Paul Ryan The Fiscal Warrior

Looks like Mitt Romney has chosen a conservative that is going to fight to massively reduce the size of government and tackle entitlement reform. The election is now about the big issue of reducing the size of government. This is big news. The coming economic crisis has been avoided thanks to a bold move by Mitt Romney to pick a radical small government politician that is going to make things happen.

Of course there is always more than the shiny facade pimped by party loyalists and for those that have bothered to investigate Ryan's record the picture becomes a bit murkier.
For starters there is the very pressing and disturbing votes of the Bush legacy. Specifically Ryan's support of: TARP, Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind (NCLB). All three are wonderful examples of how the Republican party only fights for fiscal sanity when they are a minority party, the second they become the majority they expand Government programs at an alarming rate. NCLB is a monstrosity that gave the Department of Education teeth, Medicare Part D tacked on hundreds of billions (half a trillion as of today per year) to the debt and was passed in the House in a manner very reminiscent to ObamaCare and TARP is an egregious disregard of the free market system and should make any citizen sick to their stomach.[...]

In order to understand that Ryan's budget is nothing more than smoke and mirrors we turn to a detailed analysis of the budget. This interactive analysis lets you compare and contrast the Ryan and Obama budgets side by side and examine the projects for spending. [...]

First we got Medicaid. Clearly the difference is notable and appreciable. In fact based on this image alone it would almost invalidate all my criticism of the Ryan budget. [...]

Next we have Medicare. What's this? Apparently Grandma is not going off a cliff, instead it would appear that she is being pushed up a hill! Ryan's plan spends MORE on Medicare than Obama.[...]

Next up is Social Security. No, it is not a graphical glitch. Ryan's plan does absolutely nothing for Social Security. Yet conservative websites and pundits swoon over Ryan like he is the next coming of Barry Goldwater, more on that later.[...]

Lastly, the national debt. This is probably not surprising, but after all the hoopla and all the bravado the end result is that the speed at which our fiscal apocalypse arrives is merely slowed down by a teeny weeny bit. [...]
The answer is quite simple. Romney and Ryan represent exactly the same problem even if one appears to be a moderate and the other appears to be an epic fiscal warrior. The Republican party fights for and pushes through the status-quo. The images you see up above and the Ryan record is the status-quo. No doubt about it.
Yet Romney is counting on the ignorance of Republican base to run with the facade of Ryan's conservatism. If that illusion holds then Ryan's image will invariably boost Romney's own image as many will view Romney's decision as courageous and bold despite Obama's willingness to distort Ryan's budget. In other words, you are witnessing a most fantastic and glamorous circus. A bad Hollywood movie, except that ending will be quite real and not something you can pause or turn off.[...]

However we all know what happens when politicians threaten the sacred cows of entitlement spending. They get destroyed. Barry Goldwater was America's last libertarian-Republican candidate and he was obliterated because he dared to speak up against Social Security. Barry's loss paved the way for the great society and the invention of Medicare and Medicaid. How ironic. Poll after poll shows that Americans refuse to accept changes to entitlement programs, despite their clamoring for someone to fix our debt.

 They had me fooled for a little bit in thinking Paul Ryan was a small government conservative that is going to reduce the debt and reign in big government. 

222,000,000,000,000

 The actual U.S debt is 222 trillion dollars:

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade.
In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap -- the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness -- rose by $11 trillion. [...]

The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using theCongressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast -- the Alternative Fiscal Scenario -- is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference -- this year’s true federal deficit -- is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.  

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.[...] 

Part of the fiscal gap’s growth reflects changes in policy, such as the Bush and Obama tax cuts, the introduction of Medicare Part D, and the expansion of defense spending. Part reflects “natural” growth of existing programs, including growth in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. And part reflects the demographic time bomb U.S. politicians are blithely ignoring.

When fully retired, 78 million baby boomers will collect, on average, more than 85 percent of per-capita gross domestic product ($40,000 in today’s dollars) in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Each passing year brings these outlays one year closer, which raises their present value.

 According to the CBO:

 Many budget analysts believe that the alternative fiscal scenario presents a more realistic picture of the nation's underlying fiscal policies than the extended-baseline scenario does. The explosive path of federal debt under the alternative fiscal scenario underscores the need for large and rapid policy changes to put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course.

Hotair notes that, "We’ve been talking about the 'fiscal cliff' or 'Taxmageddon' coming at the end of the year, but this is the real fiscal cliff we face. And yet, no one in this general-election cycle has even acknowledged it, let alone proposed a solution to it." 

Here is a more optimistic view of the situation.