Romney, Ryan, and 1200 Days

As more than one blogger has noted, Romney's choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate is one that will make Team Obama sweat, particularly in light of the fact that Ryan has been a pitbull in regards to the out-of-control spending perpetrated by Congress since 2007 and the Obama administration in particular since January 2009.

It doesn't help Team Obama that Congress hasn't passed a budget for 1,200 days and counting. And Obama's official term runs 1461 days.

Here's some sobering facts about it:

The last time the Senate passed a budget was on April 29, 2009.
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 11 Aug 2012 at 12:38:57 AM GMT is: $15,920,131,113,709.46
The estimated population of the United States is 313,295,427, so each citizen’s share of this debt is $50,815.08
Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal was defeated this year in the House of Representatives by a vote of 414-0.
Obama’s FY2012 budget was defeated last year in the Senate, by a vote of 97-0.
By 2050, the national debt is set to hit 344 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.
By around Election Day, the total debt of the United States will be $16,394,000,000,000.00 ($16.394 trillion).

The first point brought up overlooks the fact that the budget passed then was a carryover from the end of the Bush administration, due directly to the machinations of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The majority Democrat House and Senate delayed a vote on a budget they knew George W. Bush would have vetoed. Instead they relied on six months of continuing resolutions to keep the government funded until after Obama's election and inauguration. That is the major reason “Bush's” last budget was $600 billion in the red - it wasn't his budget, but Pelosi and Reid's.

It's also interesting to note that the last attempt to pass Obama's budget died without a single Democrat vote in favor in either the House or the Senate. Is it that they didn't like it any more than their Republican brethren or that they thought it would be easier to hide increasing deficit spending through the use of continuing resolutions? I'd like to believe they thought it was as much of a stinker as the GOP did. I'd like to. Really.

Should Romney and Ryan be elected to office, and with Ryan added to the ticket it seems to be more likely, I think we can expect the budget hammer to fall. No more trillion dollar plus deficits (we hope). No more “Let's tax the s**t out of the job makers!” No more unfunded mandates or multi-billion dollar government giveaways to industries incapable of standing on their own under any circumstances. No more interference in the energy markets. No more “the government knows best how to run the economy and your lives” BS.

Are Romney and Ryan the perfect candidates for the GOP? No, not by any means. But as we have to be reminded constantly, we can't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Romney and Ryan are good enough.