Free Republic

Yesterday, Paul Ryan spoke at length on a conservative radio talk show about the role of work in raising people out of poverty. Asked what the Republican plan was to end poverty, he replied: In a nutshell, work works. It’s all about getting people to work. And when you were one of the leaders of welfare reform in the 1990’s, we got excoriated for saying that as a condition of welfare, people should go to work and it should be a bridge not a permanent system. And it worked very well, but there were dozens of other welfare programs that...

I’m a day late on this but it’s too intriguing not to blog. You can read the actual letter, which is exceedingly tame, on Mike Simpson’s website. Among the signatories: …Ron Paul. The bad news? If this happens, some people might be paying a little more. The good news? We’ll never have to read another “time for a grand bargain” column from Tom Friedman again. Dude, I think we should take the deal. A group of 40 House Republicans for the first time Wednesday encouraged Congress’s deficit reduction committee to explore new revenue as part of a broad deal that...

Assemblyman Keith Richman studied public employee pensions for a year so that he could propose changes to a system he believed was broken. In the end, he decided against writing legislation. Lawmakers and local government officials simply have no appetite for facing a looming crisis, the Northridge Republican concluded. With the state searching for a way out of its chronic fiscal malaise, government pensions have begun to attract some attention. It's clear, however, that changes in the state's massive pension system won't come easily. Last week, an Assembly committee killed a bill that would have stopped about 3,000 state workers...