The Other Criticism of the Ryan Budget Proposal (Updated)

For a really scathing condemnation of the Ryan budget proposal, don’t look to the Democratic objections which fall along the expected lines. Consider this critique from a more libertarian, small government perspective from Mish Shedlock:

Flat out, Ryan’s proposal is no path to prosperity. It is a step in the right direction but the best we can say about it is that it delays bankrupting the nation.

Republicans need to take another look at Ryan’s assumptions on growth, on jobs, on interest on the national debt, on military spending, on shared sacrifice, and on the idea that budget projections 30 years from now make any sense .

Ryan’s plan may be far better than Obama’s but neither plan is a “Path to Prosperity”.

Read the whole thing.

Update

Another libertarian critique of the Ryan proposal, this time from Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy. In brief, it punts on Social Security, the timeline for bringing the budget into balance is too long, and a more basic philosophical problem:

Which brings us to the major flaw in Ryan’s budget: He doesn’t rest his reform of entitlements on a fundamental understanding that not everyone should be receiving govenment money. Even as he pushes to reform Medicare, for instance, he emphasizes continuing its universality for retirees. The two of us believe it is society’s responsiblity to care for the neediest and poorest among us. But it’s not society’s responsiblity to take care of middle-class and wealthy individuals who have the means of doing so for themselves (as David Stockman told one of us recently, all government benefits should be means-tested). By failing to make this distinction, Ryan sets his plan up for political failure. When his plan was scored by the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO noted that under his reforms most Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay more for their health care costs. That’s not only mathematically correct, it’s morally correct. There is simply no reason that relatively well-off seniors shouldn’t pay their own way. That would allow the government to take better care of those actually in need while reducing overall tax burdens on the economy. Similarly, while we think Ryan is absolutely correct about block-granting Medicaid, at least that program is specifically geared toward helping the poor. The same cannot be said about Social Security and Medicare, which suggests reforming those programs should be the highest priority when it comes to entitlements.