You Made Your Point Maam.

Lyin’ Ryan’s Medi-Scare

While Democrats want to save our senior safety nets, Republicans like Paul Ryan want to set these programs up for future tinkering that in many ways will shift any future shortfalls onto income strapped Americans.

That’s the difference between the two parties, and a big one.

PolitiFact destroys Ryan’s Deception:

Ryan’s point, made at a WisPolitics.com event on May 5, 2014, is that Medicare must be reformed because it is "going broke. The trust fund goes bankrupt in 2026." To back his claim Ryan cited the Medicare trustees, "Payment of expenditures in full and on time will continue to require redemption of trust fund assets most years until the (Part A) trust fund’s depletion in 2026."

Even if the Part A (hospitals) trust fund ran out, the report Ryan cites projects that revenue would still be enough to pay 87 percent of the Part A expenses. Not a good situation, perhaps, but also not Medicare being bankrupt or shutting down.

The projected depletion of the Part A trust fund in 2026 is nine years later than what the Medicare trustees projected in 2009, the year before the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, according to Medicare expert Paul Van de Water of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act we can then assume, would knock about nine years off Medicare’s trust fund, adding to the chaos of millions of dropped marketplace policies.

PolitiFact’s conclusion says it all about Ryan’s deceptive way of getting what he wants:

For a statement that contains an element of truth, but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, we give Ryan a Mostly False.

Paul Ryan - Ignorance on Display!

Madison CBS reporter Jessica Arp, was able to get the first interview with failed VP candidate Paul Ryan:





Some highlights and interpretations:

* "I think the surprise was some of the turnout, especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race," said Ryan,(meaning - we were surprised that the people of color actually voted and were able to vote. They will not make that mistake again!)

* "Mitt didn't pick me for a certain state, he picked me for issues, for governing, for taking on the debt crisis," Ryan said. "We had hoped to win Wisconsin, fought hard for Wisconsin. We cut the president's lead in half, but nevertheless it wasn't enough." (Paul Ryan spent the better part of the last two weeks in WI trying to win and ended up getting beat by 7 points. Paul is on a dont blame me - ditch personal responsibility tour and this was the first stop. There is a reason he did not run for Senate in Herb Kohl's seat.)

* "We ran a campaign on big ideas" Paul Ryan - (Although he still hasnt told us the big ideas that he ran on!)

* "we clearly did not lose the election on the issues, especially Medicare" Paul Ryan (Tell that to the voters of Florida).

* "My dad always said you are part of the problem or part of the solution. I feel its my job to be part of the solution." Paul Ryan (wow did you let your dad down)

* "as you know, the House republicans, we have offered budget after budget. We have offered specific plans to prevent the fiscal cliff. We have not seen any leadership from the President on that. Yet." Paul Ryan. (President Obama SPECIFICALLY campaigned against the Paul ryan budgets and the American people spoke LOUD AND CLEAR).

* "Ryan said twenty times a day he had to hand sanitize" Jessica Arp. (the King is disgusted when he has to associate with the Plebes) Cross posted @ Cogdis.

Blue America Tear Sheets-- Wisconsin Edition

Yesterday you saw some of the mobile billboards we're running in PA-16 on behalf of Aryanna Strader and in CA-25 on behalf of Lee Rogers. We have a dozen billboards up in southeast Wisconsin that point out the differences between Paul Ryan and Rob Zerban. YOU built those boards... or at least those of you who have contributed to our Independent Expenditure Committee through Act Blue or by sending a check to Blue America at PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027. Every cent we're getting in now goes straight into our radio and TV ads. (By the way, there's no limit what you can legally give to the I.E. Committee.)

Yesterday I got another batch of almost two dozen tear sheets from weeklies and shoppers in WI-01 that carried our Lyin' Ryan ad. One paper we've been advertising in is the Shepherd Express, which blankets southern Wisconsin. They didn't just send me a tear sheet. The sent me a whole issue. And the whole issue isn't something any campaign can buy. The drawing up top is the entire cover of the magazine. And the story by Lisa Kaiser is pretty powerful stuff-- and shows the stark differences Wisconsin voters will be choosing between in 3 weeks. First, though... our ad that ran in the Shepherd Express:

Voters in southeastern Wisconsin have a historically important choice on Nov. 6. Longtime Republican Congressman Paul Ryan will appear on the ballot twice, as Mitt Romney’s running mate and as the candidate for the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin.

Ryan is getting a serious challenge for Congress from Kenosha entrepreneur Rob Zerban-- who outraised Ryan this past quarter-- and, nationally, from President Barack Obama, who polls show has been beating the Romney-Ryan ticket in Wisconsin.

Ryan’s campaign did not respond to the Shepherd’s request for an interview about his record, nor has the Janesville native agreed to debate Zerban in the district.

...Here’s how the two agendas compare on taxes, jobs, health care and women’s issues.

  Tax Rates

• Romney-Ryan: Romney and Ryan differ slightly on how they would restructure tax rates. Romney pledges to retain all of the Bush tax cuts-- including the tax breaks for those earning a million dollars a year-- and then reduce all tax rates by 20%. And although Romney denied it during last week’s debate, his plan to cut taxes by 20% across the board would cut taxes by $5 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Those earning more than a million dollars annually would get a whopping $250,000 in extra tax cuts in a Romney administration on top of the $140,000 average tax cut they received under the Bush plan, CAP found. Romney would also cut tax rates by 20% for middle- and lower-income families, but to make his budget “revenue neutral” he would have to do away with some of the tax deductions that many average Americans rely on, such as the mortgage tax deduction and college savings credits. As a result, middle-class families would see an average tax increase of more than $2,000 a year.

Ryan’s House budget goes even further and would get rid of the top three tax brackets so that top earners would pay 25%, and he’d also combine the 15% and 10% rates into a 10% rate. This would far and away give a bigger tax break to millionaires-- about 125 times as big as a tax break for a middle-class couple, CAP reported.

Neither Romney nor Ryan has specified which tax deductions they would eliminate or modify to fill up the $5 trillion tax hole they would create.

• Obama-Zerban: “I think a good first step would be to end the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000, which means going back to the Clinton-era tax rates of 39.6% from what they are right now, 35%,” Zerban said.

In August, the Congressional Budget Office calculated that this would save the government $950 billion over a 10-year period; $823 billion from revenue and $127 billion from lower interest payments on the debt needed to pay for the high-earners’ tax break.

Zerban also supports raising tax rates on capital gains and carried interest, profits earned by hedge fund and private equity managers, saying that they should be taxed as regular income. Similarly, Obama has proposed taxing long-term capital gains for high-income earners at 20%, which the Tax Policy Center found would generate about $36 billion between 2013-2022. Obama also wants to tax carried interest as ordinary income.

“I would also close tax loopholes for corporate jets,” Zerban said. “As a small businessman, I didn’t need a corporate jet tax loophole to employ people. This is just common sense.”

  Outsourcing Jobs

• Romney-Ryan: Currently, big U.S. corporations are allowed to delay payment of their taxes on their foreign profits, an incentive to invest overseas. But Romney and Ryan would give corporations an even bigger incentive to create low-wage jobs in other countries. Both Romney’s agenda and Ryan’s House budget create a “territorial” tax system, one in which overseas profits are never taxed. Never. Foreign profits would be totally tax-exempt in a Romney-Ryan administration.

CAP calculated that the Romney-Ryan outsourcing incentive and their opposition to the clean energy industry would cost Wisconsin 60,000 jobs.

While Romney and Ryan now oppose the auto bailout (Ryan actually voted for it in Congress), the plan saved up to 28,000 auto-related jobs in Wisconsin, CAP found.

• Obama-Zerban: Obama has made “insourcing” a priority by forming an insourcing forum and visiting manufacturers that have brought jobs back to the United States, such as Milwaukee’s Master Lock. In addition, Obama wants to end tax deductions for outsourcing jobs overseas, add incentives for domestic job creators, and create a $2 billion annual tax break for manufacturers to keep them in the United States. His leadership on this issue seems to be working-- in 2010 and 2011, the United States ended its decade-long trend of losing manufacturing jobs by adding them instead. And, of course, his auto bailout helped to save jobs across the country, but especially in hard-hit Midwestern states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Zerban supports insourcing efforts, saying that corporations’ willingness to invest overseas has cost the 1st Congressional District its General Motors jobs in Janesville, its Chrysler plant in Kenosha, and Delphi jobs in Oak Creek.

“I think there should be a penalty paid by corporations that do ship their jobs overseas, companies that are selling their goods and services in the U.S. and not producing them here,” Zerban said. “We need to make sure that they are paying their fair share to support the infrastructure that they are using to conduct their businesses, whether it’s consumption of energy or transferring their goods on our roads and bridges.”

  Health Care and Medicare

• Romney-Ryan: The Republican standard-bearers would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) immediately upon taking office. They’ve claimed that no seniors currently on Medicare would be affected by the change. However, ACA is already providing benefits to seniors on Medicare, such as free cancer screenings and diabetes testing. CAP found that more than 325,000 Wisconsin seniors are already benefiting from ACA’s Medicare provisions.

Both support turning Medicare into a voucher program for those under 55, which would make Medicare itself unworkable by reducing the purchasing pool and allowing healthy seniors to opt out of the system, leaving the most expensive consumers on the plan.

Another problem is that the Romney-Ryan vouchers would not keep up with medical costs. If their plan were in place today, seniors would have to pay an estimated $6,400 more in out-of-pocket payments for their medical insurance-- and this amount would likely grow each year.

And the Romney-Ryan plan would force those under 55 to save a shocking sum of money for their health care during retirement. According to CAP’s calculations, today’s 54-year-old would need to save $59,450 for his or her health expenses; a 49-year-old would have to save $124,626; a 39-year-old would have to put away $216,631; and today’s 29-year-old would have to save a whopping $331,170 for health expenses that would have been covered under traditional Medicare.

• Obama-Zerban: Zerban supports the ACA, although he said he would have preferred creating a Medicare-for-All system to lower health care costs, reform the health care industry in a holistic manner and increase the risk pool with healthier, younger consumers.

“It’s hurting our economy by not addressing this once and for all in a holistic way,” Zerban said. “Internationally, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage because our companies are paying a disproportionate cost into their health care. Internally, we are not creating the environment that allows a small entrepreneur to survive. People are afraid of being bankrupted by medical bills.”

He said Republicans have never supported Medicare “and their tool to kill it is the Ryan budget.”

Zerban lashed out at the Bush administration’s Medicare Part D-- developed by then-Health Secretary Tommy Thompson and supported by Ryan-- because it prevents the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower-cost drugs, calling it a “giveaway to Big Pharma.” The program created $8 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to a report by Bush-era Comptroller General David Walker.

  Women’s Issues

• Romney-Ryan: Since the top-of-the-ticket Republicans would repeal “Obamacare,” they’d repeal the consumer protections for women that are built into it, such as free cancer and well-woman screenings and no-pay contraception, and allow for-profit insurance companies to charge women more simply because of their gender. CAP estimated that 967,000 women in Wisconsin would lose these preventative services if Romney and Ryan have their way.

Both candidates have danced around the issue of abortion, too. Romney has said he would end funding for Planned Parenthood and both candidates would like to limit legal abortions and end exemptions that Republicans have supported for years. In Congress, Ryan pushed a “personhood” bill that would grant constitutional protections to fertilized eggs. That would jeopardize in-vitro fertilization treatments, some contraceptives and embryonic stem cell research. Along with Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, Ryan attempted to redefine rape. Neither candidate supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier to sue for illegal, unequal pay.

• Obama-Zerban: Both candidates support a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Zerban said he’d like to make them “safe, legal and rare.” Both support the protections built into the ACA for women and both support the Lilly Ledbetter Act. On Jan. 29, 2009, it was the first bill that Obama signed into law.

Obviously Ryan voted for the Ryan Budget. One of the primary reasons Zerban decided to run against him was to oppose that budget and the philosophy of Greed and Selfishness that inspired it. This month the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Democratic staff put together a report on the impact on seniors of the budget on each congressional district in the country. Here's what the Ryan budget would have done, had it passed-- or, if Romney and Ryan are elected along with a GOP Congress, it does pass. Every voter in WI-01 should see this before they cast their ballot. The Ryan budget would:

• Increase prescription drug costs for 9,800 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $90 million for drugs over the next decade.

• Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 112,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district.

• Force 112,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who are currently enrolled in traditional Medicare to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums to remain in traditional Medicare after Medicare becomes a voucher program.

• Reduce coverage for 12,800 Medicare beneficiaries who rely on Medicaid to supplement their Medicare coverage, potentially denying them over $450 million in health benefits.

• Jeopardize nursing home care for 1,900 district residents whose expenses are paid by Medicaid.

• Raise food costs for 5,900 district households with seniors who rely on food stamps by as much as $1,100 per year or eliminate food assistance for many of these households entirely.

• Threaten affordable housing programs that provide rental support for 5,000 district households with seniors.

• Place 96,000 district seniors at increased risk of fraud, scams, and elder abuse by cutting as much as $6 billion in funding for federal consumer protection and law enforcement.

A terrible day for Paul Ryan in the NY Times

A one-two punch for Paul Ryan in today's New York Times.

Front page headline: Paul Ryan's speech contained a litany of falsehoods

Then, on the op ed page, Ryan nemesis Paul Krugman, leads his column with:

Paul Ryan’s speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan’s brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless.

It gets worse from there:

But Mr. Ryan’s big lie — and, yes, it deserves that designation — was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program.

Read it all here.

Paul Ryan - Bringing Back The Good Old Days of the 1920's

More Here!

Be careful out there

The Winners & Losers of the Paul Ryan Pick

Mitt recently tabbed Paul Ryan (R- Wall St), so lets take alook at who wins and who loses with this pick.

Winner -  Grover Norquist:
 

 “We are not auditioning for fearless leader,” Grover Norquist told conservatives at the CPAC convention in February. “We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.”

Norquist went on: “Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.”

Loser;  The small faction of sanity in the republican party:

 The clamor you are hearing for Paul Ryan for VP is not about helping the Romney candidacy. It's about controlling the Romney campaign—and ultimately the Romney presidency. It's about forcing a platform on Romney, and then dictating the agenda for that presidency's first year. The platform happens to be suicidal, and the agenda impossible, but that does not matter to the Ryan advocates. They take the old Tammany Hall point of view: "Better to lose an agenda than lose control of the party."


In that sense, the Ryan proposal is a test of Romney's leadership. If he accedes, it's a big surrender of control—and a surrender to many of those who most opposed (and who inwardly continue to dislike) his nomination.

Winner:  Ayn Rand!  

 Loser: Conservatism:

 The man who solved Mitt Romney’s problems with conservative voters has spent his post-collegiate life in Washington, D.C. political jobs. He voted for the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program. He voted for the 2009 auto bailout. He voted for Medicare Part D, and has defended it robustly ever since.

Winner: Comedians:

U.S.S. WISCONSIN (The Borowitz Report)—An exhaustive manhunt that took months and spanned the country came to a dramatic end today as a less interesting person than Mitt Romney turned up in Wisconsin.
On the deck of the U.S.S. Wisconsin, officials from the Guinness Book of World Records were on hand to certify the result of the search.

“This man is in fact the least interesting person in America,” one Guinness official said, adding that Mr. Romney himself had held that title since 1947.

Losers:  Grandma and Grandpa: 

Winners: The Koch Brothers:  

 Madison -- U.S. House Republican Budget Chair Paul Ryan of Janesville traveled to a secret California fundraising junket this past weekend run by billionaires Charles and David Koch, the major financers of the so-called tea party movement, the ThinkProgress news site reported today.

Losers:   His Elderly Constituents:

Winners:  Expensive Wine Makers:

 Wall Street’s favorite congressman Paul Ryan (R-Koch Brothers), was recently seen at Washington DC’s Bistro Bis drinking $350 bottles of Pinot Noir. 

Losers:  The rest of his constituents:

Winner: Paul Ryan's Bank Account: 

 Statements of Economic Interest (SEI) recently released by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), when compared to previous years’ SEI show a clear pattern – the more influence he has on the Congressional Budget process, the more stake he (through his wife Janna (nee Little)) has gained in Oklahoma mining interests. This family interest is led by Ryan’s father-in-law, Dan Little; and is currently making millions leasing rights to energy giants engaging in extensive natural gas shale fracking.

Losers:  The middle class:

 Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result and to avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.” But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”

 Winners:  Anti Abortion Zealots:

 Ryan co-sponsored a “personhood” amendment, an extreme anti-abortion measure. Ryan joined 62 other Republicans in co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which declares that a fertilized egg “shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” This would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and invitro fertilization.

Losers:  Our Military and Veterans: 

 Looking at the recently released GOP budget, written by Rep. Paul Ryan, it's hard to see how they do. In fact, looking at the nearly 100 page document, the word "veteran" doesn't appear once. Not once....

 But, without saying the word "veteran," the budget tells us a lot about what they think about veterans. The budget calls for across the board spending freezes and cuts. If enacted, the Ryan GOP budget would cut $11 billion from veterans spending, or 13 percent from what President Obama proposes in his own plan.

It's unconscionable that they'd do this at a time when so many Iraq veterans have just come home and rely on veterans care. Over 45,000 US troops were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more will come who will rely on VA services, on top of veterans of other wars and eras who depend on the VA. But, this shortsightedness isn't new.

Winners: anyone who wants free subs!

Losers:  Anyone in WIsconsin who thinks their state was redistricted fairly:

 For example, there is one email from Andy Speth, who is Paul Ryan's Chief of Staff:

Thank you for being available to participate in the call this afternoon with the Speaker, the Majority Leader and Congressman Ryan. The purpose of the call is to get everyone on the same page as far as the process and timing of the congressional redistricting map is concerned.

What a nice, polite email showing a team working together, right?

 Winner; Unregulated Banking System: 

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s choice for vice president, is one of the top political fundraisers in Congress, with backing from the employees of banks and insurance companies that would benefit from his actions on financial regulation and Medicare.

Loser:  Seamus! 

He is dead!  

Finally, just because, here is another awesome article by  Esquire's Charles Pierce:

 Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

 Finally comes this from facebook where it shows just what an impression he left his high school classmates:

Cross Posted @ Cogdis!

Ryan's budget still bedevils GOP Congressional candidates

The budget proposal issued by Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is still a hazard for Republican candidates, more than a year after the proposal’s initial release.

Republican candidates continue to find themselves on the defensive about what the plan will actually do, especially to Medicare, and Democrats continue to make claims about the dire consequences if it were to become law.

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe reports from central New York about Ann Marie Buerkle getting questions on her vote for Ryan's budget. The scene he sets at a town hall has her on the defensive, with liberal activists handing out flyers accusing her of cutting funding to entitlements to give tax breaks to the rich.

Read O'Keefe's story here.

Ryan's budget is 'albatross' for GOP candidates, pollster says

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman (pictured) predicts that Paul Ryan's budget will be "an albatross around the necks of Republicans across the country."

"In almost every poll we do, in almost every state, in almost every congressional district where we poll, people's support for the Ryan plan is one of the most compelling reasons to vote against them," Mellman said.

Mellman added that the proposed changes to Medicare would be the most problematic for Republicans.

Mellman, a prominent national pollster, spoke at a WisPolitics.com luncheon in Madison.

Read more here.

Reviews on Ryan 'mystery meat' budget are not kind

The reviews are in on Paul Ryan's 2013 budget. If it were a Broadway play, it would be closing tonight.

A Christian Science Monitor column by Howard Gleckman calls it Ryan's "mystery meat budget" saying he "airily promises both trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a nearly balanced budget within a decade, but never says how he’d get there."

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones says:

Paul Ryan has released the latest Republican budget, and it's a blizzard of numbers, gimmicks, weird comparisons, and obfuscation. It's no more serious than any of Ryan's other budget proposals, no matter how many PowerPoint slides he includes... 

Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post, says Ryan's idea is to help the poor by hurting them:

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, is on record as saying, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” And Ryan has just written a budget that supports Romney’s boast.

In an editorial, the Post calls Ryan's plan "dangerous and intentionally vague."

The Post also says Democrats want to know how much taxpayer money was spent to produce those slick videos with Ryan to try to sell his budget.  So far, no one's saying.

No wonder Democrats are celebrating.

Can Ryan get away with this...

Dems launch 'Medicare March' to expose madness in Ryan's new budget

  Politico reports: 

Pegged to the release of Paul Ryan's new budget this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will launch a new paid and grassroots campaign today called "Medicare March" in 41 Republican districts. The message is that the new Republican budget puts "Millionaires over Medicare." The first phase will use automated phone calls to patch voters through to their congressman's office so they can try pressuring them to vote against the budget. A new microsite gives info on upcoming town hall meeting locations to get Democrats to go and talk about Medicare. At the "Medicare Action Center," voters can do "Medicare March Madness" brackets: http://bit.ly/xn08rD. [If you haven't been following, Jake Sherman takes a look this morning at the GOP thinking behind pushing another politically-risky budget: http://politi.co/zthwIP.]

SAMPLE SCRIPT - THE PATCH-THROUGH PHONE CALL: "Hi, this is Anne from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calling about Congressman Charlie Bass and House Republicans' newest scheme to end Medicare. Republicans in Washington have a new budget that chooses millionaires over Medicare. One independent analysis found that the plan would 'shift substantial costs to beneficiaries' and 'lead to the demise of traditional Medicare.' Congressman Charlie Bass has the wrong priorities...We all agree Washington needs to cut spending, but it should be done the right way, not on the backs of seniors. Press 1 to be connected to Congressman Bass's office and tell him to protect Medicare for seniors, not tax breaks for Millionaires." 

Members being targeted with calls include three Wisconsin Republicans -- Sean Duffy, Reid Ribble, and Paul Ryan himself.

May 25, 2011-- Bill Clinton, Paul Ryan And The Conservative Consensus

I can't find that old video of President Obama referring to Paul Ryan as "serious" and giving Village credibility to his corporate-written harebrained schemes to reverse the New Deal, destroy Medicare and privatize Social Security. It was one of the first indications I had after the 2008 election that Obama was in way over his head. Paul Krugman's 2010 columns on Ryan's ignorance and unseriousness helped put the lie to Obama's foolish-- and presumably now regretted-- assertion. Krugman's classic Flimflam Man OpEd:

One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans. You might have thought, given past experience, that D.C. insiders would be on their guard against conservatives with grandiose plans. But no: as long as someone on the right claims to have bold new proposals, he’s hailed as an innovative thinker. And nobody checks his arithmetic.

Which brings me to the innovative thinker du jour: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Ryan has become the Republican Party’s poster child for new ideas thanks to his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a plan for a major overhaul of federal spending and taxes. News media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable; on Monday, the Washington Post put a glowing profile of Mr. Ryan on its front page, portraying him as the G.O.P.’s fiscal conscience. He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious.”

But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

...So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense. And last but not least, there’s deference to power-- the G.O.P. is a resurgent political force, so one mustn’t point out that its intellectual heroes have no clothes.

But they don’t. The Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America’s fiscal future.

Has Bill Clinton been taken in too? Or is he part of the scam? Last week we saw Clinton endorsing one of the most corrupt conservatives running for Congress anywhere, Maryland multimillionaire loan shark, John Delaney. Want to feel sick to your stomach? Just watch this video on Clinton offering to help Ryan with his plans to kill Medicare the day after Democrats won a Republican seat in upstate New York based almost entirely on opposing Ryan's Medicare plans:



It's less than a minute long, caught surreptitiously on someone's cell phone... but it speaks volumes about the corporate money-driven conservative consensus that rules Washington, a consensus that allowed Clinton and Rahm Emanuel to succeed in passing George H.W. Bush's tragic NAFTA legislation and that allowed Obama to continue George W. Bush's policy of bailing out criminal banksters-- instead of jailing them. That's why Blue America is a progressive PAC, not a Democratic Party PAC and it's why you'll see us fighting against corrupt conservatives regardless of political party. Aside from Ryan, our primary targets right now, are a Republican corporate whore in California, Buck McKeon, and a Democratic corporate whore in Pennsylvania, Blue Dog Tim Holden. Corrupt members of DC's conservative consensus are frantic to save both their necks. Their constituents are having second thoughts. And as for the Flimflam Man himself... he has his very own Blue America page, Stop Paul Ryan. Have you visited it lately?

You can read the rest of this post at DownWithTyranny but, let me warn you, there are no more goofy pictures of Ryan there.

GOP Sen. Tom Coburn says Paul Ryan's a liar on Medicare

Think Progress reports:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) inadvertently referred to prominent Republicans like Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and Eric Cantor as liars during an interview with Oklahoma’s News on 6 Thusday night.

“Any politicians that stands up and says, ‘We’re not going to touch your Medicare’ is a liar,” Coburn said, apparently forgetting that the GOP has used the talking point as a center piece in their campaign to sell Medicare premium support to the public. Watch Coburn’s remarks:

More here.

Groundhog Day in Congress: Dems again target GOP over Medicare

Greg Sargent in Plum Line blog on Washington Post:

Over the weekend, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan confirmed that the House Republican budget would again contain key elements of his plan to transform Medicare — even though some polls have shown the idea to be deeply unpopular and Dems have vowed to run on it in 2012.The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is set to go on the offensive on the issue in the increasingly close battle for the House — and it’s very possible the issue could have a real impact on the presidential race.

The DCCC went out Thursday, Groundhog Day,(that's a Green Bay groundhog pictured) with what it called  a “Groundhog Day Alert” in the districts of some 70 vulnerable House Republicans, reminding voters of their last vote on Medicare and warning of the next one to come. [That presumably included at least three Wisconsin districts now held by Reid Ribble, Sean Duffy, and Ryan.] Here’s what the alert in the district of Rep. Dan Benishek of Michigan says:

“Michigan voters don’t need a groundhog to come out of the hole in order to tell them how this will end: Voters will reject Dan Benishek putting the ultra wealthy ahead of seniors once again. Even though voters already rejected House Republicans plan to end Medicare, this Groundhog Day Republicans like Benishek are resurrecting their plan to protect billionaires and Big Oil, while leaving seniors out in the cold. It’s the same thing again from Dan Benishek — double health care costs for Michigan seniors, more tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”

DCCC chair Steve Israel has reportedly instructed House Dem candidates to be relentless in stressing the GOP position on Medicare, to make it a “defining issue in the 2012 elections.” A recent poll by the Dem firm Democracy Corps found that the Dem message — that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare as we know it” — tests well, with 77 percent in 60 House GOP districts saying it raises serious doubts about incumbents.

Read the rest here/

Ryan, Republicans ready to stake election on Medicare. Yahoo!

More good news for Democrats:

The NY Times reports that Medicare will be a big issue in this fall's Congressional races, and Paul Ryan and House Republicans are ready to pass another budget that ends Medicare as we know it for coming generations.

It is an unpopular idea, despite some tweaks by Ryan in his original plan, but he isn't shying away from it:

..But in an interview, Mr. Ryan said that Republicans would try to push a similar budget plan through the House this spring. Asked if it would include similar changes in Medicare, Mr. Ryan said, “Yes, absolutely.”

“Not one member thinks we should backtrack on these ideas,” Mr. Ryan said after listening to his colleagues at the annual retreat of House Republicans in Baltimore last week.

Democrats see the Ryan plan as a political gift. They relish the opportunity to bash it again on the House floor and at campaign events.

As well they should.

Read the whole story here.

Ryan And Boehner Want A Second Shot At Destroying Medicare And Medicaid

Not a day goes by on Twitter when the GOP noise machine doesn't puke out something like this (these are all from yesterday morning):




The biggest problem with passing the budget, of course, is that the GOP is using it to push forward their dangerous and radical right-wing social agenda (as even Newt Gingrich readily admitted, calling Ryan's budget "right-wing social engineering"; see video above). The Republicans seem convinced this is a winning issue for them-- ending Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, Boehner and Ryan are threatening to insert it into this year's budget again. Boehner was on Fox News Sunday citing how Ryan and Democrat Ron Wyden have a "bipartisan" idea of how to push forward the Republican Party's dangerous right-wing social agenda.

At a GOP strategy session on Friday, Ryan told the Republican House Members, many of whom are scared to death that trying to destroy Medicare may not prove to be a good idea in an election year, “We’re not backing off on the kinds of reforms that we’ve advocated, but we have to write it... We’ve done more to normalize the idea of premium support than anything at all. We’re confident that these are the right policies. There’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that’s occurring on doing premium support reform to Medicare is the best way to save Medicare." By bipartisan he means Wyden and a motley crew of reactionary and despised Blue Dogs.

Rob Zerban, Ryan's Democratic opponent, is far more in touch with what the American people are looking for than Ron Wyden and the mangy Blue Dogs. "Paul Ryan just announced he is taking a second swing at Medicare," writes Zerban. "His 'new' plan is devastating to Medicare as we know it, but the big difference is that he found one Democrat to help him!"

Here is what has been happening-- Paul Ryan has introduced a new plan to start the privatization of Medicare. He convinced a "Democrat," Ron Wyden, to join in this effort. Ron Wyden, like Paul Ryan, has raked in an alarming amount of lobbyist money from the health insurance industry.

Make no mistake-- this is no bipartisan effort! Almost all Democrats, including President Obama, are strongly opposed to this plan.

Here is what the White House Communications Director had to say: [this scheme could] "cause the traditional Medicare program to "wither on the vine" because it would raise premiums, forcing many seniors to leave traditional Medicare and join private plans. It would shift costs from the government to seniors. At the end of the day, this plan would end Medicare as we know if for millions of seniors."

It is clear what this plan is designed to do. Both Paul Ryan and Wyden admit that it will likely not save anyone any money! The only upside is a big giveaway to private insurance companies at the expense of our seniors. This is sham bipartisanship and the voters of Wisconsin are not fooled!

Ryan has to be stopped. Wall Street has every intention of making him president someday. The DCCC has studiously ignored him-- if not protected him-- for a decade. Rob Zerban is taking him on with zero help from "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel, the chair of the DCCC. Zerban just forced Ryan to switch his position and back away from supporting SOPA. He deserves our help, and you can give him some right here at the ActBlue Stop Paul Ryan page. (I should add that Ryan has probably taken more sleazy, corporate cash than any other Member of the House and currently has $4.6 million sitting in his campaign warchest, virtually all of it from corporate special interests.)

Ryan chided for watching idly as Newt makes gains

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post's Right Turn blog writes to Paul Ryan and other prominent Republicans who have been watching the presidential race from the sidelines. She can understand them not running she says; that's hard to do and likely to fail, since only one person can win.

...And endorsing? Why that requires an expenditure of political capital, some risk taking. Your guy could lose, and there where would you be?

But here’s the thing: The voters in their infinite wisdom have just given a huge boost to perhaps the only GOP candidate who could shift the spotlight from President Obama to himself, alienate virtually all independent voters, lose more than 40 states and put the House majority in jeopardy...   

It seems, gentlemen, it’s time to get off your . . . er . . . time to get off the bench and into the game

It's especially hard to understand Ryan not speaking up about Gingrich (who is, of course, the candidate she was talking about, since it was the Newtster who trashed Ryan's pet plan to end Medicare, calling it "right-wing social engineering" before being forced to recant.

Read the rest of Rubin's letter here.

Good news for Dems: Ryan, GOP sticking with unpopular Medicare plan

Democrats should be happy to hear that House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, are committed to trying to end Medicare as we know it again in their 2012 budget.  ABC News:

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin says Republicans have no plans to shy away from controversial efforts to reform entitlements when the House GOP drafts its budget this year, including transforming Medicare into a premium-support system.

“We’re not backing off on the kinds of reforms that we’ve advocated, but we have to write it,” Paul said during a break at the GOP’s issues conference in Baltimore today. “We’ve done more to normalize the idea of premium support than anything at all. We’re confident that these are the right policies. There’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that’s occurring on doing premium support reform to Medicare is the best way to save Medicare.”

There is, of course, no such emerging consensus. Ryan got one Democrat to fall for his latest version of the plan and co-sponsor it with him. But Democrats would be nuts to support Ryan's plan, which is political poison.

More from Reuters:

Ryan said he wanted his budget plan to offer voters an alternative vision to the "cradle-to-grave welfare state" that he says Democratic President Barack Obama is promoting.

The House Republican budget resolution will contain reforms to Medicare, the healthcare program for Americans 62 and over, such as providing subsidies to help recipients pay for private insurance, based on their wealth and medical needs.

 "We haven't written it yet, but we're not backing off on the kinds of reforms we've advocated," Ryan told reporters at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore.

The Obama White House must be celebrating.