Some folks I know in their early 50s are not thrilled by the Ryan plan for the obvious reason, and also because, as intelligent readers, they despise the sophomoric utopian fantasies of passport bride and admitted adultress Ayn Rand.

Keith, the budget Ryan has proposed will give a very large tax break to the so called "Job Creators". Who by the way have not created any jobs in the last ten years under the Bush tax cuts. And further more this Budget will rasie your taxes to cover those cuts. Wake up and read the Whole Bill, you will be inlightened and amazed how you will be taken for another Republican ride to the poor house

Bert, unfortunately, Keith has been presented the facts over and over here on Patch and anywhere else reasonable people congregate but he still clings to the programmed ALEC talking points like a baby clutches a rattle instead of recognizing them for the manipulative b.s. that they really are. Not sure what's going to wake these folks up. I just wish we all didn't have to keep bearing the brunt of their ignorance. (The root word of "ignorance" is "ignore.")

Actually, Bert and Bren, the "Bush tax cuts" actually did stimulate jobs, until the results of the CRA ( a democratic monster) destroyed the economy. But then again, giving loans to those who cannot afford them isn't a very good idea in the first place.

It's more mystical resynonymism--taking a word and and another previously nonsynonymous word and calling them synonymous! Ergo,

Courage = Sycophantism
Guts = Pandering
Budget = Sick joke on Wisconsin's middle class

@Alfred -- I've never read either book. However, I've read Ayn Rand, and the woman was a moron.

Basically Ayn Rand celebrated antisocial behaviors, most especially stubbornness, in her writing. Her heroes subject themselves to punishments and setbacks because of their antisocial behavior, which are treated by Rand as a sort of purification process, instead of the completely and laughably avoidable situations they are (given patience and some tact).

Compare and contrast Mr. Griswold in National Lampoon's "Vacation." He walked for miles in the unforgiving desert to help his family (who begged him to stay in the car). Two men watch him stagger past and say, "What an a--hole." Griswold finally totters, exhausted, up to a gas station, to find his car towed in and his family eating ice cream.

We won't go into Ms. Rand's writing technique, but I have personally read works by children that conveyed a more believable, engaging voice, not to mention superior pace.

Ms. Rand was all about compromise. She compromised her principles (or had none to begin with), first by becoming a passport bride to come to the U.S., and then compromising her marriage with adultery. If memory serves she was also an atheist.

She fancied that her stubbornness on steroids concept should be named, and called it Existentialism, only to find that name was taken! So she called it Objectivism instead.

Paul Ryan's hero, Ayn Rand. Yikes.

Then you better back the fiscally conservative candidates. Because if you fail to do so, your wealth is destined to turn into ashes in your hands. When that happens, your liberty dies, as well as any liberal causes you might support.

It's a big tent. They squeezed me in.

They could if they are republicans!

Gear, you don't specify what cutting attendees were protesting, but it's not good business (what you call stupid) to cut areas/programs that are connected to revenue. For example, cutting salary for public workers to pay for ALEC corporate tax breaks helped pave the way for reduced tax revenue (i.e. cash shortfall).

But Walker's in it to win it for ALEC, not Wisconsin.

Bren, the attendees were basically pushing Keynsian economic dogma which arguably had some redeeming quality when we had little debt, but falls on its own face now that we are choking on debt. Borrowing to spend in the hopes the economy will rev back up so we can continue to pay unsustainable benefits to public workers, is my best guess at their angle. Ryan, naturally, disagreed with the attendee's premise.

Borrowing started early in the Bush II administration to pay for the nonexistent "tax refunds." The surplus inherited by this president should have been put into Social Security or shore up another weak area in the budget. Instead, checks were mailed in an attempt to calm those who were furious about the 2000 election challenge. Money was borrowed toi cover the costs of printing and mailing, etc. It went downhill from there. Do you honestly believe Barack Obama would have needed to take the path that he (and world leaders in other countries) took if he had not inherited an economy near collapse?

Please, let's keep it real.

Paul Ryan's mind is filled with Ayn Rand-fueled self-idealism. Like one of her one-dimensional heroes, his mind is so fixed on his idea that there is no room for self-reflection or other viewpoints. However, Ryan's realized fantasies would have dire consequences, and in the real world; not in a book lying on the bargain table at an esoteric bookstore.

Once again Bren is attempting to spin new historical fact out of straw men. The reason "the rich" always benefit disproportionately from tax cuts is because they pay ALL the taxes. Take special note of the leftist assumption that all wealth belongs to the state so confiscating less of it is actually spending money on tax breaks for the rich. Our tax code is ridiculously progressive with the top 10 percent of households paying 70 percent of income taxes (after earning 45 percent of AGI in 2010) while the bottom 47 percent pays no federal income tax at all.

In 2001 Bush inherited the Clinton recession caused by the collapse of the tech bubble and then the 9/11 attacks intended to paralyze our economy. After passing the bi-partisan tax reform package the economy experienced nearly six years of uninterrupted growth averaging 2.7 percent annual GDP and adding 8 million total jobs. Remember the good old days of democrats complaining about a "jobless recovery" because unemployment was still 6 percent in 2003?

The democrat's easy money housing programs produced the financial crises that "collapsed" the economy but Obama's failed 1970's Keynesian policies have us trapped in a period of relentless economic decline.

Paul Ryan is one of the few voices for painful but necessary fiscal sanity. Obama and the senate democrats have the country accelerating to impact and all poor Bren can think about is Ayn Rand (and ALEC.)

Bren - I believe you are between 6 and 9.

Bren, it appears you have checked out of the reality-based world a while ago. Borrowing 40 cents on the dollar to fund unsustainable programs with no path to repay it is a clear work of fiction.

Your comment is incredibly stupid, what do have against reading books ?

Ima--your scintillating wit astounds as usual.

Gear, it's a recession. Reagan borrowed, Bush borrowed (and raised the debt ceiling 7 times!). All we can do is work to stop the downward slide and start inching back up, which is happening apparently everywhere but the Badger State. The best we can do next is introduce/re-establish/strengthen laws and regulations put in place after the Great Depression to keep this greed-based disaster from happening a third time.

R. Denis, until the recession hit (before which I had time to read), I typically read one book per day, most recently for work-related issues. As a young person I typically read two or three or more, depending on the type. I love to read but can't tolerate poorly considered concepts, characters, pace, or sentence structure. I can read a 250 page novel in about two hours. It's all right to set down a screed, don't waste your life.

My work requires me to keep abreast of developments in the field and anticipate. There is much data-rich content to read and ingest on a daily basis. Fortunately, I have good retention.

You might want to revisit your use of punctuation before your next post. ; )

You've obviously never seen Twilight fangirls lining up at the Ridge

Dreams don't cost much

Or water boy/girl for Unions?

This is what happens when washed-up uber-progressives (read: Socialists) like Keith Schmitz play with other peoples' money in the free market. Sooner or later, they run out of other peoples' money. And 'Open Book' did just that. Remarkably quickly, I might add. $35K just doesn't go as far as it used to, especially when you have to, say, pay those pesky vendors for inventory and other such "unforeseen" nuisances.Enjoy your free health care.

Well Keith, no plan is no plan. How does a senior have confidence in no plan? For all you Derby fans, do you put your life savings on "no plan" to win, place or show?

Schmitz is an excellent example of being obtuse on purpose. A solution would be the democrats in the senate actually voting on a budget, but then they would reveal to the world their profligate ways. Bad for business, if your business is handing out taxpayer-provided candy to stay elected.

Hope and change is neither a plan nor a solution, BTW. How is that working out?

We are already broke. The only question now is at what point we lose our health in the process at the current trajectory. Better get on Ryan's bandwagon if you are looking for a solution. Your side - the ostrich party - doesn't have one.

"Eddie Munster". That's great, Keith.

If you wonder why you can't seem to get beyond following the parade with a broom and shovel, you need look no further than this kind of material.

The problem is, gentlemen, that Ryan's plan won't work. It curtails projected Medicare costs by cutting benefits and shifting them onto seniors themselves, while funding tax cuts for the wealthy in the belief that this will give us the prosperity and increased tax revenue that it never did from 2000 to 2008.

It's a plan, but it's a stupid plan for anyone who isn't independently wealthy.

There is the question of what happens to the seniors who can't pay the additional expenses that have been pushed onto them. The government, i.e., taxpayers? The only difference I can see is that seniors will try not to go to the doctor, so when they do, they will be in worse circumstances and the cost of treatment to taxpayers will be even higher.

Social programs are not the place to make the cuts. It might seem like a solution in the short term, but has the potential to have serious consequences in the future. My solution is to do some budget modeling exercises. Freeze programs as possible (no new programs, don't stop construction, etc. already in progress), end the Bush tax cuts that have done little but provide capital for job offshoring, estimate costs/revenue/social impact for two years (factoring in lower costs for military). Etc. I'm certain Ryan didn't do this with his social deconstruction project--I mean "budget,"--I don't recall Ayn Rand having any of her goofball heroes engage in this sort of exercise. Also, since Paul Ryan can look forward to a comfy retirement and benefits funded by we the taxpayer, what does he care if he's wrong? (At least Rand's heroes take responsibility for their own actions.)

If political maneuvering and pandering to special interests could just take a rest for awhile a great deal of progress could be made in a very short amount of time. Alas.

Alfred, put a bunch of zeros behind that number, and looks like Keith is a shoo-in for an up and coming Obama company like Solyndra. And he lectures us???

A lot of small businesses have failed due to the recession, as well as the large ones if you haven't forgotten. Borders, in particular, closed many stores.

People's Books, if memory serves, used to be on Farwell Avenue and was known for selling controversial Marxist literature (hence "People's Books") among its other offerings. If one visits their website (as I just did), the word "Solidarity" is clearly posted. You seem to know quite a bit about this esoteric little bookstore, Alfred. Spend a lot of time there?

Yes little man. I'm a horrible crook. Run along and play.

Obama should task a bi-partisan blue ribbon committee to look into ways the fiscal situation can be improved and achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. It would need a properly decorous title like the "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform" or such.

It would need a respected politician from each side like former senator Alan Simpson and perhaps democrat Erskine Bowles to do the politically delicate work of recommending cuts in defense and discretionary spending. Theoretically, cuts in benefits for Social Security and Medicare could be considered.

If the Obama administration has any leadership potential or political courage this would be a historic opportunity to save Social Security and Medicare for future generations while putting the country on solid financial ground before we lose our AAA credit rating or those crazy republicans like Paul Ryan come up with their own plan.