MEGAN MCARDLE: First Thoughts On The Ryan Plan. “I think it’s no longer credible to complain that the GOP has not put forward any sort of meaningful solution for the budget. At this point, they’re the only ones who have put forward a detailed outline; the Democrats still seem to be hoping that if they kind of mill around long enough, eventually an angel will float over the horizon and deposit a plan that doesn’t annoy anyone (and/or allows them to pay for the entire thing by raising the marginal tax rate on the Koch brothers and Richard Mellon Scaife to 110%).”

Plus this: “The wildly disproportionate fury and outrage which greeted both Bowles-Simpson and the Ryan plan from the left indicate that progressives have so far failed to come to grips with the fact that they are going to have to compromise: that while some of the gap is going to be closed by tax increases, some of it is going to be closed by spending cuts. And not just defense cuts, or seemingly trivial changes to physician reimbursement rates that we hope will snowball over time, but actual cuts in services that people currently want and expect to get from government–but do not want or expect to pay for.”