aesthete

    for actually reducing the deficit, whereas other Republicans (even those who are excellent on spending) do not. Trust but verify: if and when Paul Ryan deviates from his current course, we’ll know and either correct or replace him. In the meantime, simply opposing all future spending without a plan to get us out relegates the Republican party to being Ron Paul writ large. I’d like to get out of this mess, even if we do so through philosophically impure methods.

  • wonkish1

    I understand that their are always reasons to be cynical. And of course the rules have to be approved, and the outcome has to happen.

    But guys this is very good, huge news. And this is just another example where we can see this a big victory for us. This rule will most likely be passed and once it does it will lead to a lot more spending reductions than if the rule didn’t exist. Be happy when we get victories, not everything is always doom and gloom.

  • wonkish1

    Of tearing you one for a comment like this.

    I’ll be nice this time and give you the benefit of the doubt.

  • acat

    Nor shall I be for I find it hard to believe that someone who went to the trouble of joining 4 months ago, who has said nothing since, and whose first post accuses Ryan, author of the Roadmap that was in part responsible for the November election victory of somehow losing the lame duck when the 60+ seats we won haven’t changed hands yet .. is a serious person.

    I think LeSueur’s head is full of peas.

    http://www.wegmans.com/prodimg/651/200/020000101651.jpg

    Mew

  • carolina

    Retirement benefits accrued by contractor employees are not paid by we tax payers. The tax payers foot the salarys and overheads while they are working on a govt job. The tax payers do NOT pay contractor employee benefits after they retire.
    Govt employees who retire from a federal payroll receive benefits throughout their retirement that ARE funded by tax $$.
    In addition, most private sector employees have to contribute more to their 401k and healthcare than govt employees contribute to their healthcare defined benefit pensions…….. ALL paid by the tax payer.

  • timelyrenewed

    I sincerely hope that a Republican Congress will become truly fiscally conservative. However, in the end this is a retail solution to a wholesale problem. We need to redress the underlying distortions of the Constitution which have allowed the federal government to expand far beyond its original constitutional powers, not nitpick at separate individual usurpations. We need to amend the Constitution to restore the original constitutional structure which limited the federal government’s ability to expand to such a ridiculous size and power.

    However, this is difficult to achieve when Congress holds a monopoly on initiating constitutional amendments. Some have proposed calling an Article V convention, but that would be uncontrolled and dominated by politicians and law professors. The solution is an “amendment amendment” which gives the States the ability to initiate constitutional amendments without a convention. This will allow grassroots constitutionalists to press a program of amendments which can permanently constrain federal overreach of the sort rejected by the people in November. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com

  • cwilson

    …I can’t believe I’m writing this, but…

    The guy ran to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare. Other than that, he was a liberal Republican as you would expect from Taxachusetts.

    Now, Brown *did* hold up his end of the bargain: because of Brown, Reid was unable to break the Republican filibuster and get the House version of ObamaCare thru the Senate. Nor was he able to pass any House-desired amendments or otherwise “revise” the Senate version to be more acceptable to the House.

    This is why the awful Senate version had to be passed in the House exactly as originally passed in the Senate — otherwise the stupendously horrific House version would have become law.

    That Pelosi had enough of a majority to pass the Senate version — which had been voted on prior to Brown’s election — thru the House over the objection of many of the members of her own caucus is not Senator Brown’s fault. He did his part — and as many of us said at the time: “Scott Brown gets a permanent pass on squishy votes. He isn’t and never will be “one of us”, but (a) he did what we asked on THE most important vote in his career, and (b) however bad he may be, Ted Kennedy and Martha Coakley are worse — so it’s a strict improvement.

    Besides, he’ll be gone in 2014; Taxachusetts will revert to type and replace him with a real Democrat post-haste.

    This is NOT to say we should settle for generic RINOs in all blue, or even purple, or god forbid, red, states. On a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 is Vermont and Utah is 0, Massachusetts is about a 98. So we can put up with RINOs when we can get ‘em in states > 95. But everywhere else — even CT, in my opinion — run a conservative (and nice hard-edged rock-ribbed ones in states < 50). I’m not into pre-emptive surrender, and we shouldn’t have to abide RINOs in GA (yes, Chambliss and Isakson, I’m looking at you — thanks for your vote on the Food “Safety” act!) or UT.

    But Massachusetts?

  • wonkish1

    The 2 people having their only post here at Redstate attacking Paul Ryan.

  • gekster

    We know who you don’t like, who do you like.

  • acat

    I think it’s a libtard attempt at false flagging ..

    They create accounts on conservative sites, let them age for a while – to give them some “authenticity” – and then post factual but B.S. arguments.

    One of my other online haunts has seen anti-conservatives show up during every election – usually less than a year out, then after the election … gone. Not sure if they’re coordinated or spontaneous, but .. it is a provable occurrence.

    Mew

  • gamechange11two

    He wrote the book on fiscal conservativism. Two, actually:

    http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=young+guns&x=10&y=20

    http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/
    (OK, it’s a website for the nitpickers. Close enough.)

    He should be up to the job.

  • gamechange11two
  • aesthete

    I understand and agree with the view that we should hold some distrust for all pols, but was there really a better choice for the time being than Paul Ryan? It’s not like we’re ignoring better plans, and the people in Congress who do have better records than Paul Ryan on NCLB, Medicare Pt D, etc, such as Jeff Flake and DeMint, are fully behind him. Given the fact that we don’t have a better alternative, and that Ryan’s plan is fairly feasible, I don’t get the animus coming from some conservative and libertarian quarters.

  • aesthete

    The critiques of Scott Brown are somewhat akin to critiques of Lech Walesa for not being sufficiently for the free market, since he was a union leader*.

    *Lech was actually very pro-free market, but even if he had been a social democrat, he would have been better than the Communists.

  • Raven

    When we Do have a victory, we will be happy. Right now we are excited that they are even Proposing such a rule, but we’re not going to hold our breath waiting for it to go into effect.

  • davesinsanantonio

    the big things take care of themselves”. Also, “take care of the dimes and the dollars take care of themselves”. We got into this mess by a bunch of little usurpations over a century or more. We got into this mess because the People were content to let Congress do its thing, thinking that they all had the best interests of the country at heart.
    We have now roused the People, and they are aware of the mere politicians and the actual enemies of this country, and we need to keep them roused, aware, and participating. We can dismantle the mess the Left has gotten us into one step at a time.
    Right now the People are leery of any sweeping changes to the Constitution, because they have seen how much damage little sneaky changes can cause. So, instead of big pie-in-the-sky solutions, we should just go to work and “get ‘er done!”. The people want us the get rid of the little things as well as prevent possible big things. Let us not get so wrapped up in trying to make big changes (which we probably do not have the wherewithall to actually get done!), and start doing the things we can get done. “Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time!!!”

  • capeconservative

    Thanks!

    It will be interesting to see what the wicked witch from the west has up her sleeve to gum up the works! I believe Paul Ryan had done his homework…we all remember he had a full presentation ready for the president during his big deal ‘bi-partisan’ meeting and the president simply ignored him – and the rest of the Republicans. Wasn’t that where he said ‘we won’????

    In any case, best wishes for Congressman Ryan to STAY STRONG and get these budget matters front and center, no longer put on the back burner to fester!

    And to earlier posters re: Scott Brown, it is a good thing he has a nice ‘war chest’ because he has disappointed so many of his earlier supporters with his votes…and will not be receiving donations this time around. First listening to Barney Frank OF ALL PEOPLE to vote for the financial rescue bill, then continuing to vote with the ladies from Mainer, and lastly, his HORRIBLE votes in the lame duck session! Not only did he help Obama leave 2010 victorious, but by doing so, he betrayed all members of our mighty military – not so honorable from a military guy himself!

    Sorry to say, but ‘better than Ted Kennedy or Marsha Coakley’ just doesn’t ease the pain! Better to have a Democrat cast the votes he did than to know it was a Republican who did so!!! No more $$ from this family unless there is a VISIBLE turnaround…and I don’t think that is possible – he’s too proud of his maverick position, just as McCain was. Seems McCain decided to listen to the voters in November and just may vote a little differently this go-round. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see.

  • Common_Cents

    I wasn’t in military but sold my company to a fortune 200 and found it the same way. totally bass ackwards from what I was used to.