Barack Obama spoke to the American press yesterday to demagogue Republicans, Paul Ryan’s budget, cite Ronald Reagan as proof that raising taxes is okay, and damn with faint praise American exceptionalism.

The President called Paul Ryan’s budget a “trojan horse.” Given the President’s predilection for forcing all Americans, through regulatory fiat, to adhere to his view of contraception, I suspect that had Paul Ryan preemptively called his budget a ‘trojan condom,” the President of the United States would be campaigning trying to make us all adhere to it.

One thing that really stuck out at me in his speech yesterday was his statement that his very life and career were made possible because of American exceptionalism. He’s right. It’s also what makes his public policy choices so maddening.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Patrick Louis Knudsen to discuss Paul Ryan’s new budget, Obama’s attacks on it and whether or not it lives up to Ryan’s own standards.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Obama: Paul Ryan budget plan is ‘Trojan horse’
Paul Ryan’s budget plan betrays his own views on income inequality
Paul Ryan stumps for Romney, accuses Obama of ‘cash for clunkers economics’
The Ryan Budget: Confronting the Nation’s Spending Crisis
CBO Shows Obama’s Budget Produces More Staggering Spending and Debt
Patrick Louis Knudsen at the Heritage Foundation

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow the Heritage Foundation on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Download audio here

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Patrick Louis Knudsen to discuss Paul Ryan’s new budget, Obama’s attacks on it and whether or not it lives up to Ryan’s own standards.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Obama: Paul Ryan budget plan is ‘Trojan horse’
Paul Ryan’s budget plan betrays his own views on income inequality
Paul Ryan stumps for Romney, accuses Obama of ‘cash for clunkers economics’
The Ryan Budget: Confronting the Nation’s Spending Crisis
CBO Shows Obama’s Budget Produces More Staggering Spending and Debt
Patrick Louis Knudsen at the Heritage Foundation

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow the Heritage Foundation on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

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Top Story

National Media’s Biased Coverage of the Affordable Care Act – This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether President Obama’s signature political achievement, the Affordable Care Act, is constitutional or not.

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Matthews Accuses GOP of Making it Harder for Minorities to Vote [Video] – On Wednesday night’s Hardball on MSNBC, during a segment on Florida’s new voter registration law, Chris Matthews asked Florida GOP Chairman Leonard Curry why Republicans want to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

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The EPA Wrecking Ball – The Environmental Protection Agency is using its power to advance the objective of the environmental movement to deny Americans access to the energy that sustains the nation’s economy and is using the greatest hoax ever perpetrated, global warming—now called “climate change”—to achieve that goal.

As the Supreme Court began hearings that will determine the fate of ObamaCare, Republican Congressman Paul Ryan minced no words in his latest critique of the Obama Administration’s disregard for the Constitution.

Last year, we were proud to be one of the first websites to publicly promote the Republican Study Committee’s Cut, Cap and Balance (CCB) plan.  What started out as an idea hatched by a few principled conservatives grew into a unifying rallying cry for the entire conservative movement.  Sadly, GOP leadership jettisoned the universally-heralded CCB plan in favor of the Budget [Out of] Control Act, which gave Obama another $2.1 trillion in debt authority, while cutting nothing significantly except for defense.

Now, thanks to the indefatigable work of Reps. Jim Jordan, Scott Garrett, Mick Mulvaney, Tom McClintock, and Tim Huelskamp, CCB is back in the form of the annual RSC budget – and it’s here to stay.  The RSC budget – Cut, Cap, and Balance – immediately cuts discretionary spending in FY 2013 by $112 billion from last year’s spending levels, caps future spending at 18-18.7% of GDP, and balances the budget in just 5 years!  Overall, the RSC budget will cut $7.6 trillion relative to Obama’s budget and even $2.3 trillion more than the Ryan budget.

The amazing thing is that the balanced budget is achieved without accounting for the reforms to the biggest drivers of the deficits; Social Security and Medicare.  The budget proposal includes Paul Ryan’s Medicare premium support plan, and even adds Social Security reform (unlike the Ryan budget).  However, those changes don’t begin until after the 10-year budget frame.  As such, none of the savings are included in the budget.

While it is clear that those two leviathans must be reformed in order to maintain a balanced budget in the long-run, this budget illustrates something unique in budget land.  It is the first proposal that shows how to balance the budget in 5 years, even without reforming SS and Medicare immediately.  This does not diminish the importance of reforming those programs; rather it shows how much dead wood is lodged into the rest of the budget – an observation that is often overlooked.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the budget proposal:

Read More →

Last year, we were proud to be one of the first websites to publicly promote the Republican Study Committee’s Cut, Cap and Balance (CCB) plan.  What started out as an idea hatched by a few principled conservatives grew into a unifying rallying cry for the entire conservative movement.  Sadly, GOP leadership jettisoned the universally-heralded CCB plan in favor of the Budget [Out of] Control Act, which gave Obama another $2.1 trillion in debt authority, while cutting nothing significantly except for defense.

Now, thanks to the indefatigable work of Reps. Jim Jordan, Scott Garrett, Mick Mulvaney, Tom McClintock, and Tim Huelskamp, CCB is back in the form of the annual RSC budget – and it’s here to stay.  The RSC budget – Cut, Cap, and Balance – immediately cuts discretionary spending in FY 2013 by $112 billion from last year’s spending levels, caps future spending at 18-18.7% of GDP, and balances the budget in just 5 years!  Overall, the RSC budget will cut $7.6 trillion relative to Obama’s budget and even $2.3 trillion more than the Ryan budget.

The amazing thing is that the balanced budget is achieved without accounting for the reforms to the biggest drivers of the deficits; Social Security and Medicare.  The budget proposal includes Paul Ryan’s Medicare premium support plan, and even adds Social Security reform (unlike the Ryan budget).  However, those changes don’t begin until after the 10-year budget frame.  As such, none of the savings are included in the budget.

While it is clear that those two leviathans must be reformed in order to maintain a balanced budget in the long-run, this budget illustrates something unique in budget land.  It is the first proposal that shows how to balance the budget in 5 years, even without reforming SS and Medicare immediately.  This does not diminish the importance of reforming those programs; rather it shows how much dead wood is lodged into the rest of the budget – an observation that is often overlooked.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the budget proposal:

Read More →

Shall the federal government be allowed unfettered power over citizens?  That is the ultimate question for nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this week.  The three days of Supreme Court oral arguments on ObamaCare may be the most important constitutional discussions of our lifetime.

This week in Washington is going to be dominated by a national discussion the constitutionality of ObamaCare, yet Congress plods on.  The House of Representatives is expected to take up a short term extension of a highway bill and the Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan for Fiscal Year 2013.  The Senate is expected to take votes on an energy tax bill and legislation dealing with the U.S. Postal Service.

This is a very important week for American freedom in the federal courts.  The Supremes will be engaging a debate on whether there is any limit to federal power residing in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.  Will Americans be allowed to make very personal decisions about health care or will that power be handed to the federal government in perpetuity?  We shall engage in the national debate this week and the Supreme Court will hand down a decision later this year.

Read More →

Shall the federal government be allowed unfettered power over citizens?  That is the ultimate question for nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this week.  The three days of Supreme Court oral arguments on ObamaCare may be the most important constitutional discussions of our lifetime.

This week in Washington is going to be dominated by a national discussion the constitutionality of ObamaCare, yet Congress plods on.  The House of Representatives is expected to take up a short term extension of a highway bill and the Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan for Fiscal Year 2013.  The Senate is expected to take votes on an energy tax bill and legislation dealing with the U.S. Postal Service.

This is a very important week for American freedom in the federal courts.  The Supremes will be engaging a debate on whether there is any limit to federal power residing in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.  Will Americans be allowed to make very personal decisions about health care or will that power be handed to the federal government in perpetuity?  We shall engage in the national debate this week and the Supreme Court will hand down a decision later this year.

Read More →

The much-anticipated Ryan budget for FY 2013, which also contains a blueprint for the next ten years, has been released.  The headline figures of the proposal include the following factoids: it will spend $5.3 trillion less than Obama’s plan and cut $2 trillion more in taxes over the next ten years; it will spend $4.15 less than CBO baseline; spending will be reduced from 24% of GDP to 19.8% and the debt held by the public will decline from73.2% of GDP to 62.3%.

The lion’s share of the savings come from welfare and other mandatory spending reforms ($1.9 trillion), block granting Medicaid to the states ($810 billion), and repealing Obamacare ($1.6 trillion).  There are also $33 billion in much-needed cuts to farm subsidies (some Republicans are already grumbling about that).

While the budget calls for just $350 billion in discretionary cuts relative to Obama’s budget and only $200 billion relative to CBO’s pre-sequester baseline, Ryan embraces more cuts through the sequester.  He calls for a reconciliation act to parry the sequester cuts away from defense on onto the other undesirable branches of government.  The motion would instruct 6 committees to find $261 billion in non-security discretionary cuts to offset the first few years of the sequester.  Over 10 years, the sequester will cut $548 billion from defense (on top of the $500 billion already cut).  The full impact of the sequester on defense spending will have to be addressed in future budgets.

This budget represents a good start and a path forward in the goal towards a balanced budget.  However, the budget resolution in itself will never lead to a balanced budget any time within the next ten years.  In fact, it would not balance until around 2040.  Under Ryan’s plan, spending would still increase by about 3% a year after 2015.   Here are some of the areas to improve upon for future budget proposals, such as the RSC budget:

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