What a way to run a superpower.
Washington was creeping toward a government shutdown last night in a bare-knuckle battle over crumbs in the federal budget.
At issue: whether to shave a scant 0.2 percent of the $3.5 trillion 2011 budget.
A budget, by the way, that should have been passed last October — back when Democrats controlled the government.
“It was a political hot potato,” says Rep. Charlie Rangel.
It’s not going to get any easier.
But as the Beltway bickers over loose change, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is looking ahead.
The Wisconsin Republican unveiled this week a budget proposal for 2012 that would cut spending by $6.2 trillion over the next decade.
This is the fight the GOP should be waging. Ryan offered, among other things:
* Giving future Medicare enrollees a yearly $15,000 subsidy to choose the best private health plans for themselves.
* Block-granting Medicaid payments to the states so they can tailor programs to best meet the needs of their own citizens.
* Fixing the tax code to close loopholes and lower the top rate to 25 percent.
The proposal won’t fly in the Senate or with the White House — but, as Ryan said Tuesday, he feels a “moral obligation” to offer a choice: endless debt or a fresh start.
That’s a statement of faith in the American people, who are “ready to be spoken to like adults,” he argued.
But Democrats, predictably, responded with slander.
Sure, Obama warned that future shortfalls mean “everybody’s got to take a haircut.”
But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted that the Ryan budget is “a path to poverty for America’s seniors & children.” And Rep. Steve Israel (D-LI) said it would force seniors to “clip coupons if they need to see a doctor.”
That’s nonsense on stilts. But it’s no surprise: Their gilded rice bowls depend on such pathetic pandering.
Whatever comes of the fight over the current budget, Paul Ryan’s proposal is the real show. Stay focused.