US credit downgrade vindicates his draconian budget plan, Ryan says

On a Sunday morning Fox gasbag show, Rep. Paul Ryan said Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. credit was a "vindication" both of Republican actions in the tarted-up debt ceiling "crisis" and his own draconian budget plan.

Gee, it's a "vindication" that the debt ceiling crisis and its outcome -- manufactured entirely by Republicans and teabaggers -- has now led to a lower US credit rating? Can Ryan and other Republicans only be vindicated in their brinkmanship tactics when things get worse as a result? Well, yes, if you believe the GOP's only real interest is damaging the economy so that Obama becomes a one-termer and the Senate falls to the Republicans.

[And meanwhile, tea party noisemakers are busy celebrating the S&P downgrade. When the public and the facts aren't on your side, throw in with chaos.]

Ryan also blithely opined that Republicans and Democrats haven't been able to compromise on budget plans because Democrats simply won't go along with his plan to end Medicare and other entitlement programs as we know them. In short: "Surrender, Dorothy!" It's the old George W. Bush brand of compromise: you guys totally compromise your positions and agree to mine, and we'll call it bipartisan.

The latest Ryan miscreancy was ably summarized at David's Blog (highlighting is my own):

"I am not very surprised with the downgrade," Ryan told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "We more or less saw it coming because we are [on] the wrong fiscal path. We'll find out what spike in rates we are going to get. Obviously not only does it hurt the federal government and its ability to close deficits, but it hurts people. Car loans, home loans, all these things are going to go up. And so, it is because Washington has not gotten its fiscal house in order."

And to me, this is just more vindication of our actions. We passed a budget, which according to someone with S&P yesterday, would have prevented the downgrading from happening in the first place."

"Isn't that like a doctor saying, 'I did the operation perfectly but the patient died?'" Wallace wondered. "In its announcement, S&P condemned the political dysfunction here in Washington, the grid lock here in Washington... isn't the failure to compromise part of the problem?"

"Both political parties are responsible for the mess we have right," Ryan admitted. "This is not a Democrat or Republican problem only. Both parties got us to where we are. I would argue, though, in the last couple of years, we've gone deeply in the wrong direction."

"Yes, we haven't been able to get the kind of compromise because our partners on the other side of the aisles had been unwilling to reform the [entitlement] programs that the cause of the problem."

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/ryan-claims-downgrade-vindication-gop