Janesville man with free flights, parking says enjoy your 2nd-class transportation

The new GOP House budget-writing chairman, Janesville's own US Rep. Paul Ryan, declares there will be no raise in the ridiculously low (18.4 cents) federal per-gallon gas tax, though gas prices are plummeting and the Federal Highway Trust Fund is depleted.

Look for Ryan sidekick Scott Walker to fill the Wisconsin transportation agency's deficit-laden budget through more cuts to transit, some higher registration and licensing fees, extra surcharges on electric and hybrid vehicles which Walker believes are owned by Democrats, added state credit card debt to pay for unneeded 'freeway' lanes, and funding transfers from health, education, assistance to local governments and other programs.

By the way, members of Congress get about a quarter-million dollars annually for taxpayer-paid travel, can use it fly first-class, retain frequent-flyer miles and can also fly free on overseas junkets.

And it's common for member of Congress to either park their cars for free at the DC airport or get rides to and from the airport from taxpayer-paid staffers.

Your travel experience and theirs is very different.

Cross-posted at The Political Environment.

Attack on French newspaper is an outrage

The mass murder of journalists and others at a satirical Parisian newspaper is a crime against free expression everywhere. Today is a day for speaking out for the victims, their craft and its universal and crucial value. And for remembering other journalists recently killed, captured and imprisoned for doing their jobs.

Why is Paul Ryan so Wrong...all the Time?

Our new dystopian Republican congress has a lot of people thinking about what might happen under their control. For me, a smart Democratic plan would be to take every GOP bill and highlight what it would do. A two column analysis, one side Democratic and the other Republican, for every major bill. Dream on John, because that would be like "framing" the issues, and Democrats don't do that ever.

But reporters are still curious about those in charge, and their records to date, like Paul Ryan's:

Why is why Ryan has been so spectacularly wrong about inflation, the dollar, and, well, the whole economy the past few years.

"Pressed for cash, the government will take the easy way out," Ryan mused in 2013, and "crank up the printing presses." The result wouldn't be any run-of-the-mill inflation, but rather "the debasement of our currency." And in case you have any doubt how bad that would be, well, Lenin supposedly said that's the best way to destroy the capitalist system. So pretty bad.

In 2009, he philosophized that "a lot of people would observe that we are right now

living in an Ayn Rand novel." A year later, he all but accused the Fed of using the printing press to pay our bills … And in 2011, he somberly warned then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke that "there is nothing more insidious that a country can do its citizens than debase its currency."

It was a weird thing to be worrying about. Inflation was just 1.7 percent when Ryan brought up dollar debasement. It's 1.2 percent now. And rather than being debased, debauched or otherwise devalued, the dollar is actually up 13 percent against a broad index of currencies over this time … there hasn't been anything resembling "debasement."

Why has Paul Ryan been wrong about everything? Well, he missed what a lot of people miss, which is that the rules change when interest rates are zero. You won't learn that from Ayn Rand's books, though.