Debating Paul Ryan's "Path To Prosperity"

Me and Reihan Salam:

Something underlining this debate that unfortunately didn't come to the surface is this. If you cut spending on Medicare, it matters what you do with that spending. Personally, I'm sympathetic to the Ryan/Salam view that Medicare is no great shakes. Cutting it to increase Social Security benefits (much of which might get plowed back into buying health care services, but then again might not), or to create high-quality universal preschool, or just to shower the poor with dollar bills sounds fine to me. But the "Path To Prosperity" wants to ax Medicare in order to shower the rich with tax cuts, which is a different question entirely.