Some of you have seen a version of this article on these pages last week.  The article has been slightly modified for publication at the American Spectator web site.  Please give it a read if you haven’t already!

Operating under new Republican rules that give him unilateral authority to set the maximum discretionary spending levels for the federal government for the rest of this fiscal year (though not how the money will be spent), House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) last Thursday proposed total discretionary federal spending for this fiscal year of $1.055 trillion. (Those rules were made possible by the Democrats’ failure to pass a budget in the last Congress.)

As a senior staffer for the congressman put it, Ryan’s spending limit allocation “is like an allowance that will guide the appropriations process for the current fiscal year. The federal government has been misbehaving as of late, so Paul cut their allowance.”

Please see the rest of my article at the web page of the American Spectator:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/02/07/ryans-opening-pitch