Ryan's student loan lies and his not so sneaking way to throw the poor off Medicaid.

The conservative echo chamber believes in the following; federal student loans have increased tuition, and block granting Medicaid offers states the flexibility to shape their own programs and saves money.

While many countries provide their citizens with a free college education, we don't: Instead of free, the GOP would like to make life more difficult by making us shop for everything, like a student loans, health care and soon, K-12. Imagine if all these things were provided through a general tax, and we could focus our energies on so many other things.

Republicans have been setting up the student loan program to fall for years: State Republicans continue to cut funding for their public colleges, forcing tuition increases. And on the other side, congressional Republicans blame the tuition increases on the availability of federal funding. Their con is to do away with the governments affordable student loan program and give banks the freedom to make even bigger profits. Sen. Elizabeth Warren would instead lower student loan interest to just above 3%.

Warren’s latest proposal would allow students and former students to refinance old loans at current government-subsidized rates. She proposes paying for the losses to the government by levying bigger taxes on top earners. “It’s billionaires or students. Where do we want to make our investment?” Warren asked a Washington audience recently.

Democratic Rep. Ron Kind quickly responded to Paul Ryan's latest proposal with this reality check:

Students --CUT $145 billion in education funding and $90 billion in Pell grants. Students would also be charged interest on their loans while still in school.

The solution is easy; Republicans need to start funding state colleges again, and get behind the idea of an educated public. Use general revenues to shore up our public schools and colleges-lower tuition's.

Medicaid, it's all "philosophical?" What Scott Walker did to the poor on Badgercare is mild compared to what he could have done if the federal government didn't regulate (strings attached) the use of funding. Paul Ryan wants to get rid of the strings. It's a "philosophical" thing, and a very brave "it doesn't effect me" move that only tramples on the unhealthy.

From Political Capital, Ryan amazed host Al Hunt at how disconnected he was to the reality of the problem:

Correcting Lyin' Paul Ryan...again.

The only good that came out of Paul Ryan's run for vice president is that we now know he's a lying phony. Is that just liberal name calling? Not if it's the truth.

Ryan's opponent Democratic candidate Rob Zerban would wise to incorporate a few of the important reality base points below about Ryan's mischaracterization of poverty and Medicaid. From Bill Moyers:

Ryan: “It’s time for an adult conversation,” he told The Washington Post: The problem is that a prerequisite for any adult conversation is telling the truth and it is there the congressman falls monumentally short.

In addition to Rep. Ryan’s recent, racially-coded comments about “our inner cities” where “generations of men [are] not even thinking about working,” his rhetoric around policy should raise red flags for anyone — including the media — assessing his credibility.

Here are the facts that simply scream common sense:

A report from Emily Oshima Lee, policy analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, examines the hatchet job Rep. Ryan did on Medicaid ... The Washington Post generously described as a “critique.” Indeed, Ryan’s report ... misrepresenting and cherry-picking data — is a dangerous disservice ... assessing antipoverty programs.

Lee notes that Ryan misuses research to imply that Medicaid coverage leads to poorer health. “The privately insured comparison is patently unfair because these people tend to be higher income and that comes with a whole host of health privileges.” She notes that Medicaid enrollees tend to struggle a lot more with chronic conditions and illnesses than other populations writes Lee, in my opinion admirably resisting the temptation to add, “duh.”

Ryan also argues that Medicaid coverage has little positive effect on enrollees’ health. But as Lee points out, Ryan conveniently overlooks studies showing lower mortality rates; reduced low-weight births and infant and child mortality; and lower mortality for HIV-positive patients. “…such as increased use of preventive care and greater financial security.”

Despite Ryan’s shabby work when it comes to antipoverty policy, the media repeatedly seems willing to overlook it. That’s another strike against the prospects of a truly adult conversation about poverty — in addition to honesty, it requires accountability.

Rep. Ryan also plays on fears of low-income people abusing the welfare system when he asserts that Medicaid coverage improperly increases enrollees’ use of health care services, including preventive care and emergency department services ... by comparing Medicaid enrollees to uninsured people ... “Presenting data that Medicaid enrollees use more health services than the uninsured affirms that insurance coverage allows people who need care to seek it out,” writes Lee, “and that being uninsured is a major barrier to receiving important medical care.”

Further, one of the two studies Ryan references explicitly states that “neither theory nor existing evidence provides a definitive answer to… whether we should expect increases or decreases in emergency-department use when Medicaid expands.”

Budget punishes those in poverty, exposes Paul Ryan's phony focus on dignity

Greg Kaufmann of the Nation:

 “Promoting the natural rights and the inherent dignity of the individual must be the central focus of all government.”

That’s what Congressman Paul Ryan wrote earlier this month in an exclusive commentary for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. This week, he revealed exactly where his laser-like focus on dignity would lead this nation... 

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means a cut in food stamps of $133 billion over ten years, even though 76 percent of participating households include a child, senior or disabled person, nearly half of all recipients are children and 40 percent of single mothers use food stamps to help feed their families.   

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and attacking Medicaid with his block-granting light saber. The repeal results in at least 33 million people losing their healthcare... 

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means not only extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy but handing them an additional $3 trillion in tax cuts to boot. If he just extended the Bush tax cuts, but nixed the Don’t Worry Rich People, Ryan Loves You additional tax cuts—that alone would pay for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Medicaid cuts, the SNAP cuts and domestic discretionary spending cuts.

All told, Ryan hands out about $4.4 trillion in tax cuts that primarily benefit the very best off, and pays for it with $4.15 trillion in spending cuts to programs that primarily benefit the poor and middle class.

There's lots more. Read it and weep.

' Romney Worships 2011's False Idol: Paul Ryan'

John Nichols in The Nation:

Paul Ryan’s ideas reached their sell-by date in 2011, as tens of millions of Americans recognized that his proposals would permanently damage and ultimate destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The centerpiece of Mitt Romney’s advertising in Iowa (and New Hampshire) is an attempt to associate the candidate’s economic agenda with House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future.” (AP Photos) But as the year came to a close and his rancid schemes were starting to putrefy, Ryan suddenly found a new buyer: Mitt Romney.

Read more here.

Wyden Isn't The Only Democrat Who Wants To Help Paul Ryan Kill Medicare-- Blue Dogs Are Salivating

Last week we saw how Wisconsin Democrat Rob Zerban pushed back against Ron Wyden's harebrained scheme of working with Paul Ryan to destroy Medicare. Obviously Wyden isn't the only bad Democrat in Congress. Many of the worst conservative handmaidens of the 1%-- the Blue Dogs and the New Dems (essentially Blue Dogs without the KKK robes and the anti-gay/anti-Choice fanaticism)-- are quietly lining up behind Wyden and Ryan in the push for a transpartisan death blow against the New Deal and the middle class.

Shamus Cooke guessed Christmas Day would be as good a time as any to expose this unholy alliance.

Politicians are attacking Medicare and Medicaid on all sides--Democrats and Republicans alike. Obama's national health care bill will slash hundreds of billions from Medicare over the next decade, an act supported by so-called "progressive" Democrats. Soon after this "victory" Obama created the Super Committee to balance the budget, which included automatic "triggers"-- if no decision was reached-- that are now slated to cut $600 billion more from Medicare. 



On a state-by-state basis, Medicaid-- a program that provides health care to the poor-- is being cut in virtually every state, where they are using their manufactured budget crises as an excuse. This under-funding of Medicaid has created a lack of doctors for patients, according to USAToday: 



"With a shortage of doctors...[Medicaid] patients have little choice but to use hospital emergency rooms for more routine care." (July 5th, 2011).



But it gets worse. Now, "long term solutions" are being sought. After critically wounding the system with disfiguring cuts, Medicare's plug is about to be pulled. Different privatization plans have been put forth that would instantly kill Medicare. One such plan was recently announced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, which, if enacted, would deliver a deathblow to Medicare as we know it. Some commentators have wrongly dismissed Wyden as a "crackpot" risking political suicide; in fact, Wyden is a cautious, "pragmatic" politician, i.e. he blindly follows party leaders and their corporate bosses.



The Wyden-Ryan plan has deep roots not only amongst Republicans, but also Blue Dog Democrats and the New Democrat Coalition-- the powerful congressional caucuses that actually run the Democratic Party. These are the people that create the right-wing economic policies that President Obama has been pursuing since his election victory-- thus Obama's ability to work in a bi-partisan manner with the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal commented on Obama's right-wing health care plan:



“To listen to President Obama and his closest Democratic allies, you’d think John McCain had won the election and their bill had been drafted by Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn and the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute [a right wing think tank].” (February 26, 2010).



By attaching his name to Paul Ryan (the anti-Medicare crusader), Wyden is now revealing the ultra-right, pro-corporate trajectory of the Democratic Party leadership. And although the White House has spoken against the bill, Obama's own health care reform bill created the framework now copied by the Wyden-Paul plan.



Why does the Wyden-Ryan plan amount to privatization? A brief glance at the recent history of Medicare is necessary to explain. 



Medicare was once dominated by the federal government, where, as a result, administrative costs were low and quality was high. In the 1990's Medicare patients were given an option to have their Medicare services performed by private providers, who were now able to profit off Medicare by charging extra fees for extra services, which they added to the basic amount of funds received via Medicare.



The reason that people often chose private providers was that Medicare funding was being cut and consequently, less services were being offered under traditional Medicare. For those who could afford it, private providers became preferred, since people could then purchase the services they needed but were not offered under traditional Medicare. This "option" created the beginning of a two-tier system of Medicare, opening the door for the systems fracturing.



The Wyden-Ryan plan would crack the nut wide open. But instead of saying privatization, a dirty word, "premium support" is used instead, a sterile sounding term with nasty consequences. It essentially means that each Medicare patient will receive a set amount of money for their Medicare that they can use to "shop" for their insurance. This would be the first time that Medicare spending would be capped, and the rate of growth of this capped fund would not match the rate of growth of health care prices. Once you've accepted the cap, the cap can be continually lowered by Congress or not raised to keep pace with inflation.



Instead of reducing Medicare costs by going after profit-hungry pharmaceutical corporations, patients will have their services curtailed via the cap.



The "choices" offered under the Wyden-Ryan will fully insert the profit motive into the national health care program: Medicare patients with poor health or chronic conditions would find that most private plans are closed to them, since it's unprofitable to actually offer the necessary, varied treatments for these patients. Thus, Medicare participants in poor health would remain in traditional Medicare, where costs would rise as more chronic patients joined and healthier patients fled to cheaper plans that allowed only healthy people. Richer patients would also flee to private plans for another reason: Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals are being continually lowered, doctors would naturally refuse to take Medicare patients as they now refuse to take Medicaid patients.



The subsequent higher costs of traditional Medicare would then push up premium prices, co-payments, and deductibles, where very soon the "public option" of Medicare would be unrecognizable to its ancestor. The poor and those with chronic conditions would be legally discriminated against, since private companies are allowed to do so; a once proud public program will have been mutilated and rendered unusable, i.e. it will have been privatized. 



Medicare was first hijacked by the health care corporations in the 90's with the introduction of Medicare Part C, the original "option" to have privately run Medicare; and because Part C was privately controlled, it received 14 percent more money in inflated payments than did traditional Medicare patients (so that patients would be pushed into the program while corporations could turn a profit).



Later, Medicare Part D was designed and implemented by these same health care corporations to boost profits (a gift from President Bush Jr.). It thus became common for private companies to have their hand in the Medicare honey jar.



How is profit made in the health care business from Medicare? These companies get a set amount of money from the federal government, and if they provide less health care service than what they are paid, they turn a profit. They also profit by providing additional, unneeded services at inflated costs. The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2006, the private plans earned profits of 6.6 percent while having much higher administrative costs than traditional Medicare. 



By 2030 Medicare is expected to enroll 78 million people. Medicaid already provides health care to over 50 million Americans. The number of uninsured Americans stands at 50 million and is rising fast. Tens of millions of more Americans cannot afford the health care plans they are currently in, and millions more would prefer quality health care plans, not the ones they actually have. 



Hundreds of millions of Americans thus have a common interest in health care, yet the above attacks on health care continue while costs continue to rise.



It makes sense that Americans should unite in a single health care constituency. Medicare cannot be defended by only current Medicare recipients; nor can Medicaid be saved by current benefactors. In order to unite all working Americans into a powerful coalition, Medicare for All should be demanded, so that all Americans will see their interests reflected in the fight. Few issues so directly affect so many people, but to expand the fight still further, a coalition could be formed that demands jobs, peace, and education, the other "big" issues that-- when put together-- directly affect nearly every single working person.



The raw material for such a coalition already exists. If the labor and Occupy Movements unite to organize massive, ongoing demonstrations for these basic demands, the potential for a mass movement will have been realized. The majority of Americans would find common cause with such a movement, and after seeing masses of people in the streets, will believe that the fight can be won.

Like Social Security, Medicare is a self-funding program that can be easily preserved by raising taxes on the richest Americans and corporations. Taxing the rich can also help create a national jobs program, save public education and other vital social services, while also helping to galvanize such a movement.

Politicians are using the national and state budget crises to implement drastic austerity measures-- destroying public jobs and services from libraries and health care to roads and education. In Europe the fight against austerity has aroused the entire working populations of several countries, including Greece, England, Italy and Spain. The working people of the U.S. are facing the same austerity crisis and need to unite in the European fashion.

Want to fight back? You can help retire Paul Ryan here and help make the Blue Dog coalition extinct here; and you can send a message to the Democratic Party here. The DCCC and the Democratic Party establishment is in a quiet but deadly war against actual progressives and fully supporting conservative candidates who buy into the Wyden-Ryan plan. If you're not seeing Democratic candidates vowing to join the Progressive Caucus, you're seeing Democrats unwilling to stand up and fight for the New Deal. This week old-line Democratic establishment hack Walter Mondale endorsed anti-labor, reactionary and corrupt ex-Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez for Congress against progressive state Senator Eric Griego, something we've been warning about since last spring. The DCCC is quietly lining up conservative candidates to run against the best progressives working to represent working families in Congress. Is the DCCC as toxic for America as the Republicans? I'll leave that for you to decide.

Ryan's Medicare plan brings him big bucks from the insurance industry

Why, Madison's Capital Times asks, does Paul Ryan call for radical changes in Medicare and Medicaid when it would not balance the federal budget?

Because the insurance industry wants to turn Medicare and Medicaid into voucher programs that force retirees and low-income families to buy insurance coverage from private firms. That would steer federal money away from providing health care to those who need it and toward padding the profits of some of the most powerful and politically connected corporations in America...

The public opposes the plan, but Ryan hasn't backed off. Why? It's a huge money maker for Ryan.

Among all businesses, the top source of campaign money for Ryan over the course of his political career has been the insurance industry - more than $720,000 so far.

And in the current report? The industries providing the largest donations are finance and ... insurance.

Read more here.

Saving Medicare and Medicaid: Ryan missing in action

The Capital Times editorial, in brief:

Paul Ryan says he wants to "save" Medicare and Medicaid.

But the House Budget Committee chairman can't even be bothered to sign on with his fellow Republicans to save Medicare and Medicaid for his home state of Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Health Care Association put together a bipartisan letter voicing concern to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about a proposal that would cut reimbursement to skilled nursing facilities immediately by 12.8 percent for Fiscal Year 2012. Tom Moore, WHCA's executive director, says the proposal could devastate "Wisconsin's nursing facilities, the quality of care they provide, and the number of jobs they contribute could make the difference in finding a more measured approach to their Medicare payment system."

And Wisconsin's congressional representatives, from both parties, have stepped up to challenge the proposal.

Signing the letter were Democratic House members Tammy Baldwin, Gwen Moore and Ron Kind and Republicans Sean Duffy, Tom Petri and Reid Ribble.

Not signing were Republican Reps. James Sensenbrenner -- and Paul Ryan.

Read the editorial.

Ryan's Medicaid cuts would be devastating to state's economy

Paul Ryan’s proposed Medicaid cuts could put more than 30,000 Wisconsin jobs at risk, and cost the state $3.4 billion in business activity.

That's a worst case scenario, if Medicaid spending were cut 33% in 2011.  But smaller cuts would also have a big  negative impact on the state's economy.

Implementing a 5 percent cut in Medicaid spending in 2011 would: cost Wisconsin almost $250.8 million in federal Medicaid dollars, and put at risk nearly $519.3 million in business activity and 4,830 jobs;

A 15 percent cut in federal Medicaid spending in 2011 would have cost Wisconsin nearly $752.4 million in federal Medicaid dollars, and put at risk nearly $1.6 billion in business activity and 14,490 jobs;
Those numbers from a new report, Jobs at Risk" by the national health care consumer organization Families USA:

The Republican budget proposal, introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, would subject Medicaid to some of the largest cuts in the history of the program. This proposal would cut federal Medicaid funding significantly—not by reducing underlying health care costs, but simply by shifting those costs to already overburdened state governments. It would do this by converting the program to a block grant that would provide considerably less federal funding with each passing year. The Republican budget proposal would cut federal funding to the states by 5 percent in 2013. In 2014, the cut would be 15 percent. Over the coming years, these funding cuts would get larger and larger, until, at the end of the 10-year period, the cut in federal funds would approximate 33 percent.

The report's conclusion:

As options to reduce the federal deficit are weighed and balanced, the discussion should

include recognition of the powerful economic stimulus that federal spending has on state Medicaid programs. This report quantifies the potential business activity and jobs that would be put at risk if federal Medicaid spending is cut dramatically. Less easily quantified, but equally important, is the impact on the lives of state residents who rely on Medicaid for their health care. Medicaid provides a vital health care safety net in every state. It is a lifeline for children, people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, and low-income elderly people. It is there to help families that have been hit by job loss or other unexpected economic hardships. And Medicaid is the only source of financial help for millions of families who are struggling to pay for nursing home or other long-term care for parents or family members.

Medicaid is good medicine for state economies and for families as our nation recovers from the recession. This is exactly the wrong time for Congress to cut a program that stimulates the economy while also providing a boost to individuals and families who are facing hard economic times.

Ryan's budget: Another front in the war on women

The budget proposal put forth by Paul Ryan is a vicious and cruel all-out attack on everyone under the age of 55, but the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that the Ryan plan proposes would be felt acutely by women, who make up more than half of the beneficiaries of both programs, and women retire closer to the poverty line than men do. Women who are alone, who either never married or who are divorced or widowed and never remarried would be particularly vulnerable....

Here is the bottom line: Ryan's plan would amount to transfering the entire monthly Social Security benefit for female seniors to private health insurance companies.

The Medicare part of Ryan's plan is even worse for women, who comprise about 70% of all Medicaid clients. 

Tammy Booth, who wrote this as part of a series she's writing as a blogging fellow for the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of more than 270 national and state organizations dedicated to preserving and strengthening Social Security, has much more.

Read it here.

How Much Will It Cost Your District To Do Paul Ryan's Version Of "Nothing?"

Handy-dandy interactive map shows the impact to each Congressional District of the Medicare and Medicaid cuts that Paul Ryan is trying to make you believe is really no change at all.

Ryan's 1st District here.

Tammy Baldwin's 2nd District here with just a few highlights.

All the rest.

Crossposted at The Happy Circumstance

'If anyone is lying, it's Paul Ryan himself' -- Krugman in NY Times

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and NY Times columnist, minces no words is dismantling Paul Ryan's claims that Democrats are lying about his Medicare plan, but voters will figure out the truth:

If anyone is lying here, it’s Mr. Ryan himself, who has claimed that his plan would give seniors the same kind of coverage that members of Congress receive — an assertion that is completely false...

What the Ryan plan is, instead, is an attempt to snooker Americans into accepting a standard right-wing wish list under the guise of deficit reduction. And Americans, it seems, have seen through the deception.

So what happens now? The fight will shift from Medicare to Medicaid — a program that has become an essential lifeline for many Americans, especially children, but which in the Ryan plan is slated for a 44 percent cut in federal aid over the next decade. At this point, however, I’m optimistic that this initiative will also run aground on popular disapproval.

What of Mr. Ryan’s hope that voters will realize that they’ve been lied to? Well, as I see it, that’s already happening. And it’s bad news for the G.O.P.

Read it here.

Huntsman on Ryan budget: Well, it's an idea

Jon Huntsman, the latest Republican to consider a presidential run, was asked in New Hampshire about the House budget advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan -- the issue that got Newt Gingrich into such hot water. Huntsman was didiplomatic (being a diplomat) but this doesn't sound like an endorsement of Ryan's plan, which Gingrich called radical:

"The way we do it in America, we put ideas on the table, we discuss them," [Huntsman] said. " There is a lot that is part of the Ryan plan that needs to be considered."

When pressed, he didn't endorse Ryan's proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system, but said "that is something like (what) we set up in Utah, where you've got a multiplicity of insurance options." Turning Medicaid into block grants for states "is a good thing, because right now Medicaid is blowing a hole in budgets throughout the United States."

Huntsman is a former Utah governor. More here.

Ryan's wrong; We need 'Medicare for all'

John Nichols in the Capital Times:

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan proposes to undermine the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, with an eye toward enriching the insurance companies that so generously fund his campaigns.

The American people are not amused. They have sent clear signals that they want to maintain Medicare and Medicaid.

Read the rest

Ryan's plan devastates his own 1st District

Andrew Romano of Newsweek, writing for The Daily Beast, takes a look at what Paul Ryan's Path to Properity would mean for his 1st Congressional District constituents. For many of them, it would be the Road to Ruin:

...the Path to Prosperity would eventually force the 90,776 Medicare recipients currently living in Wisconsin's First Congressional District, or a full 13.5 percent of Ryan's constituents, to shell out a lot more for insurance, or to accept less bang for their buck. The federal government’s budget problem, in other words, would become a family budget problem...

Esther Osmond is a good example. Current estimates show that by 2030, Osmond, an 86-year-old resident of Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, would be paying about 25 percent of her premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Under Ryan’s plan, however, her share of those costs is projected (again, by the CBO) to soar to 68 percent. At that point, Wisconsin seniors like Osmond would have a choice: either buy a Medicare-caliber private plan, which the CBO estimates would cost more than double the projected price of old-fashioned Medicare, or cut back on how comprehensive their insurance is. Reached by phone, Osmond didn’t need to hear the details of Ryan’s proposal before delivering her verdict. She knew them already. “I think it’s crazy!” she shouted. “And that’s about all I think!” Then she hung up.

Then there's Medicaid:

[A]ccording to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation ... by 2021, Washington would be sending Wisconsin 42 percent less Medicaid money than projected under current law ($4.9 billion versus $8.5 billion); the CBO, meanwhile, estimates that Medicaid cuts would reach 49 percent by 2030, on average.

In Ryan’s district, this would amount to an estimated annual cut of $360 million—which, in turn, would affect not only the 101,500 poor, disabled, and elderly area residents who currently rely on Medicaid for coverage, but many of his other constituents as well. Faced with such a massive shortfall, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services would have to restrict services, limit enrollment, and lower payments to health-care providers—or fill the new funding gap by raising taxes and slashing other state programs. (Kaiser estimates that between 513,000 and 786,000 Wisconsinites would fall off the Medicaid rolls by 2021; proportionally, about 60,000 to 93,000 residents of Ryan's district would be among them.)

It's not just Medicare and Medicaid recipients who would suffer. Other cuts in his district resulting from Ryan's budget:

District-wide federal spending on bridges and roads would drop by more than 37 percent, or $4.5 million, by 2021; at the same time, federal support for R&D would fall by roughly $600,000—a 28 percent reduction. The biggest short-term cuts, however, would hit WI-1's public-school system, which would watch its federal funding plummet 53 percent over the next eight years, from $72 million to $34 million.

There's much more. Read it here.

AARP 1, Ryan 0

Joan McCarter for Daily Kos:

The AARP is doing now what the AARP has always done, educated and organized its vast grassroots resource of older Americans about the dangers of the Republican budget plan to their economic well-being, as well as their health, in it's massive Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Ryan's PAC attacked the AARP, calling it a "left-leaning pressure group with significant business interests in the insurance industry," in a fund-raising e-mail.

Guess who won.

Paul Ryan: Shooting Star To Flame-Out

A prediction from Jim Rowen of The Political Environment:

Paul Ryan: Shooting Star To Flame-Out

By the end of the federal budget debate, colleagues and voters will have abandoned supposed fiscal wizard Paul Ryan, with the next victims of the Republicans' draconian Medicare/Medicaid program cuts being the reputation of their House leader, John Boehner and their party's chances in November, 2012.