The Deficit: A Stark Choice for 2012? Not Really

“Stick with the president’s path,” said Representative Paul Ryan at a fundraiser in Tampa on Aug. 18, “and we will be a country in debt and in decline.”

It’s a familiar theme for Ryan, repeated both on the campaign trail and in the two Path to Prosperity budget proposals he wrote as chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee. Ever since Mitt Romney chose the Wisconsin congressman as his running mate, the central arguments in this year’s presidential race have become clear. The 2012 election presents voters with a stark choice between two very different visions of government: one that is active (Obama) and one that gets out of the way (Romney). Both candidates would like the public to believe that they adhere to radically different fiscal philosophies—the better to fire up their respective bases. And yet their budget prescriptions are likely to produce the same result. That’s because neither candidate offers a credible way to stop borrowing money to pay for what he wants to do.