"This is getting to be a habit. President Obama ferociously resists tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cuts -- right up to the moment he strikes a deal with Republicans and hails the tax cuts, trade agreements and spending cuts as his idea. What a difference an election makes. 

"This is the larger political meaning of Friday's last minute budget deal for fiscal 2011 that averted a government shutdown. Mr. Obama has now agreed to a pair of tax cut and spending deals that repudiate his core economic philosophy and his agenda of the last two years -- and has then hailed both as great achievements. Republicans in Washington have reversed the nation's fiscal debate and are slowly repairing the harm done since the Nancy Pelosi Congress began to set the direction of government in 2007."

"Ryan’s overall plan tilts at every windmill imaginable, including corporate welfare and agricultural subsidies. The only thing left out is Social Security. Which proves only that Ryan is not completely suicidal. 

"But the blueprint is brave and profoundly forward-looking. It seeks nothing less than to adapt the currently unsustainable welfare state to the demographic realities of the 21st century. Will it survive the inevitable barrage of mindless, election-driven, 30-second attack ads ...? Alternate question: Does Obama have half of Ryan’s courage?

"I think not (on both counts). But let’s hope so."

"[House Budget Committee Paul Ryan's] budget is a brave attempt to reverse the Obama Democrats' vast increase in the size and scope of government. The premise of their policies was that people can't make rational choices to take care of themselves and are better off depending on centralized experts to limit those choices. 

"Ryan's budget is based on the idea that people are capable of making decisions for themselves. And that the cumulative result of all those decisions, made by millions of people, will result in greater productivity, creativity and protection than can ever be achieved by a few experts through centralized command and control."

"The American people want to hear the truth: Our health-entitlement programs -- Medicare and Medicaid -- are hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars, and threatening our nation's future. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 'the single greatest threat to budget stability is the growth of federal spending on health care.' 

"The Government Accountability Office has estimated the federal 75-year fiscal gap -- the difference between anticipated tax receipts and government spending -- is a staggering $76.4 trillion, or more than five times our current national debt. Entitlement spending alone accounts for more than 80 percent of that debt.

"Broad health-entitlement reform is a necessity, not a choice. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress earlier this year, at some point the rest of the world will simply stop loaning us money if our debt continues to skyrocket. When that happens, our safety net -- and our economy -- could collapse. The time to make these choices is now."

"Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Ryan is expected to leap into the vacuum left by the president’s passivity. The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate. ... 

"The Ryan budget will put all future arguments in the proper context: The current welfare state is simply unsustainable and anybody who is serious, on left or right, has to have a new vision of the social contract. ... 

"Paul Ryan has grasped reality with both hands. He’s forcing everybody else to do the same."

"A newly elected governor just persuaded his dysfunctional state legislature to close a multi-billion-dollar deficit, keep taxes in check, and limit annual Medicaid spending. Surely, these must be the misdeeds of stone-hearted Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s GOP chief executive, or that ax-wielding alumnus of the Gingrich Congress, Governor John Kasich (R-OH).

"Actually, these and other reforms are the handiwork of none other than Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Democratic governor. ..."

"If you want to understand better why so many states -- from New York to Wisconsin to California -- are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

"It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?"

"After bashing oil and gas companies for a couple of years and instituting a virtual drilling moratorium, President Obama now says yes to offshore oil and makes a big pitch for natural gas. There may even be incentives for faster leasing and smaller royalty payments to the government. 

"Is it credible? Well, when you get to the fine print, it may not be. 

"In the fact sheet that accompanied the speech, there's a lot of talk about 'responsible development' for natural gas fracking chemicals, state regulators, tapping experts, the environmental community, and protecting public health and the environment. In other words, the standards for new drilling could be so high that there won't be that much new drilling."

"I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. ... 

"Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis."

"President Obama just gave a weird speech. Part George W. Bush, part trademark Obama — filled with his characteristic split-the-difference, straw-man ('some say, others say'), false-choice tropes. 

"His support for those 'yearning for freedom all around the world' was the sort of interventionist foreign policy that a Senator Obama — if his past reaction to the removal of Saddam Hussein is any indication — would have objected to, especially in the case of sending bombers over an Arab Muslim oil-exporting country. Since Saddam was a far greater monster (gassing thousands is far worse than turning off the water to neighborhoods) than the monsters that Obama now wishes to slay, I think he has confused rather than enlightened his audience."