DCCC Goes After Ryan Again

There's very little positive an honest man can say about the DCCC. They're part of the problem, not the solution to it. This year their recruitment of conservative and corrupt assholes like Marty Chavez in Albuquerque, Val Demings and Luis Garcia in Florida and Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona, lays bare their hypocritical railing against conservative Republicans for voting the same way their own conservative kennel votes. On rare occasions they stumble into doing the right thing. Yesterday, for example, they went on an online rampage against Medicare destroyer Paul Ryan (R-WI)-- after assiduously protecting his seat for almost a decade.

Afraid to be blamed, as he should be, for the S&P downgrade of American credit-- something that could cost American citizens billions by increasing the cost of mortgages, auto loans, student loans, as well as the cost of anything you are not paying for with cash and by further slowing the economic recovery and screwing up the jobs market-- Ryan is suddenly open to raising taxes, something that would have prevented this disaster just a few weeks ago.

Ryan said on Fox News Sunday that he would be open to a deal that contains $3 or $4 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue increases if it came through a major reform of the tax code and was large enough.

That was the deal Obama offered the GOP all summer and that the American people favored in every poll-- and that Ryan and the GOP flatly turned down. Maybe they were shaken up by the S&P blaming the downgrade on their intransigence. Tight from the S&P report:

The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

...It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

...The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

...Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

So... back to the DCCC's new aggressiveness towards Ryan. Supposedly they're going to help Rob Zerban beat him... although I'll believe that when I see it. (Meanwhile, Rob is still counting on you.) But at least they're sending out nice anti-Ryan messages on the Twitter machine, sniping at his lies on Fox:

Today on Fox News Sunday, Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (WI-01) repeatedly and falsely said that he and House Republicans want to “reform” Medicare. 

In reality, Ryan and House Republicans have voted three times to end Medicare and raise health care costs for seniors.

FACT CHECK

Ryan Voted for the Cut, Cap and Balance Plan that is More Extreme than the Republican Budget . The non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote: “The measure […] stands out as one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades. […] The legislation would inexorably subject Social Security and Medicare to deep reductions.” [H.R. 2560, Vote #606, 7/19/11; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 7/16/11]

Ryan Voted to Deem the Republican Budget as Having been Passed by Congress. Representative Paul Ryan voted to end Medicare by supporting a “deeming resolution” in H. Res. 287 which states “the provisions of House Concurrent Resolution 34 […] shall have force and effect […] in the House as though Congress has adopted such concurrent resolution”. [H. Res. 287, Vote #382, 6/1/11]

Ryan Voted for the 2012 Republican Budget Proposal that Would “End Medicare.” In April, Paul Ryan voted to end Medicare by supporting the Republican budget. The Wall Street Journal reported “The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [H Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11; Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11]

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