Wall Street's Paul Ryan Takes The Stage For The 1%

I wonder if the residents of Janesville, Racine, Kenosha, Muskego and Oak Creek ever wonder who's looking out for their interests back in Washington when "their" congressman is primping and preening in the national media spotlight for his Wall Street paymasters and singing Ayn Rand's sweet anti-Christian tunes for the one-percenters. Paul Ryan was puked up onto the national stage primarily because of his proposal to end Medicare, a priority for Wall Street for decades. And yet if Ryan's plan were to pass it would be catastrophic for the people who have been sending him to Congress year after year. Ryan's plan would have adverse impacts on seniors and disabled individuals in the district who are currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Increase prescription drug costs for 9,700 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $95 million for drugs over the next decade.

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

The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the district age 54 and younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Deny 550,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.

• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 127,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.

• Require the 127,000 individuals in the district between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $29.7 billion for their retirement-- an average of $182,000 to $287,000 per individual-- to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the district will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.

• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 70,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 419,000 individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger.

Yesterday Ryan gave one of his puffed-up, self-aggrandizing, big flashy speeches at the right-wing-financed Heritage Foundation. The Washington Post, aghast but right on the mark, labeled it Misleading, out of touch, and filled with tired talking points.

Ryan: "Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?"

Yes, I can: The entire premise of this very speech. The accusation that Obama and Dems are sowing “envy” and ”class warfare” because they’re taking modest steps to slow trends that have severely exacerbated inequality for decades is as petty and small minded as it gets. Politics is a tough business, and it’s supposed to be all about an aggressive clash of visions. Deal with it.

Ryan's Democratic opponent, Rob Zerban dealt with it by live-tweeting Ryan's fatuous speech:


Ari Berman summed all that up in just one tweet:


Protect Your Care wasn't nearly as forgiving of Ryan's myriad shortcomings:

Paul Ryan decrying partisanship is as credible as a guy standing in front of a burning house with a can of gasoline and matches whining that the firefighters response time is too slow.

We understand his frustration and sense of isolation but it’s his own fault for proposing a massively unpopular plan to end Medicare while giving away massive tax breaks to millionaires, big oil companies and private jet owners. We also understand how his frustration must have gotten even worse when vast majorities of the public also are now supporting President Obama’s plans to protect Medicare and create jobs while ensuring that millionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

But if he wants to have less partisanship he may want to consider availing himself of some of the mental health care options available under the government provided, tax payer funded, health care he accepts instead of projecting his anger into his obsession with taking away Medicare from seniors.

And Brian Beutler at TMP pointed out that what the Republicans are doing is pit "conservative darling Paul Ryan against liberal hero Elizabeth Warren, with Ryan serving as a tribune to wealthy Americans and Warren as a populist fighter for working people."

This may seem like an odd choice for the GOP. Ryan’s the Republicans’ top budget guy, and the person most responsible for tying his party to a plan to phase out Medicare and to use the savings to reduce taxes on wealthy Americans. That vision has proved disastrously unpopular, and the GOP has spent months trying to dig themselves out from under the avalanche of ensuing public opinion polls. But Ryan ironically remains the GOP’s preferred spokesman on these issues, and he tackled Warren head on after a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in which he defended wealthy Americans from growing calls for higher taxes on their income, and attacked President Obama and Democrats for engaging in what he calls “class warfare.”

Warren, who’s hoping to defeat Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in 2012, has made the most digestible case for this sort of plan-- to shore up the social safety net and fund jobs programs with higher taxes on the rich, who’ve seen their incomes skyrocket in recent years. She took this case to voters several weeks ago and it set the Internet ablaze.



...Ryan’s counterargument... isn’t just that Warren’s wrong about who should pay, but that she’s wrong about what they and the government should be paying for.

But Ryan isn't running for national office, isn't running for the U.S. Senate and isn't running against Elizabeth Warren. He's trying to hang onto his seat in southeastern Wisconsin after consistently selling out the people who live there-- and in a district won in 2008 by Barack Obama. And this year, for the first time ever, the DCCC isn't protecting him by inserting a weak and implausible opponent. Rob Zerban understands real people and understands the pain and anguish that has spawned the 99% movement in Wisconsin and across America. He's going to give Ryan a run for Wall Street's money. After the speech Ron told us that Ryan was "unable to escape his extreme proposals and divisive language, even in today’s speech which was supposedly about bipartisanship."

"Voters realize that Paul Ryan is at the helm of one of the most failed, divisive, and disappointing Congresses in American history. His plan in the Budget Committee advanced a radical agenda that endangers programs Americans trust and support including Social Security and Medicare. He is demonstrating a failure to listen to the will of the vast majority of Wisconsinites.

"His language today reflected the same stubborn and unproductive attitude that has crippled our government. He attacked the President, saying he is a 'pyromaniac' and accusing him of 'sowing class envy and social unrest' in his attempt to create jobs and renew America’s crumbling infrastructure. Paul Ryan has labeled Social Security, a program that generations of Americans have relied upon, a felonious, Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme. Ryan also repeated his opposition to Medicare as we know it by calling it a 'boondoggle.'

"In short, we saw the same old ideas for the economy and familiar partisanship that led me to run for Congress.”

The DCCC isn't actively trying to protect Ryan this year-- finally-- but so far they're spending all their money on helping anti-Choice Blue Dogs rather than progressives like Rob. He can use some help from the grassroots and you can help him right here

Does Paul Ryan have Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Paul Ryan, you know the progressives are a cancer, labor unions are like Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, and not voting for TARP would usher in Barack Obama's liberal fascism Paul Ryan, was reportedly accusing Obama of “preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment” in a bizarre speech at the Heritage Foundation.

Imagine that.

Nearly every Ryan quote posted in this Politico article was mind-blowing introspective identity transference - that is, he accused Obama of the very economic, social and political transgressions Ryan himself has perfected to a fine precision against the wage earning class for the past decade.

Politico Excerpt:
[...] said the class warfare that threatens the U.S. is “[a] class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society. And their gains do come at the expense of working Americans, against entrepreneurs, and that small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.”

Just imagine if you can, that the one congressman whose legislative record demonstrates an eager willingness to use government power to rig a system of trade, credit, capital and taxation to the advantage of connected crony capitalists, made the above statement. Had Michael Moore, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders made that statement - fine. But completely preposterous coming from Paul Ryan unless of course it was part of a confession.

Even more so, Ryan accused Obama of setting up straw men and scapegoats (have you ever been to a Ryan townhall?), and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for his jobs plan.

Intellectually lazy arguments? Have you checked out the latest Politifact editorial where they laughingly analyze a wildly hypothetical statement from Ryan? Seriously, the JS Politifact is now fact-checking his hypotheticals. Just wonderful. Ryan, who rarely makes reality-based non-fictional statements to support his ideological-based schemes to defraud trillions out from Social Security and Medicare recipients, leaves his enablers at Politifact with grudgingly little more than fabrications in their effort to prop up and defend him from statements made by those evil democrats.

Politifact gave Ryan a "half true" rating when he claimed that a 100% tax on millionaires would fund only four months of government operations. But get this, Politifact even goes so far as to bolster Ryan's misfire by stating that had he drawn his hypothetical from more current data, his point would have been stronger showing government would run for an even shorter period.

Of course nobody ever suggested taxing millionaires at 100%, so their editorial was little more than low-grade windbaggery masquerading as a fact-check analysis, but Ryan constantly draws on this kind of class-based rhetoric to, you guessed it, to set up straw men and scapegoats.

After keeping a watchful eye on our congressman for almost ten years now, I'm more convinced than ever that he either has Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality) or he is a very cunning liar. He can't see the Paul Ryan in Congress that rigs the system against the wage earning class with his wrong-headed proposals and votes, to the one he wakes up to everyday. How can anyone make those statements without first looking in the mirror and seeing themselves? Unless of course he has no reflection.

Others Have Noticed

Crooks and Liars Ryan Blames President For trying to put out fire set by Ryan

The Paul Ryan Watch Ryan Loves Everyone, some restrictions apply.

Think Progress Ryan Wrong on Income Inequality

Paul Ryan Loves Everyone* (some restrictions apply)

Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.) is giving a speech today boldly rejecting the politics of division. The congressman from Janesville, WI, likes to give his "speeches" anywhere but WI and will be giving this "colossal" speech at Heritage Foundation.

Ryan (R-Ending Medicare)who is taking time off of from his very busy schedule, will denounce division and profess his "love for everyone."*

* Does not apply to college graduates, retired constituents, constituents who can not afford college, the environment, President Obama , the middle class, Janesville, WI, unsolicited questions from constituents, the truth, cheap wine , and the future of our country!

Cross Posted at Blogging Blue

Rob Zerban: "The Slash And Burn Philosophy Of Paul Ryan And Conservatives Is Leading Us Off A Cliff!"

Rob Zerban, taking on Paul Ryan and the 1%

Mitt Romney has thrown his lot in with Paul Ryan's Big Business-conceived plan to end Medicare and turn back the clock on a progressive society. His own healthcare plans are a misleading, confused, jumble of contradictions that leaves his listeners nonplused, at best. So now he's just all about "What Paul Ryan says."

And you know what Paul Ryan says... end Medicare and Medicaid, end Pell Grants, and privatize Social Security so the wealthy can pay even fewer taxes. Ryan's even more dangerous than just another Ayn Rand-infatuated wonk. Wall Street isn't financing his career-- and keeping him on a path to the White House-- because they want a wonk. He's out to change the world-- and that's very bad. Both he and Romney are part of what's being called the austerity class.

The unholy alliance between the austerity class and supply-side conservatives, who talk a good game about deficits but in fact care principally about cutting taxes and government spending, has shifted the debate over the economy and the deficit far to the right since Obama took office. By promoting an age of austerity, the deficit hawks have enhanced the power of “starve the beast” conservatives like Grover Norquist, whose goal for years has been to shred the New Deal. The austerity class’s infatuation with Representative Paul Ryan is a prime example of this addled love affair.

In 2008, when Ryan introduced his radical budget road map-- which called for turning Medicare into a voucher system, privatizing Social Security and redistributing income upward by drastically cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations-- MacGuineas praised his “tremendous courage and leadership.” When Ryan reintroduced his plan in 2010, the CRFB lauded his “thoughtfulness and courage.” The CRFB failed to mention that Ryan’s plan would increase the deficit, from a debt-to-GDP ratio of 60 percent in 2010 to 175 percent by 2050. “Paul Ryan added a huge amount to the deficit,” says John Irons, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “To call that even remotely fiscally responsible was not a correct analysis. It’s almost as if they said, We don’t care what your plan does-- as long as you talk tough on deficits we’re going to support you.”

Indeed, in January the CRFB, the Concord Coalition and the Comeback America Initiative (all funded by the Peterson Foundation) gave Ryan a cherished fiscal responsibility award, despite his deficit-exploding budget, hostility to tax increases and votes in favor of the Bush administration’s deficit spending. Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, introduced Ryan by quoting Time magazine: “The irony of Ryan’s rise is that he has vaulted to popularity by embracing historically unpopular ideas.” Said Bixby, “And I thought to myself, now there is a deficit hawk…. If we limit ourselves to popular ideas, we’re never going to solve the problem.”

MacGuineas said the award honored Ryan for being the first politician to put forth a budget plan in 2011, which she called “the most fiscally responsible of any of the plans.” Technically, that’s true. Ryan’s budget, a modified version of his road map, achieves a modest $155 billion in savings over ten years by proposing what the CBPP calls “the most severe and wrenching budget cuts in US history-- two-thirds of which would come from programs for people of low or moderate incomes” (i.e., Medicaid, Pell grants, food stamps and low-income housing).

The award to Ryan illustrates just how dangerously obtuse the austerity class’s definition of fiscal responsibility is. The deficit hawks succeed by making the debate over the deficit a pure accounting game, with no acknowledgment of the adverse impact a plan like Ryan’s would have on the broader economy and on so many Americans if it became law. “If [you’re] willing to slash spending so that long-run deficits are brought under control, then it’s fiscally responsible,” Jim Horney, vice president for federal fiscal policy at CBPP, says of the Ryan plan. “But if by fiscally responsible you mean putting the budget on a sustainable path but making sure that government is able to meet the needs of the people of the United States, then I think it’s a terribly irresponsible plan.”

These are reactionary men with stultifying, dark, crippled visions, visions that will never move our country forward-- in fact, quite the contrary. Conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott could have been describing Paul Ryan crabbed little world when he defined conservatism as "to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss."

And I've watched in dismay for years as the DCCC and to some extent the Wisconsin Democratic Party have protected and enabled Ryan. Obama won his congressional district but the DCCC has always made certain that he would never have a credible opponent. And he never has. This year, though, the DCCC may not help-- I doubt they will-- but they were unable to slip in the usual incompetent who would give Ryan a free ride to reelection. Rob Zerban is a Kenosha County Supervisor who is more in touch with the zeitgeist than the clueless and pampered Ryan could ever hope to be. This past weekend he spent the day at OccupyMilwaukee... talking with the folks there and tweeting his experiences. He has a progressive perspective on the place of government in society-- the polar opposite of Ryan's reactionary one. Yesterday, in an e-mail to people in the district he reminded them that "Ryan authored the destructive and heartless Republican plan to destroy Medicare and Social Security. He is wrong about what our country needs, and that is why I am running to set our nation on a new, responsible course." He went on:

I understand how the government can help Americans achieve their dreams. I grew up in a family that struggled to make ends meet. I ate government cheese and had free lunch in school. My single mother was able to provide for us because of the help of the American government. I was able to attend school because of grants and loans. This is the kind of help tea party conservatives want to take away from millions of Americans who need our help now more than ever.

Because America invested in me, I was able to start two small businesses and created 45 jobs. I always took care of my employees and provided them with excellent wages and benefits. From creating jobs in the private sector, I know what our economy needs and am ready to go head-to-head with the tea party to show America a better economic vision.

Our nation needs a new direction. The slash and burn philosophy of Paul Ryan and conservatives is leading us off a cliff!

I can do a better job.

Blue America thinks he can do a better job too-- which is why we're urging progressives to step up and do what the DCCC will never do: Stop Paul Ryan.

Paul Ryan tells College student with crushing loan to get 3 jobs...like he did?

Rep. Paul Ryan has resorted to just making things up now. With no regard for facts or actual dollar amounts, he's getting lazy, BS'sing his way through town hall sessions like a street vendor selling knock off watches. 

Think Progress came up with this gem, where Ryan tells a college student to get three jobs if he's having a hard time paying for his student loans. In fact, Ryan would do away with the grant altogether and simply dump people into private banks (another gift to bankers).

In an economy with lower wages, benefits, high tuition's, crushing college loans, and fewer and fewer jobs, Ryan's 3 jobs advice is cruel.

LOWE: I come from a very middle-class family and under President Obama, I get $5,500 per year to pay for school, which doesn’t come close to covering all of the funding, but it helps ease the burden. Under your plan, you cut it by 15 percent. I was just curious why you would cut a grant that goes directly to the middle- and lower-class people that need it the most.
RYAN: ‘Cause Pell Grants have become unsustainable. It’s all borrowed money…Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this.
The second concern I have is, in the health care bill — people don’t know this — for budgetary gimmickry reasons, the administration and Congress at the time, took over the student loan industry. So they had the federal government, the Department of Education, basically confiscate the private student loan industry.

Ryan leaves out how much money the government saves not paying banks for processing government backed Pell grants.

Ryan worked 3 jobs to pay for his student loans? That’s doesn’t mesh with this interesting part of Ryan’s bio:

Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1992.

Let’s see the proof of these jobs, Paul. How much was the loan? In reality, Ryan never had to look too far for work or worry about being unemployed:

Ryan worked as a marketing consultant for his family's construction business before being elected to Congress. Ryan Incorporated Central began as an earthmoving business created by his great-grandfather in 1884. 

Booting Wall Street Ryan Should be Job One

Why Paul Ryan? You have to ask?

For one, Ryan's hometown of Janesville is typical of the capital exhausted industrial communities in the 1st congressional district of Wisconsin that have had their wealth and potential legislated out from their pursuit of prosperity over the past 30 years.

Last year, local business, labor, education, governmental and health care leaders gathered together and scheduled a once in a lifetime presentation about what they need for economic recovery from the federal government. They proposed a list of eight items totaling $40 million and turned it over to the White House counsel of community recovery, Dr. Ed Montgomery. Rep. Paul Ryan was not present at this event. Instead, he was elsewhere promoting his hyper-partisan GOP recruitment booklet "Young Guns." Yet at Townhalls, he begins his presentation by claiming he's the area's "federal guy," and those are issues he wishes to discuss. I bring this episode up primarily as an example of Ryan's concern and response to the economic suffering and injustice occurring on the Main Streets of his district. Apparently, he's got other priorities.

If you consider Ryan's overall congressional voting record against the working poor and the middle class, his misguided personal ideology based on the fictional writings of anti-American Ayn Rand, his harsh polluting hyper-partisanship, his sycophancy for old money and his ideologically calculated proposals that would turn Social Security and Medicare over to Big Insurance and the capital markets on Wall Street - Paul Ryan is easily the Number One Wall Street Congressman.

Now it is true that Democrats and Republicans have both taken campaign donations from Wall Street just like they have from labor unions, but how many congressional's political philosophy and even further, their entire reason for congressional existence is built on the wealth expansion of the private Wall Street merchants (the few) at the expense of everything public (the many)? Two or three perhaps. But make no mistake, Paul Ryan is at the top. He is it! Pat Toomey might be a distant second. Timothy Geithner is up there too but he's not an elected congressman.

Ryan also voted for TARP. But he did so against the 100 to 1 wishes of his district constituency and instead voted with the 1%. People wanted a market based solution, not a government solution to the crisis. He not only voted for it, but he was one of the GOP's top point men pushing for its passage on the Hill.

Ryan is also the guy who rubber stamped party-line annual deficits totaling almost $6 trillion during the Bush error and who boldly, almost mockingly so, defies everyone in his district except the top 5%. Yet, he wins re-election again and again. By comparison, Russ Feingold not only voted against TARP, he voted to end it twice afterwards and authored the Control Spending Now Act, which would have taken unspent Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and use them to pay down the debt. Hello Tea Party? Feingold, far more fiscally responsible than Ryan can ever dream to be and courageous enough to cast principled Constitutional votes that frequently rankled Wall Street and his own party, lost to a corporate driven empty suit by the name of Ron Johnson. It doesn't defy logic because once an elected official takes a balanced legislative approach in dealing with the rigged Wall Street status quo - they're finished politically. Alan Grayson was another one. Toast. Wall Street and their corporate media enablers crushed Feingold and Grayson with the help of the Tea Party, of all people. Ryan in the meantime appears to freewheel on by.

So Ryan voted for and promoted the Big Bank bailouts. Some might argue that TARP was justified. Perhaps so, but only providing that the same level of economic justice was distributed across Main Street America. It wasn't. In addition, not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying over twenty percent of our personal net worth, so there was a gaping absence of social justice as well, and those are just two of the many reasons why we have ongoing protests today. Again, Paul Ryan seems to get a pass on this.

After Ryan completed his now infamously known ideological manifesto "Roadmap for America's Future," he submitted it first to the barons on Wall Street for their approval before presenting it his constituents. Now, I can understand some might not read too much into that, but his "Roadmap" deals with our most important personal health and national economic stability programs - Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. These three cornerstones of American Exceptionalism belong to the American people - not the profit-takers on Wall Street to decide their fate over. But Ryan belongs to Wall Street. In my view, Ryan submitting his Roadmap proposal to Wall Street for approval before to his constituents was extremely symbolic of where his loyalty is placed.

In fact, Ryan belongs to Wall Street so much that when the U.S. Government was teetering on default due to the crisis fabricated by Republicans, he went again straight to his masters on Wall Street for advice and consent. He, along with Eric Cantor, issued a report that Wall Street would be just fine with the US flirting with default for a few days. Never mind the wishes of the American people.

But his ideologically-driven budget manifestos take the cake. I can't think of any other congressman out of the House or the Senate that has proposed to legislate more theft of private capital under the conveyance and auspice of the U.S. Government to the merchants on Wall Street than Paul Ryan. No one. So, this is where the Occupy Wall Street/99 Percent movement should come into play. Crack pot ideas designed to sell out America should be exposed and their authors should be called out and banished, not applauded. Time is of the essence.

Related Reading:

Let's Put Paul Ryan Back Into The Wisconsin Backwoods Where He Belongs

If Paul Ryan takes Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Seriously, should we keep taking Paul Ryan Seriously?

The Chief, an Oshkosh blogger who deserves a wider readership, asks:

If Paul Ryan takes Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Seriously, should we keep taking Paul Ryan Seriously?

It's entirely possibly that there has never been a more ridiculed and completely dismissed domestic policy proposal than Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Tax Plan. Democrats hate it. Conservatives hate it. Even Grover Norquist hates it. Bruce Bartlett says of the plan:

At a minimum, the Cain plan is a distributional monstrosity. The poor would pay more while the rich would have their taxes cut, with no guarantee that economic growth will increase and good reason to believe that the budget deficit will increase.

Even allowing for the poorly thought through promises routinely made on the campaign trail, Mr. Cain’s tax plan stands out as exceptionally ill conceived.

Even conservatives are quick to point out that the plan increases the tax burden on the middle class:

But now that every ones living up to take a whack at Cain's policy pinata, who should come to the rescue but ... Paul Ryan?

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan says he “loves” presidential candidate Herman Cain’s signature “9-9-9″ tax plan.

Much more here and well worth a read.

Ryan has voted against the environment 100+ times this year

During this session of Congress, Republicans have cast 115 votes against environmental protection. Paul Ryan voted against the environment on 113 of those votes.

Rep. Henry Waxman, ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, unveiled a new, searchable database of anti-environment votes by the 112th Congress.

  "This is the most anti-environment House in history," said Rep. Waxman.

 Here's the database.

Hat tip: Ryanwatch.

Ryan Commits Class Warfare and Division by Blaming Obama of Class Warfare and Division.

Paul Ryan likes to divide us by bringing up and blaming others for class warfare and division! But its really the old game of, "I know you are but what am I."

Paul Ryan is a master of this game. His use of talking point cliches, like a Klingon cloaking device, hides many of his plans major flaws. The formula Ryan uses looks something like this:

Ryan: "(wonky sounding numbers), cliche, (wonky sounding numbers), cliche.

Studying Ryan's Reactions: Looking past the condescending leadership style of Paul Ryan, you'll see him falter a little with Meet the Press' David Gregory, and then spew his formulaic answer. He makes the false claim Obama's stimulus failed, deflecting attention away from his own daja vu policies that ended up crashing the global economy.

Gregory: "Aren't you vulnerable to the charge Republicans are only looking out for the rich, isn't that divisive?"

Ryan: "(gulp) Well, people make the charge, what I would simply say is...(scrambling for something) I don't worry about people who are already rich, I'm worried about getting people to become successful...when you keep raising all these tax rates, all these regulatory barriers on successful small businesses, how are we going to get the jobs of tomorrow?"

So which is it Paul, you don't worry about the rich, but you do worry about barriers for the successful rich? Doh!

The Baseline Lie: Ryan's whole economic plan depends on believing small business will be devastated by Obama's tax on the wealthy, but:

IRS statistics indicate that only 3 percent of small businesses would be subject to the higher tax, and many studies of previous tax increases suggest that it would have minimal impact on hiring.

Just as bad, a recent book about entrepreneurship disputes the idea individuals worry about rules and regulations that might hinder their ability to thrive:

NYT: According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 97 percent of all businesses owners do not earn enough to be subject to the higher rates. Even among the 750,000 businesses that would be subjected to the higher rates in 2011, many are sole proprietors — a classification so amorphous it can include everyone from corporate executives who earn income on rental property to entertainers, hedge fund managers and investment bankers.

Is it any surprise he's protecting the wealthy who don’t have employees to begin with. That's “job creation.” Ryan’s plan will actually make everything much worse because it blocks "job creation:"

But much of the research over the last two decades has found that increases in top tax rates can lead to an increase in the formation of small businesses, as wealthy individuals apparently begin start-ups to avail themselves of the more generous tax breaks offered to businesses, according to a report released by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which surveyed more than 20 studies on the effects of taxes on hiring.

It's obvious that Ryan is no genius, just a sincere looking hustler breathlessly trying save face. He’s lashed out and made panicky statements in the past, and he will again, like in the video here. And the GOP, without Ryan’s wonkish credibility, makes them completely irrelevant.

Seniors: Have You Had Your Paul Ryan Moment Yet?

Can it be a cartoon if it really happened? Watch it come to life in this video.

Paul Ryan says Tax Cuts Appear to be disappointing because "growth occurs on the margin." Beyond human sight?

This guy cannot be taken seriously ever again. Rep. Paul Ryan can't answer the tough questions without injecting ideological theory and fabricated economic outcomes that could only happen in Bizarro World (as seen in Superman comics, where everything means just the opposite). 

For ten years the highly touted Bush tax policies have been in place, deregulation has not been reigned in, yet jobs aren't being created and the economy has stalled. So we should make it worse, according to Ryan, by continuing these failed policies?

The Atlantic: Rep. Paul Ryan blasted the Democrats' plan to raise taxes on millionaires … In (an) interview at the Washington Ideas Forum with David Leonhardt of the New York Times, Leonhardt questioned the idea that lowering taxes was a panacea for growth. Taxes increases didn't prevent growth in the 1990s, he said, and tax cuts produced disappointing growth in the 2000s.

In his weakest come-back to date;

Ryan responded that "growth occurs on the margin" and when you raise taxes on work, savings, and investment, you get less work, less savings, and less investment -- and less growth.

On the margin? Does he mean out of sight for the common man, or beyond human understanding?

And finally, let’s put a stake through the heart of the “say it enough and it’s true” BS that taxing work, savings and investments discourages anything…at all. It’s a Paul Ryan lie, used to market voodoo economic snake oil. What is it with the press too?

Leonhardt started with common sense math, and never followed up with a question about the mythical “penalizing success” hokum. Caught in a place called "reality," Ryan actually blamed other factors for the roaring 90’s, factors brought about by Clinton’s tax increase. Doh!

In the 1990s, Ryan added, other factors such as stable interest rates and a productivity boom helped to compensate for higher tax rates on income and capital.

Has it ever been more obvious that Ryan is now just spinning his psycho babble wheels?

Ryan wants to send seniors back to the poor farm

Dave Zweifel in the Capital Times:

When Social Security was enacted as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms in 1935, about half of U.S. senior citizens lived in poverty. Many had to live out their lives in shameful places that people at the time called the “poor farm.” It was forever a family’s shame when during the Depression, grandma and grandpa had to go off to live in one of the county’s makeshift homes for the elderly because they couldn’t afford their own places and their children couldn’t afford to help them.

Today, fewer than 10 percent of America’s elderly live in poverty. More than 53 million Americans receive Social Security benefits to at least cover the basics of life. And as Bernie Sanders said, in the more than 75 years since, the program has never failed to pay out every nickel it owed.


Now Ryan and his compatriots want to mess with that success story. They want to begin the privatization of Social Security by turning over part of the funds that America’s working people pay into the program to Wall Street investors — yes, the same investors who have such a great track record, like blowing up the economy and requiring federal bailouts to save them.

Read more: here.

Two-Faced Ryan Still Scamming With Old Tricks

Ryan’s newest scam involves eliminating tax breaks for employees who are enrolled in their employer’s group health care plans and give workers the tax credit to buy health insurance on an individual basis.

In my humble opinion, this really is nothing new from the two-faced congressman. Embedded in his "Roadmap for America's Future" were provisions offering employees a "choice" to eat a baited T-bone by giving them a tax credit to buy health insurance on an individual basis. This credit would be paid for in part by shifting healthcare tax breaks away from the employer to the worker. Of course this would likely encourage most companies to drop their employer-sponsored group plans. This self-cannibalizing slow-death baiting of American workers is a popular gimmick from Ryan's bag of old sucker tricks. What is new however, is that he's now trying to pawn it off as a replacement for Obama's health care reform package.

PoliticusUSA Excerpt:
According to Ryan, his plan will give consumers the needed incentive to demand more value from their healthcare. He said, “Giving patients and consumers control over health care resources would make all Americans less dependent on big business and big government for our health security; give us more control over the care we get; and force health care providers to compete for our business.”

Okay, we know that Ryan wants to end our employer sponsored healthcare. But what about his own employer sponsored health care from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program? Although he boasts that his proposals offer insurance plans to individuals the very same standard health benefits Members of Congress enjoy, he doesn't address how Congress and Federal employees would fit under his individual privatization mandate or have the incentive to opt-out.

But to use Ryan's own words then, IF giving consumers Congress and Federal employees individual control over health care resources would make all of them less dependent on big government for their health security and give them more control over the care they get; and give them more incentive to demand more value from their health care - why hasn't Paul Ryan lead the way and opted out of his employer's group health plan?

Nothing was more telling than when Democrats proposed a simple House resolution requiring members of Congress to publicly disclose whether they will continue to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The entire Wisconsin Republican House delegation including Ryan voted "NO." Mind you, that wasn't a vote to opt-out of the Federal Employee Program, it was merely a request to publicly disclose their current status.

With that minor disclosure they couldn't even muster the courage to stand with their own convictions.

Scammers.

Ryan's Medicare plan poses real problem for Wisconsin GOP Senate candidates

Paul Ryan opted out of running for Herb Kohl's Senate seat next year. But he left a little something behind. His Medicare plan -- to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a type of voucher plan that would cost seniors more -- is very much going to be a part of the 2012 Senate race in Wisconsin.

The problem for GOP candidates, who are fighting in the primary to win the party's conservative base, is that while Republican voters tend to like Ryan's plan, most other voters don't. It will take some careful positioning to finesse the problem Ryan has created for them.

Craig Gilbert .in the Journal Sentinel:

Here’s a brief look at what two Republican Senate hopefuls – declared candidate Mark Neumann and all-but-official candidate Tommy Thompson – are saying on this subject at the very outset of the race.  

Medicare is “driving us into bankruptcy,” Thompson said in a recent interview with the Journal Sentinel. The former governor and health secretary says “Paul Ryan is on the right track,” but stops short of fully endorsing the Ryan plan, which would end the guaranteed Medicare benefit for future beneficiaries (people now under 55) and replace it with a lump sum payment to help them buy private insurance. Thompson hasn’t put out his own Medicare plan yet (he’s not a declared candidate). 

But he says he would so some things differently than Ryan. He says people now under 55 should be given a choice when they reach eligibility. They could choose private insurance with a government subsidy (as Ryan is proposing). Or they could remain in the current Medicare system, but with higher-out-of-pocket costs than seniors pay now because the system “is going broke.”

He calls his approach “Ryan Plan Plus.”  

“Medicare is going broke, which will result in dramatically higher out-of-pocket costs for services. People will choose the private insurance option. A market-based solution like this will win out over government-run health care, which I’ve always opposed,” he said. That sounds like Thompson is endorsing Ryan’s shift to a much more privatized Medicare system for future retirees, without formally ending traditional Medicare.  

Neumann, businessman and former congressman, said he’ll produce a broad fiscal plan that addresses Medicare later in the campaign. Like Thompson, he says he’s supportive of Ryan but will offer his own set of policies. “We will be using parts of Paul’s plan … including on Medicare, but it may be different in some respects,” said Neumann.  

Though Neumann is running full-bore against government spending and deficits, he comes across as more guarded on the subject of Medicare than Thompson does. He emphasizes the need to look at other entitlements besides Medicare and Social Security, such as Medicaid. He says he agrees with Ryan’s argument that current Medicare policies are fiscally unsustainable in future decades. But Neumann says his campaign will focus more on the immediate and near-term budget crisis, because if that isn’t solved, “our long-term problem problems don’t make any difference.” 

We’ll have to wait for his plan, but he did little in the interview to signal that big Medicare changes will be a prominent feature of his campaign.

Of course, Neumann doesn't need to prove his conservative bona fides. It's former governor Tommy T who's getting flak about being too liberal for 21st Century Republicanism.

Maybe to prove himself Tommy will come out to the right of Neumann on Medicare and Social Security. But that could kill him in November.

This little dance could be fun for Democrats to watch.

Ryan's New Plan To Scam Millions Of Americans Out Of Their Healthcare

Politicus USA:

Ryan’s newest scam involves eliminating tax breaks for employees who are enrolled in their employer’s group healthcare plans, and instead give a tax credit to buy health insurance on an individual basis. According to Ryan, his plan will give consumers the needed incentive to demand more value from their healthcare. He said,

“Giving patients and consumers control over health care resources would make all Americans less dependent on big business and big government for our health security; give us more control over the care we get; and force health care providers to compete for our business.”

Ryan’s statement sounds suspiciously like his Medicare privatization scam, and if it reaches fruition, will result in 170 million Americans facing the same consequences as the elderly who will end up paying higher costs for less coverage.

If the plan is adopted, it could encourage employees to drop employer health plans and move to individual plans that are prohibitively expensive for less coverage. One of the benefits of group plans are that a larger pool of policy holders results in lower premiums and more coverage. Ryan claims insurance companies would be “forced” into providing better coverage for less money, but a report on Tuesday showed health insurance costs are climbing for companies and their employees, and family premiums are increasing at a pace triple that of last year. Mr. Ryan either does not understand how insurance works or he knows and does not care that individual policies are much higher-priced than group plans.

There is no reasonable explanation for why Ryan thinks that an individual plan is less costly than a group plan, or that individual consumers will be better equipped to force the insurance industry to give more value for policyholder’s dollars. If Americans know one thing about the insurance industry, it is that they are never going to be influenced by consumer complaints or demands for better value...

Paul Ryan’s plan will most likely fail because Americans are getting wise to the Republicans’ tactics of rewarding corporations and the insurance industry at the expense of every class except the wealthy. His plan would affect 170 million Americans who get their health insurance from their employers’ group plans whether in the private or public sector. The beneficiaries of Ryan’s largesse are big business who will eliminate health insurance benefits and the insurance industry that will get to charge whatever they please. Although Ryan will most likely embark on a propaganda campaign to tout his plan’s benefits, most Americans understand that their bargaining power will be diminished if they are forced to buy insurance on their own.

Read it all here.

Elsewhere, Democurmudgeon says: With Ryan we're closer than ever to health care bankruptcy-- all of us.

Is Paul Ryan's 'class war' lighting the fuse for social explosion?

Roger Bybee, longtime editor of Racine Labor newspaper, now a freelancer, writing for In These Times, uncorks a devastating  analysis of what Paul Ryan sees as class warfare.  Highlights:

In his severely distorted view of the “class war” currently splitting America apart, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who represents southeastern Wisconsin’s crumbling factory towns, reflects a juvenile embrace of the view of his heroine Ayn Rand (required reading for his entire staff).
Like Rand, Ryan interprets any move toward easing America’s crushing inequality as showing ingratitude toward those he worships as the “job creators.” This view is repeated incessantly by Republicans.

However, the fact remains that, it’s been some time since the "job creators” actually created any significant number of jobs in the United States. ..

A vast torrent of dollars, rapidly shooting upward in a jet-stream, has given the top 1% more political power than at any point in the last 90 years. The super-rich have gained more surplus wealth to contribute more massively to candidates who serve their interests and to hire lobbyists to advance policies of tax-cutting, deregulation, privatization and “free trade. "

These are all policies that detach the ruling class further from a commitment to strong public institutions (e.g., schools, healthcare, access to higher education), American workers and the nation itself.

On the other side of the class divide stands a fragmented, atomized, and—until the Wisconsin labor rebellion earlier this year—badly demoralized majority of working families. They face a constant and totally one-sided bombardment by corporate and government policies that undermine their economic security, take away rights to unionization, and make their survival ever more precarious.
Without cohesiveness and organizations, families scramble simply to survive, with political involvement often falling as a priority despite its potential for relieving their suffering...

Of course, Ryan is opposed to increasing the minimum wage, in the same way that he has voted to oppose extended unemployment benefits, foreclosure assistance and expanded S-CHIP healthcare to children. He's been pushing to end taxation on the overseas operations of U.S. corporations.

With a lifestyle reminiscent of Marie Antoinette and his contempt for the plight of workers and the poor, Ryan and his allies may well be lighting the fuse for a social explosion.

There's more. Read it all here.

CNN Puts Lipstick On Ryan's Pig

In what I describe as one of the lamest interviews ever put on by a "professional" news organization, the CNN newsroom participated in what can be accurately described as little more than a image enhancement and calibration campaign masterfully scripted by Rep. Paul Ryan.

CNN Newsroom Sub-title
Rep. Paul Ryan has become popular by pushing the unpopular stance on entitlements. CNN's Gloria Borger profiles him.

No doubt about it, Ryan gave them a tube of lipstick and CNN knew exactly where to apply it.

During the interview, Ryan discombobulated as he described himself as a "messenger" and then claimed he gave up "fear" for Lent. Let me explain.

The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance and self-denial — for the annual Christian commemoration beginning on Ash Wednesday and culminating with Easter. During Lent, modern day practicing Roman Catholics oftentimes will make a personal sacrifice such as fasting or temporarily give up a treat or habit they might usually enjoy. But here's the trick. Ryan says, "I gave fear up for Lent this year." But how does one give up "fear" as a sacrifice? Even CNN's Bolger curiously asks, "how do you do that?" In Ryan's case however, much of what he can show for in the political arena has been built on demogoguery and fearmongering. Ryan thrives and relishes in it so much that had he said he was giving up "fearmongering," people who know his bully style would understand his loss and not question his personal Lenten sacrifice.

Ryan now appears to be in the midst of re-booting his Randian-corrupted Christian morality by dropping hints of his religiosity in recent interviews. The NY Times reported that Ryan is reading the “Read and Learn Bible” to his 6-year-old son and during this CNN interview, he subtly dropped another hint by announcing his sacrifice for Lent. Beyond Ryan's purposely religious remarks, he then frames himself as a fearless "messenger" courageously defending himself against undeserved attacks by Democrats and the Left.

CNN Excerpt:
"There's sort of a shoot-the-messenger strategy these days," he added. "I'm the messenger, and you can't fear that if you are who you are." It's a pattern for Ryan, who has grown in popularity by pushing the unpopular, a fairly unconventional route.

We know who Ryan is. No one in Congress has fear mongered, mocked and demagogued our safety nets or mischaracterized the American Way more than Congressman Ryan. No one. Before he embarked on his crusade to destroy Medicare, previous messages he delivered over the past five years were...

Ryan equated American labor unions to Saddam Hussein's brutal Ba'ath Party.

He joined Glenn Beck in calling progressives a cancer.

Ryan also admitted to voting for TARP not on the nuts and bolts of the proposal, but claimed by supporting it, he was saving capitalism from a hallucinatory fascist liberal statist agenda he channeled onto President Obama. Wow, demagoguery - thy name is Paul Ryan.

Interestingly, CNN left these few minor inconveniences out of their select profiling of the congressman.

Yet, through all of these unprovoked public declarations of war against Progressives, Labor and the President, it is Ryan who paints himself up not as a remorseful perpetrator of demagoguery, but as a victim of his target's push back and then sympathetically refers to himself as the "messenger."

Masterful.

Excerpt:
Ryan (R-Regressive) -- "What I'm trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism, and its important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate."
Beck (R-Regressive) -- "I love you."

Related:

Paul Ryan - Scott Walker With a Smile

Paul Ryan Is Not Who You Think

Ryan Gets the Band Back Together for His Plan to End Medicare

David Dayen at Firedog Lake:

 Paul Ryan is desperately trying to resuscitate his failed plan to end Medicare by offering it as the replacement element in the long-sought “repeal and replace” strategy for the Affordable Care Act. [The one the GOP calls Obamacare - Xoff.]

“Giving patients and consumers control over healthcare resources would make all Americans less dependent on big business and big government for our health security; give us more control over the care we get; and force health care providers to compete for our business,” Ryan said.

Ryan argued that a tax credit in lieu of Medicare, Medicaid and government-credited employer-sponsored healthcare would commoditize healthcare costs, enabling individuals to choose their coverage and allowing the free market to drive down prices and make care more affordable — and generous — for all.

So if you liked getting a coupon instead of your Medicare and being pushed out on your own onto the individual marketplace, you’ll love getting the same coupon for Medicaid and for any coverage you get from an employer. It would basically spell the end of risk pooling, the end of collective bargaining for lower costs in health care. The costs would get shifted from government to the individual, and overall health costs would rise, as the insurance industry would be unburdened by the need to negotiate down prices with powerful coalitions of potential customers. This just replaces public debt with private debt, and grows that private debt larger.

This is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives on health care: the argument of rugged individualism versus the argument of collective responsibility and the power of bargaining. It’s pretty clear from the available evidence that putting more “skin in the game,” the linchpin of Ryan’s strategy, ends up raising health costs. The health care marketplace simply does not act like a real marketplace.

Read the rest.

' Paul Ryan’s lack of popularity means he’s popular' - Just ask CNN

Hotspyer:

Remember how hard Rep. Paul Ryan tried to spin his disastrous budget with its scheme to end Medicare? Back during the spring recess, he insisted that the constituents booing him at his town meetings loooooved his Medicare plan, saying the “crowds are overwhelmingly supportive.”

When that didn’t really work, he shifted his spin saying that, really, the plan wasn’t unpopular, it was just misunderstood. People would love it, really, once the Republicans figured out a way to talk about it that didn’t terrify people.

Meanwhile, there were the polls. Like this PPP poll done in June in North Carolina, finding that voters were opposed to the plan by an almost 2:1 margin. In North Carolina. There are any number of polls demonstrating just how unpopular it is.

Undaunted, Ryan has kept up his happy talk, and finally found a buyer. Check out the headline from CNN’s Gloria Borger and Kevin Bohn: “Paul Ryan: Popular by pushing the unpopular.”

More here.

GOP Picks Third Most Unpopular Republican For Fund Raising

USA Today Excerpt:
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, considered a rising Republican star, has been tapped to lead a high-profile party fundraising group tasked with raising money for the GOP's 2012 ground game.

Hot Air Excerpt: (June, 2011)
The poll also found Ryan is now the nation’s third most disliked Republican, with net unfavorable ratings that trail only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Obviously the GOP has no chance or use to campaign for piddly $20 donations from working class wage earners, so it's only logical to choose a connected Wall Street crony capitalist.

But these appear to be more signs that the Republican Party is preparing for a major war to defend the wayward class war congressman's House seat in 2012. They know we know Ryan has absolutely nothing to show for in 14 years, so they redrew his district boundaries by throwing in chunks of GOP-infested Walkersha County and now the party gives him a confidence boosting empty title to what amounts to a publicity stunt befitting an empty suit.

They are pulling out all the stops.

House Budget Guy Ryan, to Fundraise from Corporate Elite to defeat Obama. Big Surprise?

Taking pay-to-play to a new level, the guy pulling the nations purse strings, Paul Ryan, is the GOP’s special interest front man for presidential fund raising. Nothing like in-your-face corporatism.

WAOW: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, will be spearheading the GOP's fundraising effort to win back the presidency. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced Friday that Ryan will serve as chairman of the RNC Presidential Trust.

Ryan says in a statement that raising the money necessary to win the presidential election will be the difference maker.

Big brother corporations, otherwise known as “job creators,” just put a face on creeping fascism; Paul Ryan. 

Below, the full text of a self-explanatory letter sent to Paul Ryan by economist Dean Baker:

September 21, 2011

The Honorable Paul Ryan
1233 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative Ryan:

During a recent interview, you made a number of remarks about Social Security, among them, characterizing Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme,” that would yield a negative rate of return, and saying, “…[Social Security] is not working, it is going bankrupt, and that current seniors will be jeopardized the most by the status quo.” None of these statements are accurate.

Almost no one will get a negative real return on their Social Security taxes. This issue has been researched extensively and assuming a 2 percent real discount rate, even as late as 2030, most new retirees will receive more in benefits than they paid in taxes. There is simply no basis for the claim that beneficiaries will receive negative returns on their taxes as the value of scheduled benefits actually rises in later years since life expectancy, and therefore the expected period of retirement, will continue to increase. The only way we would see negative returns would be if Congress voted to cut benefits.

In fact, if Congress makes no changes at all to the program, the latest CBO projections show that Social Security will remain fully solvent through 2038 and would pay about 80 percent of full scheduled benefits from then on, indefinitely. It is quite difficult to make the case that a system that pays full benefits for the next 27 years is not working or is going bankrupt, let alone claim that it jeopardizes the retirement security of current seniors.

As a member of the House Budget Committee charged with making recommendations about our nation’s budget, I hope that you will be careful to present the situation more accurately in future public statements. If you would like any additional background on the program, I would be happy to assist you.

Best regards,

Dean Baker

Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Cc: www.cepr.net

Ryan supports putting the unemployed to work -- for free

Video at Crooks and Liars

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) isn't a fan of President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act, but he does like the idea of allowing people who are receiving unemployment benefits to work for free.

The plan is based on a program called Georgia Works which matches job seekers with employers. Under the plan, employers agree to provide up to eight weeks of on-the-job training. Workers, who can only work for 24 hours a week, continue to receive unemployment benefits instead of getting paid.

"The Georgia plan sounds pretty interesting," Ryan told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday. "I think that's something we are looking at, which is unemployment reform."

Ryan's remarks echo House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) support of the idea. "We stand ready to work with [President Obama] if there is interest in implementing a similar program on the federal level," Cantor said.

According to data the Georgia Department of Labor provided to The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney, the program isn't very successful. Between 2003 and 2010, only 16.4 percent of people that participated in the program found work, about the same rate as those who were not participating. As of late August, there were only 19 trainees enrolled in Georgia Works.

The top weekly unemployment benefit in Georgia is about $330.

Colbert shows why Paul Ryan math doesn't add up

Class warfare? Killing jobs? We yield the floor to Stephen Colbert:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Hat tip: Dane 101

Ryan agrees with Perry: Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

Maybe Paul Ryan really does want to be the vice presidential candidate.  What else explains this lunacy?

On Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) that Social Security resembles a Ponzi scheme. “It’s not a criminal enterprise, but it is a pay as you go system where earlier investors, or say taxpayers, get a positive rate of return and the most recent investors, or taxpayers, get a negative rate of return,” said Ryan. “That’s how those schemes work." -- Washington Post.

"For being such a self-proclaimed expert on economics and finance, it is telling that Paul Ryan deliberately confuses what Bernie Madoff did to the Social Security benefits milllions of Americans have earned by the sweat of their brow," Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Wednesday. "It looks like the author of the plan to end Medicare is creating the rhetorical conditions under which, to finance tax cuts for the super-rich, Social Security can be ended as well."

Doubling Down On The Stoopid

Even after being told that calling SS benefits a Ponzi Scheme is killing GOP electability, Pompador Paul just can't help himself.

“Paul Ryan’s belief that Social Security works like a Ponzi scheme proves —
once and for all — that House Republicans have really declared war on seniors,”
DCCC spokesperson Jesse Ferguson told the Huffington
Post.

Paul Ryan's Class Warfare Moment...

The Washington Post put together this short but true Paul Ryan video:

Ryan works on his image: Just a regular guy, up to his elbows in deer guts, grinding venison sausage to feed his kids

Frank Bruni in the NY Times, in a column titled, "Deer hunts and dirt bikes:"

Paul Ryan may not be running for president this time around, but if you have any doubt about his ambitions for a long, prominent future in government, just look at his comments in a Q. and A. published in Sunday’s Times. They’re a minor masterpiece of image calibration.

In the span of two dozen sentences, Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, mentioned the Bible, or rather a beginner’s version of it, which he said he was reading aloud to his 6-year-old son. He mentioned his truck and his appetite for hard rock, thus establishing automotive and musical affinities that balance his wonkier, number-crunching bona fides. He mentioned hunting — with a bow, no less.

Then came the capper. He mentioned his talent for what I’d like to call venison charcuterie, just because he so clearly wouldn’t. “I butcher my own deer, grind the meat, stuff it in casings and then smoke it,” he said, making clear that Sarah Palin in all her moose-eviscerating glory has nothing on him.

And thus his self-portrait as an outside-the-Beltway guy’s guy with grime (and maybe guts) under his fingernails was complete, and he had discharged one of the more ridiculous obligations of the contemporary politician. He had asserted that he was just like the rest of us, even though there’s no such thing as one uniform us and if there were, it would be buying its Bambi sausages in bulk at Costco.

Bruni goes on to bemoan the fact that politicians feel forced to play the "I'm-just-a-regular-person" gambit and dumb themselves down (well, some like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry don't have to do that). But if that's the game, deal Ryan in.

He may be a millionaire who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but the image he projects is that of a guy up to his elbows in deer guts.

Ryan Opposes Millionaires' Tax; His Home County Constituents Pull In About $12 Hourly

To help find Paul Ryan's hometown millionaire constituency, I put some data over at The Political Environment.

Annual  per capita income in Rock County, where Janesville is located: $24,135.

Unemployment in the County: 10%.

There are roughly 2,080 hours in a working year, so wages in Rock County average a tad under $12 an hour.

Probably not too many local millionaires there banging down Ryan's door for a tax break and a glass of $350 wine.

Video: 1st Congressional District Do-It-Yourself Townhall

After previously being subjected to police action under orders from Rep. Paul Ryan, constituents from Kenosha and Racine gathered together without the congressman in attendance for a townhall meeting in safety and with the knowledge that they would not be subjected to arrest for voicing their concerns.

Did someone say class warfare? Was it Paul "Silver Spoon" Ryan?

Paul Ryan says President Obama's proposed tax increase for millionaires is nothing short of class warfare.

If a class war breaks out, we know which side Paul Ryan will be fighting for -- the entitled class into which he was born.

L. S. Carbonell on LezGet Real blog:

If you would like to know what shaped Paul Ryan’s economic philosophy, Google Ryan Incorporated Central. The company was founded by his great-grandfather and is responsible for the fact that when Ryan’s father died at the age of 55, Ryan was able to bank his entire Social Security survivor benefits for college instead of living on them the way my siblings did when our father died at the same age...

Ryan’s big “real business” experience was working for one branch of the family conglomerate as a “marketing consultant.”

He actually has a B.A. in economics and political science from Miami University, but some people are never capable of letting book learning override personal experience. Ryan is apparently one of them. He ended up in politics at his mother’s urging because she was afraid he was going to end up “a ski bum.”

Paul Begala says it better in a CNN opinion piece:

Mr. Ryan won the genetic lottery. There is no doubt that his great-grandfather worked hard to build that company. But a century and a quarter later, young Mr. Ryan -- who estimates his net worth at up to $2.4 million -- has no calluses on his hands. Just on his heart.

Ryan For The Rich: We've Heard This Fine Whine Before

He's come a long way from Janesville.

Ryan Claims Class Warfare on 1 Percent of Americans!!

In an amazing example of projection, Paul Ryan accuses Democrats of doing just what Republicans have been so successful at doing for the last decade, using “fear, envy and anxiety.”

(Paul Ryan) accused President Obama of appealing to Americans' "fear, envy and anxiety" by pushing a new tax rate on people making more than $1 million annually, saying the "class warfare path" will only hurt the economy. 

Can you imagine starting a “class war” with opponents so wealthy that they could buy enough influence and power to crush you like an ant? Who would be that dumb? Paul Ryan thinks we are. Fox 47:

Like all Humpty Dumptyisms, where “you can make words mean so many different things,” Ryan tests the bounds of credulity with every pronouncement.  

"If you tax something more, you get less of it," Ryan said. 

Is that supposed to make us sad? The rich get less? For the last 20 years, the middle class got less in wages. Polling says yes, tax the richest 1% for gods sake, the ones who have enjoyed the lowest percentage of taxes ever.

In a string of idea’s that can’t possibly make sense, Ryan starts with a doozy.

"If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation. If you tax their investment more, you get less investment." 

The job creators have already got their tax cuts, nothing has changed since the Bush tax cuts, and they did nothing. As for the investor class; Is Ryan saying the wealthy will stop trying to make more money? Someone should ask Ryan if investors will be willing to give up on their already fat incomes. I'm guessing not.

Fact check: Ryan's wrong in claiming payroll tax cuts "don't work"

On Fox News Sunday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (WI-01) ignored Republican leadership’s call to work together with President Obama on creating jobs and refused to embrace Obama’s plan to cut payroll taxes that would help working Americans. Ryan falsely claimed payroll tax cuts “don’t work.”

In reality, Ryan voted for a bill that included a temporary payroll tax cut last year and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that reducing payroll taxes helps create more jobs than tax breaks for the wealthy. The National Federation of Independent Business also concluded that payroll tax cuts help small businesses and “can can reduce unemployment and keep people working during a period of slowed economic growth.”

Ryan ignored Speaker Boehner’s call for Congress to work together to improve the economy. Boehner said: “If we want to create a better environment for job creation, politicians of all stripes can leave the ‘my way or the highway’ philosophy behind.”

FACT CHECK:
Paul Ryan Voted For a Bill That Included a Temporary Payroll Tax Cut. On December 17, 2010, Ryan voted in favor of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. In addition to extending certain provisions of the Bush tax cuts, the bill included a temporary employee payroll tax cut for the 2011 calendar year. [HR 4853, Vote #647, 12/17/10; PL 111-312, 12/17/10; Washington Post, 12/16/10]

Reducing Payroll Taxes on Firms Creates More Jobs Than Tax Cuts for the Wealthy. In January 2010, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office wrote that reducing payroll taxes for firms was among the policies “that would have the largest effect on output and employment per dollar on budgetary cost in 2010 and 2011. By contrast, policies that would temporarily increase the after-tax income of people with relatively high income, such as an across-the-board reduction in income taxes […] would have a smaller effects because such tax cuts would probably not affect the recipients’ spending significantly.” [Congressional Budget Office, 1/10]

National Federation of Independent Business: Payroll Tax Holiday Can Create Jobs. The National Federation of Independent Business has said that a payroll tax holiday for small businesses would help “struggling businesses reduce costs” and “can reduce unemployment and keep people working during a period of slowed economic growth.” [NFIB, accessed 9/16/11]

Speaker Boehner: Leave the “My Way or the Highway” Philosophy Behind. On September 15, 2011, Speaker John Boehner outlined his economic plan to help a struggling economy. During his speech before the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., the House Speaker urged both political parties to work together. “The responsibility for fixing this toxic environment for job creation is a bipartisan one,” said Boehner. “And lastly, if we want to create a better environment for job creation, politicians of all stripes can leave the ‘my way or the highway’ philosophy behind.” [National Journal, 9/15/11]

Source: DCCC

Ryan wants to raise taxes on middle class, but not on millionaires

Huffington Post:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Sunday that House Republicans would oppose President Barack Obama's payroll tax cuts for both employers and employees, arguing that the policy had already failed to provide a sufficient boost to the economy. "It hasn't worked," Ryan said, suggesting the current temporary tax cut should be allowed to expire, which will amount to a 50 percent tax hike on workers making less than $106,000 per year.

He also said that he opposes the president's plan to require millionaires to pay the same tax rate as the middle class. As chairman of the House Budget Committee and the author of a long-term plan that radically alters Medicare and slashes tax rates for the wealthy as well as social spending, Ryan serves as something of an economic spokesman for House Republicans.

The payroll tax cut hasn't worked?

It has put more money into the hands of working families and, along with other Obama policies, has prevented the recession from becoming a full-fledged depression.

Ryan continues to promote the theory that giving more money to millionaires will somehow stimulate the economy and create jobs. But guess what?   That's the policy that really hasn't worked.

UPDATE: A fact check finds the Congressional Budget Office agrees that reducing payroll taxes creates more jobs than tax cuts for the wealthy.

Rick Perry signs on to Ryan's bait-and-switch, end-Medicare scheme

Rick "Ponzi Scheme" Perry has signed on to the Paul Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a voucher-type system that will cost seniors much more for health care -- if they can afford it at all.

Isn't calling that "Medicare" when it's really something quite different a bait and switch con job? It sure seems like it.

Politico reports:

Perry also said he spoke Friday with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and backs the House Budget Committee chairman’s fiscal proposal.

“I talked with Paul Ryan today and told him that I thank you for standing up and having the courage and I’m proud to join you in having this discussion were having with America.”
Perry defended his description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.”
“Kids know that paying into something that won’t be there in the future is a Ponzi scheme,” he said.

No word on whether Ryan reciprocated by endorsing Perry's call for states that don't like what Congress does to secede from the union.

Republican won in NY by running from, not embracing, Ryan Medicare plan

Much is being made of the Republican victory in a special House election in New York, including the claim that Paul Ryan's Medicare plan is no longer poison for Republicans.  

Politico declared Ryan one of the winners in Tuesday's election:

“Three months ago, Democrats successfully seized on the House Budget Committee chairman’s controversial plan to rewrite Medicare in an upstate New York special election. But that message didn’t work this time for Weprin, who hammered Turner over the plan and who raced into senior centers during the final days of the race to brand the Republican as scary. Icing on the cake for Ryan: The approach didn’t work for Democrats in Nevada either, where Republican Mark Amodei won by a landslide in Tuesday’s other special election.”

That's not quite the whole story, according to Fred Bauer on a Republican blog, Frum Forum:

[The Republican winner] Bob Turner distanced himself from the Ryan budget on Medicare and from Rick Perry (or at least the Perry of Fed Up!) on Social Security. The “Issues” page on his website reads (emphasis added):

Social Security and Medicare represent solemn commitments made by the government to people who have been paying into this system their entire lives. I believe that these programs should be preserved as they are for those in or near retirement and that we should work to strengthen and preserve them for our children and future generations. I oppose efforts to privatize or bankrupt either. I would work with members of both parties to reach a solution that will meet our obligations on both of these programs.

Mediscare couldn’t work against Turner because he pledged his total support for Medicare. Indeed, he has spoken strongly against the Ryan budget. This election is less a sign of victory for the Ryan budget and more a sign that Republicans can run away from this budget (at least if they haven’t voted for it) and win.

Ryan on jobless Wisconsinites: Let them eat candy

A Capital Times editorial, clearly written after watching video footage of the Ryan family in a Labor Day parade:

The truth is that Paul Ryan has no interest in fighting for working families — in Janesville or anywhere else in the United States.

In 2008, the sprawling General Motors plant that had been Janesville's top employer for nine decades was shuttered. Thousands of jobs were lost. Unemployment soared. Working families in Janesville and surrounding Rock County are still struggling.

What was Ryan's response? He proposed schemes to gamble Social Security funds in the stock market and to gut Medicare and Medicaid.

Paul Ryan has never done anything for Janesville ... until now.

At the Janesville Labor Day parade, the congressman was confronted by an unemployed worker. The man wanted to know what his representative planned to do to aid his unemployed constituents.

Ryan tried to brush his questioner off. But when the man persisted, Ryan finally offered something:

Candy or a Green Bay Packers schedule.

That's all job-seeking Wisconsinites will ever be able to expect from Paul Ryan.

Kenosha group plans do-it-yourself town hall meeting for Ryan

The Racine Journal Times:

KENOSHA - The local progressive group Community for Change will hold a do-it-yourself town hall meeting Thursday for U.S. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, likely without the congressman.

At the meeting, area residents will be able to address a photo of Congressman Ryan, who represents Racine County, and make a statement or ask a question as if it were an actual listening session, according to a news release from Community for Change. The town hall will be taped, and speakers' names and addresses will be recorded and forwarded to Ryan.

This summer Ryan has received criticism for not holding public town hall meetings over Congress' recent breaks. But that is not stopping Community for Change from holding its own forum.

"Community for Change recognizes the dialog every citizen should have with their elected representative should not be silenced just because he or she has been unwilling to schedule the time. We look forward to a celebration of free speech," the release states.

Kelly Gallaher, Community for Change's organizer, said Ryan is invited to attend, but she never formally sent him an invitation and assumes he will not be in the area.

The forum will be at Gateway Technical College's Madrigrano Auditorium, 3520 30th Ave., Kenosha.

Doors will open at 6 p.m. and residents can sign up for two-minute speaking spots starting at 7 p.m.

The session will end at 9 p.m.