Rep. Paul Ryan Supports Boehner Plan

With some reluctance.

The Budget Control Act takes an important step in the right direction by cutting $1.2 trillion in government spending over the next decade. Critically, it does this without resorting to Senator Reid’s gimmicks and without imposing the president’s preferred tax increases on American families and the struggling economy.

This bill is far from perfect. We still have a long way to go toward getting the key drivers of our debt — especially federal health-care spending — under control. But considering that House Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the federal government, I support this reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation.

That last sentence in the quote is key: There’s only so much you can do when you only control one slice of the power.

Also supporting the Boehner plan: Fred Thompson. He writes that it’s time for the GOP to declare victory, take what they can get and live to fight another day.

Meanwhile, Harry Reid is calling the Boehner plan “dead on arrival” before it’s even voted on, and offering a plan of his own that’s unlikely to go very far in the House. Obama is hollowly threatening a veto, while telling banks behind the scenes that default won’t happen at all.

That last part, given the public rhetoric the president has been using, exposes him for a liar. Not that the media will make that connection.

If default happens, President Obama will be the president whose legacy consists of unsustainable deficits and debt, high unemployment and skyrocketing energy prices, and a United States default on its credit. With any other president, it would be reasonable to expect that he would do everything in his power to avoid the potential disaster that’s in front of him. Any other president would at least try leading his own party, but that’s not what we’re seeing out of this president. He won’t even put a plan in writing.

No one will be entirely happy with whatever deal is done. But both parties have to take into account that the occupant of the White House is a proven failed leader, and may see economic disaster as the only thing that can save his re-election prospects if he can pin it on the GOP or at least spread some of his lousy record onto them.