Reform and the 2012 Federal Budget

       Ryan's Express. That's what one Foxnews writer called Rep. Ryan's proposed 2012 budget. I like that name. Seeing that we Americans are well over a trillion dollars in current debt and have likely more than 170 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities to our various entitlement programs, we need to grow up. We need to become conservative with our finances and tough on spending. That's not easy with so many liberals in important government positions or living off entitlements. Pelosi, Reed, Obama, Keynesian economists all believe the socialist fantasy that you borrow and spend your way to prosperity. (Warning: don't try that at home; it only works in liberal fantasyland.) Or, in their fantasy world they will tax the rich- as if the rich are saying, "Please take my money." California tried this, and found that the rich are actually saying, "I'll move to a tax-friendlier place."

       Liberals don't really understand conservatives. While many of us conservatives would like to retire earlier, we will work longer if that is what it takes to keep the country solvent. We aren't the French, or even worse, ungrateful liberals who live in the bounty of the United States and simultaneously hate their country for being bountiful, claiming that America "stole" its prosperity rather than earned it. It will be the liberals rioting in the streets, as in Wisconsin, when reforms have to be made.

       But if we are working longer and harder, we want to see the government cut spending at the same time. Otherwise, Americans will sacrifice and the goverment will respond as it has in the past forty years: "Thanks for your hard work. We'll take that money and relieve you of the burden of spending it yourself."

      Responsible government will be the other necessary component of necessary reform. It may be that it will be necessary to modify the 16th Amendment to prohibit unfunded mandates and, during peacetime, to limit the percentage of the budget the government can borrow and to set a maximum tax rate available to the goverment.