The bungling of Candidate Ryan!

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2012

Just that quickly, it starts: Watching the press corps explain Paul Ryan may get a bit frustrating.

One example:

In today’s Washington Post, Matt Miller takes few prisoners concerning Romney’s VP pick. Ryan has been working “a con,” “a fraud,” Miller writes.

According to Miller, Ryan simply isn’t a “fiscal conservative...intent on erasing deficits.” That isn't who this guy is:
MILLER (8/13/12): The striking thing about Paul Ryan's ascent is the gulf between his proposals and the way the media have characterized them. Since Mitt Romney named Ryan to the ticket on Saturday, the news has been filled with talk of the "fiscal conservative" (NPR) "intent on erasing deficits" (New York Times) who has become "the intellectual heart of the Republican Party's movement to slash deficits" (The Post). All of this is demonstrably false.

[...]

Ryan is not a "fiscal conservative." A fiscal conservative pays for the government he wants. Ryan never has. His early "Roadmap for America's Future" didn't balance the budget until the 2060s and added $60 trillion to the national debt. Ryan's revised plan, passed by the House in 2011, wouldn't reach balance until the 2030s while adding $14 trillion in debt.
Is Ryan a “fiscal conservative?” Even as Miller explained the way the press corps has purchased this inaccurate theme, the New York Times was printing its first batch of letters about the gent’s selection.

Uh-oh! This was the very first letter the New York Times chose to print about Ryan:
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (8/13/12): While I appreciate that Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin is able to offer up policy ideas, I question Mitt Romney’s decision in choosing Mr. Ryan to be his running mate. Mr. Ryan’s budget plan would balance the federal budget on the backs of the most vulnerable while not asking for shared sacrifice from the more affluent. I would argue for a more balanced approach like the one that President Obama is advocating.
Aarrgh! Right there, in this very first letter, the standard theme is repeated—Ryan is a budget balancer! Adding insult to injury, the letter comes from a Democratic committeeman in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Hang on for a long, bumpy ride as the public gets informed about Ryan. We’ll start to examine this topic tomorrow. Various themes are involved.

14 comments:

  1. Miller is, of course, a joke. He won't tell you what year Obama's budget balances, because it never does.

    Miller did at least have the decency to state later in his article "[t]he truth Democrats won’t tell is that raising taxes on the rich alone won’t suffice."


    that the lie Democrats tell is

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    1. I must have missed the reporting of OBAMA the "fiscal conservative" (NPR) "intent on erasing deficits" (New York Times) who has become "the intellectual heart of the Republican Party's movement to slash deficits" (The Post). Otherwise, you appear to have missed the point.

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    2. I guess you missed it. Understandable since Mr Obama stated these words in an address to Congress on February 24, 2009.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/us/politics/24obama-text.html?pagewanted=all

      I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs.

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    3. And on February 23, 2009:

      http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-and-vice-president-opening-fiscal-responsibility-summit-2-23-09

      This administration has inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit -- the largest in our nation's history -- and our investments to rescue our economy will add to that deficit in the short term. We also have long-term challenges -- health care, energy, education and others -- that we can no longer afford to ignore.
      But I want to be very clear, if the message was not effectively delivered by the three previous speakers: We cannot, and will not, sustain deficits like these without end. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration, or the next generation.

      . . .

      And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay -- and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.

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    4. "Obama stated" vs the media reporting something as a fact. I suspect there's an important difference there, but it's only a faint suspicion.

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  2. What Paul Ryan will be putting on the backs of working class Americans are saddles.

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    1. What Romney/Ryan will give the working class is work.

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    2. The working class of China or India?

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  3. I wonder when Congressman Ryan decided to do a 180-degree turn from being fiscally reckless enough to vote to expand Medicare in the 2005 law that forbid the federal government from exercising the same right to negotiate drug prices as private health providers.

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  4. Ryan submitted his budget plan to the CBO for analysis. In some cases the CBO stated that for the budgets projections to work would require additional legislation or other changes that were not specified in the plan.

    The CBO also concluded that there would be a reduction in Medicare and Medicaid services and that Medicare recipients would pay a larger share of their incomes after Medicare coverage for medical expenses.

    The Ryan plan is partial in details leaving faith and imagination to fill in the supposed deficit reductions.
    A projection of Ryan's plan does show a reduction in the deficit, but it does not detail where the money is supposed to come from.

    Ryan's plan does nothing less than sell out the poor and the middle class and uses the money taken from them and bumps it upward to the upper two percent.

    Why would anyone vote for Romney, who is an expert at screwing over taxpayers, (the government?)

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    1. Actually, the Ryan plan outlines bringing down health spending costs through competitive bidding from private insurers where the govt picks up the tab for those citizens who chose the first or the second lowest bid.

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  5. Ryan comes from the Jack Kemp growth wing of the Republican Party. He believes cutting taxes will create growth, and the growth will pay down the deficit. He pays lip service to the cutting of entitlements, but he would cut taxes whether he can cut entitlements or not. This distinguishes him from the tea party which would cut spending now, although probably without the realization that cutting spending means cutting Social Security and Medicare, programs that are widely popular including with members of the tea party.

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    1. Hard to tell what the Kemp wing actually 'believes' versus what they say they believe. Personally, I do not believe that they believe their magic beans will work. Nor do they really care about growth or jobs. What they know and what they care about is providing tax windfalls for the rich. How do I know that? Because that is what their plan does, first and foremost and directly. There is no faith involved in that. You don't have to "believe" it, because you can KNOW it.

      That $1.7 trillion in tax cuts extended in 2010 went directly into their pockets. It also seems obvious to me, that having given $1.7 trillion to the upper classes, it is easy to get some of that back in campaign donations. It's an easy calculation. $1.7 billion "invested" now brings a 1000% return over ten years.

      With that $1.7 billion you can flood the airwaves to convince Jack that the magic beans really will work, and you can buy politicians who will say they believe in it.

      Ryan provides an example. If you promote the true belief, you can go far. Heretics, such as the moderate state senators in Kansas, will be defeated in primary challenges.

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    2. If the rich are so dastardly, can't you at least credit them and regular joes with SOME sense? I mean granted they couldn't have your brilliance... but the joes did manage to install a new regime in '08, in the hope that things would get better economically. And the evil rich were smart enough to see that handwriting on the wall where they hedged their bets, as they generally do.

      I don't think you have to declare the whole country a version of The Manchurian Capitalist Candidate as yet...

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