The IRS Scandal Is Just Chilling: Rep. Paul Ryan

By: John Hayward
5/29/2013

Humanevents.com

Rep. Paul Ryan, 2012 vice-presidential candidate and chairman of the House Budget Committee, appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday morning to discuss the IRS scandal, budget issues, and rib sauce:

Yes, Paul Ryan scarfs down ribs slathered in barbecue sauce but still looks like that.  Take a bow, P90X trainers.

Ryan discussed the Republican budget proposal, which despite liberal caricatures of brutal “austerity” would still increase government spending by over 3 percent per year, while achieving a balanced budget in less than a decade.  In fact, with new baseline projections, Ryan thought surpluses that could help pay down the national debt would be within reach.  ”We’re not doing tough, hard-core austerity,” he said.  ”These things kick in later on down the road.  The kind of ‘spending cuts’ we’re talking about right now aren’t even actually cutting spending, they’re just slowing the growth of spending increases.”

He had an interesting take on the recent reduction in deficit projections, which brought the deficit for the coming year down to $642 billion – outrageous by the standards of any previous Administration, but almost P90X by Obama standards.  ”Fannie and Freddie cut a check we didn’t see coming by about $62 billion,” said Ryan.  This was a reference to the unexpected profitability of federal mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose own administrators did not anticipate reporting net income due to the rebounding real-estate market.  Fannie and Freddie are still nowhere near repaying their $190 billion taxpayer bailout, and in fact the terms of the bailout explicitly compel them to recognize net income as return on the taxpayers’ “investment,” not repayment of a loan.

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