Posted on 12/11/2013 1:05:52 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Conservative radio host Mark Levin hosted Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday to discuss the new budget deal announced by lawmakers. Levin wasn’t exactly impressed with the deal and he let Ryan know it, even calling the agreement “Mickey Mouse” more than once.
Ryan first explained that the deal, titled “The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013,” replaces sequester cuts with savings from future cuts. He said he was happy with the plan because it prevents deep budget cuts to the Defense Department and the U.S. military. Mark Levin Challenges Paul Ryan on New Budget Deal in Contentious Interview
“This prevents that from happening, and cuts spending in other areas,” Ryan said. “The result for me needed to be, if I did nothing, what would happen versus doing this. Doing this cuts the deficit about $23 billion.”
Levin cut Ryan off to point out that spending increases under the agreement are “immediate” while spending reductions are “over time,” which means “we may never see them.”
“That’s not true,” Ryan replied. “This is unfortunately the nature of what we call mandatory spending. For instance, I’m saying right away federal employees…are going to have to pay more for some of their pensions. That law changes now, but over time it accumulates a lot of savings.”
After allowing Ryan to elaborate, Levin spoke his mind.
"This is really Mickey Mouse," he said. "I don't mean to be offensive. You're claiming a $23 billion dollar savings on the deficit and increasing spending by, what, the same amount in the next two years?"
Ryan argued the federal government will save $85 billion, and "give back" to the sequester $65 billion.
We have a $90 trillion unfunded liability that goes up about $7 trillion a year. We have $17.3 trillion fiscal operating debt — and the Democrats wouldn’t let you really address that would they?” Levin asked.
“That’s right,” Ryan responded.
With President Barack Obama in the White House, the congressman explained, it is unlikely that Congress will be able to fix the country’s fiscal problems. Obama is not “willing and able to do that,” he added. However, Ryan said it is in the nation’s best interest to avoid another shutdown and keep the focus on the important issues like Obamacare and the IRS.
“You guys are all worked up about that,” Levin said of a potential government shutdown. “Lots of us don’t really care about that.”
Levin repeatedly expressed his disappointment in the fact that deal only seeks to cut $23 billion over a decade.
“We’re facing a fiscal disaster, I know you know this, you’ve told me this,” Levin said. “And we’re talking about $23 billion over 10 years?”
Ryan agreed the deal doesn’t fix the country’s financial woes, but the “precedent” that is being set is a step in the right direction.
Listen to the entire contentious interview below:
If you were the finance minister of Bolivia....you’d really sit and admire these American guys...with seven-dollar words, finance gimmicks that would require a degree to understand, and mythical solutions that never seem to deliver but look awful pretty.
I appreciate that Levin said this:
.....“You guys are all worked up about that,” Levin said of a potential government shutdown. “Lots of us don’t really care about that.”....
Ryan made a point during his budget roll out hug-fest with Sen. Patty Murry to slam those with motives who’d “shut-down” the government . Then again, on Greta’s show, Ryan made it a point to again take shots at those with wrongheaded motives that shut government.
Very telling.
So imagine a train heading for a fallen bridge with the throttle set to 10. Everyone on the train sees the fallen bridge but the engineers don’t want to disturb the passengers too much with a sudden decrease in speed so they only decrease the throttle to 9.9999
You’re still hurtling towards a fallen bridge you frikkin’ idiots!
The only reason anyone noticed the shutdown was bam bam spent money to shut down the open air parks.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic did not save her, and neither will this phony so-called deal.
Ryan is a weak sellout.
Very telling.
Indeed!
“2-3 years” starts in a few months, Rep Ryan...
Hannity show, Mar 27, 2012:
HANNITY: What happens in two to three years if the bond market says, too much debt, we can’t give it to you anymore.
RYAN: We have a massive spike in interest rates. All the experts are telling us, we have about two to three years is the time frame they tell us, which is the bond markets. Remember, half of our debt is owned by foreigners. And 40 cents of every dollar government spends is borrowed money. So we are really in debt, I mean, to a huge amount. So the bond markets if they turn on us then our interest rates go up tremendously. That means car loans, housing loans, business loans, home loans, all of that is really expensive. It shuts down and slows down the economy. At the same time, you can have an inflation problem that can get out of control. So your money isn’t buying much as it used to because of the Federal Reserve hasn’t gotten inflation under control, we’ve got a real problem on our hands.
I missed it. Sounds entertaining. I will have to hear the replay.
HOORAY Mark! ‘Rat with a smiley face ALERT! Mickey Mouse, indeed.
The check is in the mail.
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