Dissecting Paul Ryan on deficits and spending

He doesn't add up



Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 15, 2018

“That was going to happen — the baby boomers retiring was going do that. These deficit — trillion-dollar projections have been out there for a long, long time. Why? Because of mandatory spending, which we call entitlements. Discretionary spending under the CBO baseline is going about $300 billion over the next 10 years. Tax revenues are still rising, income tax revenues are still rising, corporate income tax revenues — corporate rate got dropped 30 percent, still rising. Mandatory spending, which is entitlements, that grows $2 trillion over the next decade. Why does it grow $2 trillion? Because the boomer generation is retiring and we have not prepared these programs.”
— House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), in remarks on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” April 15, 2018

Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who has announced his retirement, made these comments in response to a jab by host Chuck Todd at the longtime fiscal hawk: “You walk away with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.”

One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan

Self-portrait and calligraphy by Ryōkan

With no-mind, blossoms invite the butterfly;
With no-mind, the butterfly visits the blossoms.
When the flower blooms, the butterfly comes;
When the butterfly comes, the flower blooms.
I do not "know" others,
Others do not "know" me.
Not-knowing each other we naturally follow the Way. ¹

In the introductory analysis of John Stevens' One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan, we are told that the 18th century hermit monk was a living example of a Zen bodhisattva, teaching without preaching and going beyond mindfulness to a mind free from attachment (Japanese: mushin).² Ryokan writes that we follow Buddha's teachings (the Way) by experiencing life without study and analysis, just as nature does.

His poetry is filled with nature, reflecting both joy and sadness in his remote and rural surroundings. But this description of the interdependence of flower and insect life also expresses the teaching (Pali: Dhamma, Sanskrit: Dharma) of dependent origination (Pali: paticca samuppada), held by Buddhadasa to be "a complete description of nature" and "the very heart of Buddhism." ³