NPR’s All Things Considered decided to look at Paul Ryan’s budget proposal [transcript and audio link] and invited Paul Krugman and Douglas Holtz-Eakin to review it.

To say that Krugman was dismissive is perhaps understating what happened.

On a related note regarding Ryan’s $8,000 voucher for an individual to purchase health care insurance, an acquaintance just went on Medicare, and his company’s HR department had a party. It turns out that with the company picking up the cost of the “Medigap” insurance and the other costs of Medicare, they still save over $1,000/month. This individual’s group insurance at the small company he works for costs well in excess of $1K/per month and Ryan thinks people will be able to buy a reasonable individual policy for $8K/year in ten-years time.

Robert Reich as a nice little post about why you don’t negotiate with right-wing bullies. If you start by doing all of the compromising, you end up with violence.

Paul Krugman talks about essentially the same thing in the Age of Diminished Expectations

I’m sorry to say it, but I expect the worst from the upcoming presidential speech on deficit reduction. OK, maybe not the worst; I don’t think he’ll call for privatizing Medicare, but who knows? But I do expect a lot of preemptive concessions to the Republicans, which will, as usual, be the starting point for further concessions.

The Republicans have no reason to compromise, because they know that Obama will fold and call it a “compromise”. John Boehner has made that clear:

On Saturday night House Speaker John Boehner declared, “The president says, ‘I want you to send me a clean bill.’ Guess what, Mr. President. Not a chance you’re going to get a clean bill.”

The “bill” under discussion is raising the debt limit, and the Republicans are going to use that vote to push through all kinds of ideological garbage that will not help the economy, and sure as hell won’t reduce the deficit.

As a matter of fact on American Public Media’s Marketplace, Heidi Moore covers what business is doing in reaction to the Republican tactics – Debt debate forces companies to ask: What if?

This Republican game of “chicken” has already increased the deficit by raising the interest on long-term US bonds. The “Austerity Hysteria” has caused analysts to reduce their predictions for the growth of the GDP in the first quarter, and businesses and banks will probably start hoarding even more money.

WalMart has a streak going – 7 bad quarters in a row. About that recovery …

Fred Grimm of the Miami Herald has a column that highlights the basic problem with Florida’s legislature: Ethics stops at Legislature door

The Florida Legislature hasn’t been so enthused about ethical niceties. Until now.

Senate Bill 1180 would finally get tough on “soliciting, or demanding money, gifts, or donations.” The bill mandates honest disclosure of personal finances.

SB 1180 provides much of what political reformers have sought . Except the strictures don’t apply to politicians. Just roadside beggars.

Our ethically challenged legislature has fashioned a code of ethics for panhandlers.

The leadership of the legislature spends the other ten months of the fighting court cases over their financial dealings, but they want the homeless to have more moral fiber than they do. If you doubt that, read the high points of the antics of one of the leading lights of the legislature in Fred’s column.

In an obvious Communist plot against the US, the Soviet Union launched Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin into space in a Vostok capsule on the centennial of the American Civil War on April 12^th, 1961.

VVS Major Gagarin, returned after orbiting the Earth for just under two hours, and the race to the Moon was on.

The BBC’s article, Yuri Gagarin: The journey that shook the world, is better than CNN’s, but CNN has video.

Even Google has celebrated, as you will notice if you do a search. The most informative articles are in Russian, so I won’t annoy you with links.

Notes: BOCTOK = Vostok = ‘East’, VVS = Soviet Air Force, CCCP = SSSR = USSR