Ryan vs. Geithner on the Killer TRILLION budget

The Corner:

In this context, watch Rep. Paul Ryan — fast becoming the intellectual leader of the elected Right — as he puts the screws to an evasive Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (ff to 62:15). Ryan confronts Geithner with a quote from a Wall Street Journal interview with OMB director Peter Orzag: "The 'unusual situation' the government finds itself in — with other countries willing to finance U.S. debt at low rates — 'won't last.' And, he added, 'When it flips, the question is how do you get ahead of that to avoid the downward spiral' of rising interest rates, a plunging dollar and a sinking economy."

Ryan looks up: "The vigilantes in the bond markets are going to get us, and the American people are going to get hurt. . . . Why aren't you giving us a budget — not punting to a commission — that, using your own definitions and standards, actually is sustainable?

Geithner evades: "When I left the Treasury in 2000, it was surpluses on OMB and CBO's rounds as far as the eye could see; when we came in it was a deep trench."

(Keith Hennessey's simple explanation should suffice to explode this annoying trope:

Read on. And (video) Sen. Judd Gregg loses total patience with OMB director Peter Orszag.

More. Peter Ferrara, TAS:Spending America Into Oblivion. In painful part:

All this record spending, deficits, and debt means your taxes are going to record levels as well, leaving you with a lower standard of living, which President Obama thinks is currently excessive anyway.

This new budget already provides for more than $2 trillion in new taxes on the American people over the next decade. That includes higher taxes on 3.2 million small businesses and upper income taxpayers by an average of $300,000 over that 10 years.

Under this budget, the top marginal income tax rate will be increased next year by close to 20%. The capital gains tax rate will be increased by 33%, and the top tax rate on corporate dividends goes up by 164%. President Obama also proposes in this budget to abolish the deduction for charitable giving and for home mortgage interest for millions of Americans.

He also proposes to "slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas." What tax breaks are those you should ask. President Obama thinks American companies are enjoying an unfair tax break if their overseas earnings are not subject to double taxation, once overseas and again here at home. No foreign country does that to their own companies. As Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform tries to explain, "There's no reason that an American company with an Irish subsidiary cannot become an Irish company with an American subsidiary. America has a 39 percent 'all-in' corporate rate. Ireland's is 12.5 percent."

But it's not all taxes "on the rich," which is a sucker line for simpletons with the economic sophistication of pirates. There is an $800 billion cap and trade tax which will be paid by everyone who uses electricity, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, or any product or service made or transported using any of these items. There are also taxes on health insurance and "medical devices," which includes condoms, tampons, contact lenses, hearing aids, and blood glucose monitors to control diabetes. When he was campaigning in 2008, President Obama promised us over and over he would not raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year "in an form." Now that he is President, that is all forgotten.

But this is only the beginning. President Obama is also promising to appoint a "Deficit Commission," with the job to report back on how to clean up this unprecedented mess he is making, after this year's elections of course. And the way to clean it up is going to be precisely a record breaking tax increase on those very people making less than $250,000 a year, as he is already plundering everyone else. He will say the Republicans on the Commission made him do it.

More. Michael Ramirez cartoon.