Election 2016 Handicapping: Bush v. Paul?

They're the front-runners for the GOP's presidential nomination at 13% each, according to a new CNN/ORC poll [hat tip -- Politico, via #sayfie].

What's changed:

- Chris Christie is sinking (he's down to 9%). I predicted this, of course, but it's not like that's a prophetic feat of note. There's only room for one "party establishment" candidate. "BridgeGate" was a chest wound in Christie's presidential aspirations; Bush indicating real interest is the equivalent of La Cosa Nostra sending around a guy to put a .22 in the back of his nascent campaign's head.

- Mike Huckabee, who led the GOP primary polls as recently as a month ago, is fading as the campaigns start to actually crank up -- maybe not officially, but they're burning gasoline and shoe leather and not bothering to keep their intentions secret.

- Paul Ryan is still hanging in there right behind Paul and Bush, but that won't last. No sitting US Representative has been elected to the White House since Garfield, and "I was second fiddle to your last big sacrificial lamb" is not a bankable qualification.

If nothing changes -- and at 2 1/2 years out, all kinds of things can change -- we're probably looking at a Bush/Paul race. If that's the case, it's my considered opinion that Paul's odds are even longer than those his dad faced. The party establishment has had two election cycles to shore up its weak spots against insurgency from the Pauls' direction. State and local party organizations will be locked down tight, the big checkbooks will come out for Bush and the GOP establishment would rather throw the election (if it's not already a lost cause regardless of candidate) than put a loose cannon on the Oval Deck.

I Agree with Sarah Palin

Betcha didn't see that one coming. She may not be right twice a day like a stopped clock, but she's right every once in awhile, so credit where credit is due:

Sarah Palin: Paul Ryan's budget is 'definition of insanity'
Palin:

Do we still not understand how dangerous it is to allow government to grow unchecked as we shackle ourselves with massive debt -- a good portion of which is held by foreign nations who don't necessarily like us? If we can't balance the budget today, what on earth makes us think it will happen at some future date? The solution is staring us in the face. We need to rein in spending today, and don't tell me there is nothing to cut when we know every omnibus bill is loaded with pork and kickbacks.

The usual disclaimers -- I don't accept the "we," "ourselves" and "us" parts, since I have neither authorized any politician to rack up debt in my name nor have any intention of accepting an obligation to pay off said debt, etc.

But as far as it goes, she's right.

Ryan's budget proposal, which the usual Democratic suspects are already busy labeling "draconian" and so forth, is the usual, completely non-serious, crap.

If the politicians want to balance the budget, here's how to do it:

1. Make a sober estimate of next year's revenues (perhaps based on last year's revenues);
2. Draw up a budget which spends less than that amount;
3. Stick to that budget unless -- and only unless -- revenue shortfalls force you to revise it downward (any unexpected revenue windfalls can go to paying down debt principal).

Yeah, it's really that simple.

Ryan's budget proposal increases spending for the next two years. Then, based on rosy revenue projections and the silly notion that subsequent congresses will consider themselves bound by Paul Ryan's plan (when in fact he won't even consider himself bound by it if he's still in Congress three years from now), it supposedly takes eight more years to hit point (2) above.

Sound familiar? It's the thing the Republicans offer up every year.

Every year, Republicans think that if they offer a budget that doesn't decrease spending for two years, the Democrats will quit whining about "draconian cuts." They should know better. To all Democrats (and most Republicans, especially if the word "defense" is mentioned anywhere in the area under consideration) any cut is "draconian." Heck, it doesn't even have to be a cut at all to be a "draconian cut" --  any proposed reduction in future spending increases is a "draconian cut" too.

Every year, Republicans promise that their proposal will balance the budget ... some day, a long time from now ... with no pain involved for anyone. Not only should they know better, they do know better. But they think you're stupid enough not to know better.

So Far the Sequester Looks Better ...

... than either of the "mainstream"  alternative proposals.

US Representative Paul Ryan's Republican proposal supposedly balances the federal budget -- over ten years. But it does so by keeping the taxes associated with "ObamaCare" while not delivering the programs associated with "ObamaCare." That's right -- you have to pay for socialized health care and then you don't even get the socialized health care. Oh, and Ryan insists that the federal government must continue to spend 4-5 times the maximum imaginably plausible amount on "defense."

US Senator Patty Murray's Democratic proposal is, if anything, even less convincing. It doesn't even pretend to balance the federal budget over any amount of time, and frankly it's mostly just vivid imagination -- it counts the prospective end of the Afghanistan war and hypothetical reductions in debt interest payments as "spending cuts" on one end, and predicts nearly a trillion dollars in increased tax revenues from "closing loopholes."

A serious 2014 budget proposal would be balanced, on the basis of 2013 revenues and tax rates. Period.

A serious longer-term budget plan would include:

1) Balancing the budget each year on the basis of the previous year's actual revenues;

2) Automatic appropriation of any end-year surplus for additional debt service;

3) An assumption, until and unless evidence to the contrary arises, that the US is smack on top of/in the middle of the Laffer Curve -- and that any proposed tax increases or decreases will therefore require corresponding spending cuts.

Anything short of the above is just  middle school horseplay.