Free Republic

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed. The chess equivalent of Ryan’s deal would be trading a castle for a mere pawn. No wonder conservatives are feeling rooked. One need not...

Paul Ryan (WI-VR) and Patty Murray (WA-D) have announced a “bland bargain” on the Federal budget. The proposal would “restore” $65 million in automatic spending cuts currently in law and increase federal spending from $967 billion next year to roughly $1 trillion. In other words former Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan was outfoxed by former pre-school teacher Patty Murray. This will add $70 billion to Federal spending both this year and next. The result? The Federal debt load will be $25 trillion by the end of the next Presidential cycle. What happened to the downsizing of the Federal government that...

...These Republicans had just been briefed on a new, bipartisan budget blueprint that would establish long-term federal government spending caps. The plan, a product of months of negotiation between Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican, and Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, lacks many priorities Republicans have fought for during the Obama era. ... Because the new budget deal sets spending levels until 2015, it eliminates the possibility of shutdown battles over the next few years, which serves as a welcomed relief to Democrats and Republicans alike. ... “Most major conservative groups have put out statements blasting this deal,” the...

The budget deal announced Tuesday by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) would boost federal spending by around $65 billion over the next two years. This new spending is offset by increasing user fees, boosting pension contributions by federal employees and the military, and other minor changes. Ryan and Murray also say that the deal will reduce the deficit by $23 billion over the next 10 years. This reduction, however, doesn't start until 2022. According to a 4-page summary document of the deal obtained by Breitbart News, "[t]he budget proposal saves $28 billion over ten years by...

The Democrats hated the sequester, and have been trying to bust it ever since it went into effect. Today, they succeeded. The Ryan/Murray deal pegs FY 2014 spending at $1.012 trillion, which Ryan’s press release described as “about halfway between the Senate budget level of $1.058 trillion and the House budget level of $967 billion.” What Ryan didn’t say is that $967 billion isn’t just the House proposal, it is the discretionary spending limit under current law. The sequester is now out the window. Republicans did get something in exchange for increasing spending: notably, federal employees will have to increase...

The actual text of the Ryan-Murray budget deal came out late last night, so it’s only now possible to really consider the particulars and see how it looks. It seems to me that the details look a fair bit better than the general outline that had been reported in the press over the past week or so, particularly on the question of whether the entitlement cuts that would replace some discretionary sequester cuts could be expected to actually materialize. As it stands, this strikes me as more or less a very small-scale version of the sort of thing that Republicans...

I am old enough to remember when the GOP said not to worry about it caving on Obamacare funding because, by God, it would hold the line on sequestration. Hell, that was a month ago. Amazing how much can change in a month. Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray have decided to give up the last thing the GOP was fighting for — spending restraint. “Don’t worry,” Paul Ryan says with his boyish charm designed to induce sweats and heart palpitations among conservatives, “it’s only a little less restrained.” The budget deal puts discretionary spending over $1 trillion, which...

Mark Levin put Paul Ryan through his paces, as Ryan himself said at the end of the interview. Certainly Levin didn’t pull any punches as they discussed the new budget agreement, even calling it “Mickey Mouse.”

Talk show host Mark Levin told House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) that the budget deal announced today with Sen. Patti Murray (D-WA) was a "Mickey Mouse" deal, tinkering at the margins of the federal budget, undoing the sequester and exchanging immediate spending increases for future spending cuts. Ryan countered that "elections have consequences," and that many members of the Republican caucus were worried that the next tranche of sequester cuts would hit the military exclusively. He explained that there would be a net savings of $23 billion after $62 billion in new spending was offset by $85...

Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) were finalizing details and hoping to schedule a press conference to unveil the deal, which …

Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) executive director Mark Krikorian said on Thursday that House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is by far the most open borders-minded member of the U.S. Congress—even more so than Democrats like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who is aggressively and publicly calling for President Barack Obama to halt deportations of illegal aliens. "Paul Ryan is probably the most ideologically committed open-borders person in Congress. I would say even more than the Democrats,” Krikorian said in an interview with American Family Radio’s Sandy Rios, One News Now reports. One News Now’s Chad Groening added that...

Several corporate executives have joined forces with prominent local lawmakers, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and George Soros’ National Immigration Forum (NIF) to organize a campaign on Monday to target GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to get them to try to support amnesty. Those executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Boeing CEO and chairman Jim McNerney, Marriott hotels chairman and CEO Bill Marriott, NewsCorp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger. Ballmer, McNerney, Marriott, Murdoch, and Iger, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro form the...

So, when I sit down and talk to people, I clear the table, so I can see Paul Ryan not as budget chairman, not as somebody whose budget I have voted and will always vote against, but as a friend and an ally to free 11 million people. So, I create new friendships and new relationships in regards to comprehensive immigration reform, because, let’s face it, Democrats didn’t do it in 2007, 2008—we were in the majority. Democrats didn’t do it in 2009 and 2010—we were in the majority. Now we’ve got to do it. We have a majority in...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States, he said in an interview Wednesday. Issa, an influential Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, described the legislation as a “come-from-the-shadows” effort that would allow the government to do a full accounting of those who are in the U.S. illegally. Immigrants in this new status would be able to travel to their native country while on this temporary visa, he said.

Paul "rat" Ryan, and the OTHER moderate Republicans are plotting a GRAND STRATEGY with OBAMA Democrats to disenfranchise those who have PAID into social security their entire lives...and increase taxes WITHOUT limiting their LUST to increase spending at all... Its time to BOUNCE Boehner before he and the other slime republicans cowards like mccain and graham rob americans to preserve military spending...they have allowed obama to ruin the military culture which has 70%+ homosexual assaults already without a single complain from these mental midgets...

The Obama Administration has urged the House of Representatives to pass the immigration reform bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship to millions of undocumented people and accelerate the immigration of professionals from countries like India and China.

The Gallup poll that tracks the approval rating of Republicans in Congress looks like the bend of a hockey stick. Whether this is a permanent condition or a temporary one depends on getting Sen. Ted Cruz off the stage and Rep. Paul Ryan on--substituting a bristly champion of an unpopular strategy that divides the party with a congenial representative of the GOP's traditional views on taxing and spending. That's why House Republican leaders are trying to craft a deal with the White House to reopen government and start budget negotiations where House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan will be the key...

Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Susan Collins are doing their best to complicate everything and shill for K Street. I am actually surprised Paul Ryan could be diverted from amnesty long enough to ensure Obamacare is fully funded. But he has. The House should act very simply — pass a debt limit increase. Pass it so it goes through Christmas. There is no point trying to do negotiations over the holidays. Then let Harry Reid reject it. Harry Reid is banking on the media being in his pocket the whole time. And they are and will be right up until...

Breitbart News reported that House Republicans have offered a new deal to the White House to end the fiscal stalemate. The GOP plan, authored primarily by House Budget Chair Rep. Paul Ryan according to Hill sources, would meet Obama's demands in exchange for negotiations on a longer-term budget agreement. At least two high-ranking Capitol Hill sources have told Breitbart News that Ryan’s plan would also help protect Obamacare as it is currently implemented. Ryan's office deny the claims. “What your sources are attempting to attribute to Congressman Ryan is not accurate,” Kevin Seifert, Ryan’s spokesman, said in an email. But...

President Barack Obama spoke with House Speaker John Boehner on Friday but did not wholly accept the House Republican plan to open government, raise the debt ceiling and open budget talks, sources said. -snip- Senior Republican sources say Obama is amenable to changes to mandatory and discretionary spending, but needs Republicans to commit to increasing governmental revenue.