There Is An Alternative To The Ryan-Romney Pauperization Budget

The DCCC, as expected, hasn't taken us up on our challenge to match a $5,000 check to Rob Zerban, the candidate running to defeat Paul Ryan. Blue America has already contributed over $5,000 to Rob's campaign but we agreed to write a $5,000 PAC check if the DCCC put their money where their mouth is-- they're big about talking smack about GOP villains like Ryan, Boehner and Cantor but never support their opponents and try to actually beat them. They just whine. And "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel... no interest in beating Paul Ryan whatsoever. Ryan's his kinda guy-- and they both take money from the same corrupt corporate sources. Paul Krugman, on the other hand, he's still telling the truth about Ryan and his toxic agenda. Friday:

[H]is plan is really about transferring money from the poor to the rich, with no credible deficit reduction at all... But leaving aside the predictable right-wing cheerleaders, it looks as if the emperor’s nakedness is now common knowledge.

The predictable right-wing cheerleaders may be confused about what to do regarding Ryan's "new" budget, but they can make a lot of noise. Romney, the putative head of the party-- let's face it, all these running around is just to make it seem dramatic and exciting and help raise money-- seems vaguely disoriented by Ryan's assertiveness on behalf of the Wall Street titans who finance both their careers. Maybe he's confused but Romney insisted on Wisconsin radio Friday that Ryan's plan "does not balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly ... It instead preserves Medicare and preserves Social Security." He's wrong, whether confused or just lying again.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget plan would get at least 62 percent of its $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts over ten years (relative to a continuation of current policies) from programs that serve people of limited means. This stands a core principle of President Obama's fiscal commission on its head and violates basic principles of fairness.

While giving a massive tax break to the wealthy, the Ryan budget plan Romney is so fond of slashes funding for Medicaid, food stamps, and other for low-income programs, nearly all of which Ryan's plan would eliminate over the next couple of decades.

As the CBPP's Robert Greenstein put it, "[T]he Ryan budget would impose extraordinary cuts in programs that serve as a lifeline for our nation's poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and over time would cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their health insurance or become underinsured." He added that Ryan's plan "would cast tens of millions of less fortunate Americans into the ranks of the uninsured, take food from poor children, make it harder for low-income students to get a college degree, and squeeze funding for research, education, and infrastructure."

If this doesn't "balance the budget on the backs of the poor," for crying out loud, what exactly would such a budget plan look like?

As for "preserving" Medicare, the Ryan plan that Romney supports would turn Medicare into a voucher program, scrapping the guaranteed benefit altogether; weaken Medicare solvency; and bring back the Medicare Part D prescription drug "donut-hole."

Predictably enough, early on in his brilliant book, The Fifteen Biggest Lies About The Economy, Joshua Holland dealt with Romney's dishonest "roadmap," the foundation of the budget Romney was attempting to defend. Holland pointed to an analysis of the Ayn Rand-inspired roadmap by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center: “The Roadmap’s tax provisions would be highly regressive compared with the current tax system.” If the Roadmap were enacted, the bottom 80 percent of the economic ladder would see their after-tax incomes remain about the same, those in the top 1 percent of the economic heap would see theirs shoot up by 26 percent, and the incomes of those in the top tenth of the top 1 percent would increase by 36 percent. The result? According to the Tax Policy Center’s figures, “The share of total taxes paid by the bottom 80 percent would rise from 35 percent to 42 percent,
while the share paid by the top 1 percent would fall by nearly half from 25 percent to 13.5 percent.”

Putting it even more starkly, Holland explains that "Ryan’s proposal would replace the surety of Social Security with privatized accounts held by Wall Street brokerage firms (these firms, in
turn, would gain a fat new stream of fees and have lobbied for the scheme for years)."

A couple of chapters on, Holland is done with Ryan but talking about one of Ryan's favorite topics: so-called "free" markets, something he insists is the basic for a budget that would destroy the middle class and pauperize more than half the families in America.

Perhaps the central and most enduring myth of conservative economics is that there exists an organically functioning “free market.” Conservatives like to portray themselves as self-reliant actors content to brave the cutthroat world of unregulated capitalism and let the chips fall where they may. And they like to portray liberals as timid, looking to the state to be their protective “nanny.”

But economist Dean Baker, the codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, explained why that’s a myth. “What the conservatives have done is they’ve rigged the deck,” he told me. “They’ve made sure that certain people come out ahead, that income flows upward, and that other people are put at a disadvantage-- and these things are built into the rules of the system. And then what they want to do-- in talking about ‘free markets’-- is they want to kick back and say, ‘No, no, no; those are the rules, and we can’t talk about them.’”

According to the dominant narrative, the free market may have some flaws, but it is ultimately such a dynamic force that the meddling of pasty government bureaucrats, no matter how well intentioned, can only throw a wrench in the works and ultimately screw us all.

The kernel of truth behind the mythology is that the free market’s opposite-- the centrally planned economy-- has indeed proved disastrous. It’s pretty clear that economies in which entrepreneurs have the ability to start new businesses, take risks on new ventures, and hopefully come up with a better mousetrap fare significantly better than do those that lack the
relative freedom of liberal capitalism.

From that little nugget of truth, a number of commonly held myths have arisen. First, conservatives conflate the kind of public interest regulations that one finds in all liberal democracies with the central planning that’s helped doom North Koreans to decades of destitution and famine. The reality is that although central planning has been a demonstrable failure, regulation in the public interest is absolutely necessary for markets to work. Greed may be a factor that motivates people to work hard, but unchecked greed-- unconstrained by regulations that protect the public interest-- is a disastrous force. As Robert Pollin, the codirector of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, put it, “It is time to recognize that unregulated financial markets always have, and always will, cause financial crises. There are no historical exceptions to this observation at all. This point has to be grasped.”

Second, listening to the free-marketeers, one might imagine that markets are like mushrooms: organic entities that would grow just fine without the intervention of a human hand. That may have been the case when there were actual physical markets where people came to trade sheep and chickens. But when we speak of the modern “market”-- this complex system for distributing the fruits of a society’s economic output-- we’re talking about an entity created by the government, with rules established by the government.

And it’s the rules of the game, much more than some unseen but all-knowing “hidden hand,” that ultimately determine who wins and who loses.

Yes, the law of the Jungle-- which, of course, is very much what Ryan's-- and Romney's-- Wall Street financiers long for... the freedom to exploit everyone else for their own private interests. The alternative isn't the DCCC and their nagging e-mails soliciting donations for Blue Dogs and other conservative hacks and corrupt careerists. The alternative, the one chance we finally have to defeat Paul Ryan and end his political career, is Rob Zerban. Please consider helping his cause by clicking on the thermometer... and doing what you can.

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.

A challenge to DCCC to actually help Rob Zerban defeat Paul Ryan

Howie Klein, of the Down With Tyranny blog and Blue America PAC, calls out the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for failing to help Rob Zerban in his underdog campaign to defeat Paul Ryan:

The DCCC loves using Republican cartoonish arch-villains as whipping boys. They're always sending out press releases and even putting together ads attacking the worst GOP figures, particularly Cantor, Boehner and Ryan. But they don't actually do anything about defeating any of them at the polls.... 

And this year, when Ryan finally does have a serious opponent, Rob Zerban, what does the DCCC do? Kick back and issue press releases about how awful Paul Ryan's Medicare-killing plans are-- to the media everywhere in America. But take on Ryan directly? Or even help Zerban go after Ryan? Don't be silly....  

I challenge the DCCC to help Rob Zerban actually beat Paul Ryan and put an end to the gravest threat facing the American middle class. If the DCCC writes a check to Zerban's campaign this week for $5,000, Blue America will match it, dollar for dollar. Come on, big shots. What about you, Israel? Crowley? Wasserman Schultz? Let's see a DCCC check for Rob Zerban's campaign to actually put an end to Ryan's career instead of all the bullshit sending petitions to Republicans so they have something to laugh about.

Tough talk. How about it, DCCC?

Read it all here.

Penny-pinching Ryan spends your tax money on self-promotional budget video

 
Penny-pinching Paul Ryan is so worried about government spending that he's spent some of your hard-earned money on this political video to push the Republican agenda and attack President Obama and the Democrats.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post calls it, "heavy on theatrics, light on specifics."

When they come, we won't like the specifics, which are tailored to please the most conservative members of the House GOP caucus, and which will renege on budget agreements Ryan and the GOP made last year, slashing spending by as much as $19-billion.

Thursday night, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted Ryan for reportedly planning once again to propose changes to Medicare and for using “a taxpayer funded self-promotional video” to criticize Democrats for the nation’s fiscal woes.

“Ryan and House Republicans are responsible for getting our country into this debt crisis and now want seniors to be the first to sacrifice to get us out,” DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in a statement Thursday night.

Poor Paul Ryan: First $350 wine, and now $4 gasoline

Poor Paul Ryan. He has to pay $350 a bottle for wine, and now it costs more than $75 to fill up his gas-guzzler. What next?

By the way, his story of not being able to fill his tank on a credit card sounds vaguely familiar. Is this recycled from an earlier year?

Paul Mulshine in the New Jersey Star Ledger says Ryan doesn't seem to understand how the free market works.

But what does Rycan care, as long as he and his GOP cronies can blame it all on President Obama?

Here's Mulshine:

...[I]magine that the U.S. really did have a goal of achieving energy independence. Say goodbye to that big SUV, congressman. You won't be able to afford it on your salary. Gas prices would have to double because of the massive taxes imposed to discourage consumption. That's what the British did, and it worked like a charm - assuming of course you don't mind $8-a-gallon gas and small, fuel-efficient vehicles.

But it's one or the other. If you want to drive a big vehicle, then just tell the voters there's nothing particularly bad about importing oil. We import a lot of other products as well. 

But if you want to drive a big SUV on ski trips, don't whine when the world price for oil rises. You're going to have to import a lot of it to keep that gas-guzzler on the road.

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.

Is Ryan ready to renege on budget agreement, risk government shutdown, to satisfy extremists?

Is Paul Ryan ready to cave in to the extremists in his caucus (even more extreme than he!) and renege on a budget deal the House Republicans agreed to last summer, even if it means shutting down the government?
That's an unanswered question so far, but it's beginning to look more likely that the House Budget Committee, which Ryan chairs and the GOP controls, will back out of the agreement.

Talking Points Memo reports:

The House GOP faces a trying dilemma. Leaders want to stick by federal spending levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act — better known to most as the debt-limit deal. But they’re having a hard time corralling conservative members, who want to cut much deeper into domestic programs. Passing a budget with lower spending caps would risk binding their appropriators to those levels — an outcome Senate Democrats will reject, and which could easily lead to an election-season government shutdown fight this September. The third option is to not pass a budget at all, which would be an embarrassment for House Republicans who have bashed Dems consistently for months for not passing a taxing-and-spending plan of their own...

Republican leaders have been chewing this over with their members behind closed doors. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Tuesday that there’s a deep-seated desire for “fiscal sanity” in his caucus, while Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) admitted he doesn’t know where the GOP will ultimately come down on the spending caps, according to Roll Call.

One reason to cave in committee, one GOP staffer told Roll Call, is to save Ryan some embarrassment:

“It doesn’t get passed if there’s absolutely no concessions to conservatives,” said an aide to a RSC member. “There will be at least some deal to get it out of committee ... [and] save them the embarrassment of Paul Ryan being defeated in committee.”

That's leadership, Paul Ryan style.

'Zombie-eyed granny starver' Ryan doesn't want to discuss social issues

Charles Pierce of The Politics Blog:

Pity poor zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan. There he was, being a serious man of ideas and being all policy intellectualish, and dying to lay out a precise plan for two decades of granny-starving, and suddenly, all anybody wanted to talk about [on CBS This Morning] was lady parts and what should be done about them...

But, in respect to Paul Ryan, let's talk again about his budget, the one that the CBO laughed at, the one that will burn Medicare down to the ground and paint "Medicare" on the urn holding its ashes, the one that was partly responsible for at least one lost GOP House seat, the one that had his fellow Republicans running for cover back home, and the one that dropped his approval rating back home like a stone dropped into a well. Personally, I think they might rather talk about birth control.

Ryan Mischaracterizes Auto Loans, Doesn't consider State Loss of Auto Manufacturing Important.

Like the title says, Rep. Paul Ryan made one hell of a miscalculation about Wisconsin’s hard hit auto plant closings. He also couldn't resist backhanding and abandoning the working class families that relied on those jobs. 

Sorry Paul, we still want to bring those jobs back, in a big way.

Charlie Rose asked Ryan about the auto bailout, which has particular resonance in Michigan. "Should that be an issue? And should the voters look at [critics] of the bailout and say, 'We had an economic bailout of the auto companies and look what happened? Profits are up and they're both doing well'?" Rose asked.

"Well, if you give any company tens of billions of dollars and wipe their debt off the books, I would expect them to do well," Ryan said.

The government never “gave” the auto industry money, but it did LOAN them some, which they paid back. Ryan supported those “bailouts,” although it sure doesn’t sound like cares much about it now.

Ryan also doesn’t have time to talk up GM and Chrysler’s new found success, and encourage them to return to Janesville and Kenosha, where workers there would welcome a chance at manufacturing cars again:

"I think it's a big issue in Michigan; I'm not sure that it's a big issue in the rest of the country. In my hometown of Jamesville and Kenosha that I represent, we lost our auto plants. So where we come from in auto country, we don't see them as great success stories because we had plant shutdowns irrespective of those bailouts."

And Paul Ryan is the guy we want out there promoting Wisconsin’s hard working middle class? It looks like Ryan has moved on from creating those kind of jobs.  

Song: Paul Ryan's Lies

For your enjoyment, the song Paul Ryan's Lies, discovered by the folks at Sly in the Morning. Originally just an audio track with no artist credit, the video here is something I basically threw together, with a bunch of Ryan pictures, so I could post it.

Absolutely no production value whatsoever. I just liked the song.

Krugman to Ryan on moochers: It takes one to know one

Republican talk radio's Charlie "Fireworks" Sykes is promoting a blurb from Paul Ryan on his new book:

Charlie Sykes’ A Nation of Moochers provides a much-needed wakeup call for a nation approaching two perilous tipping points: a moral one and a fiscal one. With our country facing unprecedented challenges and stark political choices, principled leaders will benefit from Sykes’ clear vision, keen insight and intellect. If we’re serious about getting our nation back on track, then we would be wise to follow the lessons laid out in A Nation of Moochers.” -- Congressman Paul Ryan.

Mentioning Paul Ryan and moochers in the same breath brought this to mind, from economist Paul Krugman:

 Rick Santorum declares that President Barack Obama is getting America hooked on “the narcotic of dependency.” Romney warns that government programs “foster passivity and sloth.”

Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, requires that staff members read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” in which heroic capitalists struggle against the “moochers” trying to steal their totally deserved wealth, a struggle the heroes win by withdrawing their productive effort and giving interminable speeches. (Ha!)

Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published earlier this month, that the regions of America most hooked on Santorum’s narcotic -- the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income -- are precisely the regions electing those severe conservatives. Wasn’t Red America supposed to be the land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts?

Krugman's column: Moochers against welfare.

Ryan votes to allow oil drilling in Great Lakes

Paul Ryan voted last week against banning drilling in the Great Lakes, as part of a House-passed energy bill. Rob Zerban, his Democratic opponent, has some thoughts about Ryan's sellout of his home state, which borders two of the lakes in question:

 The House defeated, 176-241, a bid by Democrats to bar energy drilling within five miles of the Florida Everglades or the Great Lakes. The Wisconsin delegation split along party lines, with Republicans all voting against the ban. Roll call.

No wonder oil and gas interests have given Ryan nearly $250,000 in campaign money since he's been in Congress.

The GOP majority, and Ryan, also voted to build the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and start oil-shale extraction on federal land in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

Fortunately, there is still a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic president in the White House.

Paul Ryan Steps In It On Meet The Press

Yesterday, the NBC corporate message machine presented one of their top-paid corporate shills, Rep. Paul Ryan, on one of their top Sunday shows, Meet the Press which was last useful and relevant several decades ago, to pound home their carefully crafted, thoroughly misleading message pushing-- what else?-- Austerity. Ryan was waving the specter of Greece in front of the viewers, some of whom don't have the good sense to ignore him as a propaganda agent for the one percent and an admitted follower of the childish nonsense of Greed and Selfishness guru Ayn Rand.

On of Ryan's primary claims is that the payroll tax reduction for ordinary working families doesn't do any good. He and his ilk-- i.e., the Republican Party and their plutocratic financiers-- would much prefer more massive tax breaks for the already woefully undertaxed multimillionaires. The pompous little ignoramus, propped up by the entire right-wing think tank industry whined that he doesn't "think this works to grow our economy” and compared the payroll tax cut to “sugar-high economics.” He may be Budget Chairman-- a decision made by John Boehner-- but that doesn't mean he knows squat about budgets. As Nobel economist Paul Krugman explained, Ryan is nothing but a tawdry flimflam man who "don't know much about economics. Professionals at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that extending the payroll tax cut is more cost effective to promote economic growth and employment than the tax breaks for millionaires that Ryan and his zombie colleagues continue to insist on.

In January 2010, the CBO 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.”

And last November they tried reminding Ryan and his single-minded cronies that they weren't kidding. “Policies that would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost in 2012 and 2013 are ones that would reduce the marginal cost to businesses of adding employees or that would be targeted toward people who would be most likely to spend the additional income. Such policies include reducing employers’ payroll taxes (especially if limited to firms that increase their payroll), increasing aid to the unemployed, and providing additional refundable tax credits in 2012 for lower- and middle-income households.” That's what Ryan's been calling “sugar-high economics" for the sake of his benefactors from GE-TV.

DWT readers probably know by now that we're pitching in, in the nationwide effort to replace Paul Ryan with Kenosha County Supervisor Rob Zerban, someone whose vision for America is as diametrically opposed to Ryan's dark, dystopian views as possible. I spoke with him right after GE inflicted Ryan on us. He had a lot to say:

Paul Ryan's performance on Meet the Press today underscores how desperate Republicans are to shift the conversation away from the recovering economy. Instead of talking about proactive steps and investments we can make to accelerate growth, Ryan wants to implement an austerity plan that would be detrimental to our society and our economy.

Ryan's argument is that the President's budget is not serious enough. He prefers his own paln. Ryan is continuing to advocate for the radical ideas he first wrote in the "Path to Prosperity" 2011 House GOP Budget. He insists we need huge cuts to the social safety net, including making Medicaid a block grant program and phasing out Medicare. This approach will reverse our current trajectory of recovery.

His attack on the President's budget is a mischaracterization of what the President is proposing. President Obama has proposed a budget that makes hard choices, and hard cuts, and reduces the debt responsibly. I believe, as our President does, that we must end the tax loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans, like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, to pay a lower tax rate than everyone else. I also support using the funds we are saving from our drawing down of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to reduce our deficit and continue to grow our economy. This is a much more realistic plan for our economic future as opposed to just cutting programs for students, seniors, and the middle class.

Not only was Paul Ryan wrong today about the economy, he was wrong on women's rights. Ryan's attempt to divide Americans by attacking affordable contraception to women is not going to work.

Denying contraception, by funding or by provision, is not a "religious freedom" issue. No one is denying a religious person's right to believe anything they want. What is wrong is when someone uses the government to force their morality upon others. That is what is happenging. Paul Ryan's attempt to defund and regulate women's personal choices is a great example of how far-right Republicans are alienating women.

Paul Ryan has once again shown how rigidly ideological his approach is to our nation's problems. This will contiunue to make him a darling to conservatives like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, but he will continue to lose the support of the American people.

But we don't have to be in an election battle with Paul Ryan to know his phony medicine show is toxic for America. Norman Solomon comes from a district that doesn't spawn Republicans that anyone takes seriously. So the business power structure up in northern California tries holding onto power by pushing conservative Democrats who would be Republicans if they lived in other parts of the country. If Norman wins the primary, he'll, in effect, be the next congressman from Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino. And he's as aware as Rob Zerban of the dangers inherent in Paul Ryan's approach. Yesterday after he watched Ryan on Meet the Press he shook his head sadly that there are still people being hoodwinked by this prepackaged crap:

As a high-ranking cleric for the political faith of austerity, Ryan used his appearance on Meet the Press to sprinkle some holy water and whine about the supposed failure of federal stimulus efforts. In fact, tax-cutting dogmas-- combined with huge military spending, loopholes for the wealthy and Wall Street impunity-- have thrown the U.S. economy into a very deep ditch. We know that the Republican leadership is hellbent on deepening that ditch for most people while large corporations reap massive gains from enormous human pain. What remains to be seen-- and, more to the point, determined by our actions-- is how effectively we can fight for a present-day Green New Deal, providing sufficient public investment to overcome the vast obstacles to social equity and economic fairness. As an independent progressive Democrat, I'm running for Congress to occupy a seat for the 99 percent. It's not enough to pooh-pooh the likes of Paul Ryan. We need to create viable, long-term alternatives for the future.

Norman Solomon and Rob Zerban are on the same page-- a page I hope you'll visit right now and contribute what you can. Today's my birthday and I've been getting a slew of beautiful e-cards and well-wishes on Facebook. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, thank you. And if you'd like to make me smile on my birthday, give what you can to the Blue America candidates-- even if it's just a dollar. Grassroots campaigns aren't funded by $5,000 checks; they're funded by small contributions from people who believe in the future of the country. Again, here's the place: Blue America.

Ryan: Why are we wasting time talking about gay marriage?

Paul Ryan's mind is made up: Marriage should only between a man and a woman.  So why, he wondered on Meet the Press, are we wasting so much time talking about marriage equality.  Ryan wanted to talk about the budget.

Unfortunately, his Dem counterpart of the House Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen of Massachusetts, also complained he was there to talk about the budget, but he did at least support the gay marriage law passed by Maryland's legislature but vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie.

More, and video, at Raw Story.

Ryan's false arguments on payroll tax break exposed

Paul Ryan spoke out against and voted against extending the payroll tax cuts -- a position on which his House Republican colleagues finally faced reality and folded. Ryan says the long impasse over the issue caused the GOP some political damage, but he doesn't take any responsibility for that, of course.

Ryan says the problem is that the debate muddied the differences between the parties, but the real damage is from people seeing the real differences between them, and understanding which party -- the Democratic Psrty -- is willing to fight for the middle class and low-income families.
Think Progress says:

Last year, when Democrats and Republicans were negotiating a short-term extension of the payroll tax holiday, multiple Republicans pushed the false idea that extending the payroll tax cut would undermine Social Security by robbing its trust fund of vital revenue. Those claims were repeatedly debunked by media outlets, members of Congress, and even the Social Security Trust Fund’s chief actuary...

And while Ryan now claims to have “a problem” with diverting funds out of the Social Security Trust Fund and worries about “what happens” if such a plan is followed, he didn’t have the same concerns last year, when he proposed a privatization plan that would divert $1.2 trillion — a whopping 1,200 times the size of the payroll tax cut extension — out of the Social Security Trust Fund, and would only restore that money over the next quarter of a century through deep benefit cuts.

The Maddow Blog chimes in:

Ryan is somehow concerned about the integrity of Social Security. Remember Ryan's "Roadmap" budget plan? It had quite a few interesting ideas related to Social Security.

The Ryan plan proposes large cuts in Social Security benefits -- roughly 16 percent for the average new retiree in 2050 and 28 percent in 2080 from price indexing alone -- and initially diverts most of these savings to help fund private accounts rather than to restore Social Security solvency.

{T]hose who oppose Social Security shouldn't pretend to be its champions. If Paul Ryan opposes the middle-class tax cut, he should say so, and not behind a transparent fig leaf.

How Wisconsin members voted: Democrats — Baldwin, Y; Kind, N; Moore, Y. Republicans — Duffy, Y; Petri, N; Ribble, Y; Ryan, N; Sensenbrenner, N. In the Senate, Herb Kohl voted yes and Ron Johnson no.

There's Exactly One Way To Protect America From Paul Ryan's Extremism-- Replace Him With Rob Zerban

Tuesday Blue America will be officially endorsing Rob Zerban for Congress-- looks like I let the cat out of the bag-- and he'll be our special Valentine's Day live guest over at C&L (1pm, CST). When I spoke to him earlier today I reminded him that to the Netroots and to progressive activists outside of the district, Paul Ryan is known to be one of the most extreme and dangerous members of the conservative movement. This view is shared by many in Wisconsin, of course, including in the First Congressional District, but there is a still a great deal of work to be done convincing undecided and independents. I wanted to know what Rob is doing to make sure voters in Janesville, Kenosha, Racine, the southern Milwaukee 'burbs and even Waukesha get that. He says "there are 3 main factors why people are energized about this race and fed up with Ryan-- Ryan's ideas, his behavior, and the movement in Wisconsin. My campaign is focusing on harnessing these opportunities, drawing clear contrasts, and delivering that message to voters." When I asked for details, they came out like a gusher:

The privatization of Medicare and Social Security is an awful idea. Let’s start there. That is something the vast majority of people understand in this district, and across the nation. Supporters of Paul Ryan’s plans have admitted it does not save money. These proposals open these programs to huge risk and cuts, and are clearly just a ploy to take money away from seniors and put it into the hands of Wall Street and private health insurance companies. (Of course, these are the same special interests funding Ryan’s political career).

Paul Ryan’s agenda is not just cuts and privatization, but also wasteful spending on big tax cuts for the wealthy. Everyone is furious that Mitt Romney is paying only 13.9% on his millions while many in the middle class are paying tax rates in the 30%s. I point out to people that Paul Ryan makes this possible. He has pushed for every tax cut for millionaires and billionaires possible including the Bush tax cuts, capital gains, carried interest, and many other loopholes. Ryan wants to protect these loopholes for Mitt Romney instead of funding our students, seniors, and economic recovery efforts.

Paul Ryan likes to sell himself as a big thinker similar to the way Newt Gingrich has done. I realized early on that his grandiose and self-promoting plans, including the Path to Prosperity, are little more than the reheated and repackaged extremism of past eras.

The second problem many Wisconsinites have with Ryan is his behavior. He is cavorting with the ultra-wealthy at every opportunity and only occasionally returns to the district. His “listening sessions” with constituents compromise of him delivering a PowerPoint presentation on topics including why students don’t need Pell Grants and why seniors programs should be privatized. He routinely kicks out anyone who disagrees with him. He behaves like people’s boss- not their representative. In my opinion, he acts like someone who does not feel he owes his district or his constituents any consideration. He is a man with a philosophy and everyone else can take his way or the highway. This makes people mad!

The third and final factor I think is playing a big role in why people are so energized is the movement in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the epicenter of the movement by the middle class to stand up for themselves and for their futures. The Recall effort of the Governor is an inspiring grassroots effort to get rid of someone who has stepped far outside of the lines to attack the middle class. The crushing and coordinated political attack on working families that happened in Wisconsin was outrageous. The attack was orchestrated by outside money networks and secret coalitions, including the Koch Brothers and ALEC, which allowed for radical legislation to be quickly rammed through Wisconsin state government. It was clear to everyone that our legislators and Governor were acting as puppets for outside interests and had little understanding what they were doing.

This all-out assault on the middle class woke a lot of people up. We saw great things in Madison. The Recall has also spread to my district and had a great impact. Formerly Republican-leaning areas of the district, including Waukesha County, had record participation in the Recall.

In short, things have changed here in Wisconsin! People have woken up and blue collar retirees are remembering just how unacceptable the Republican agenda is. Seniors and students are realizing the deep cuts Ryan is ramming through will hurt them and will force many in the middle class to fall into poverty.

It doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows! Paul Ryan has the wrong ideas for America and we just need to keep promoting the simple truth.

Good answer! Come meet Rob Tuesday, right at CrooksandLiars.com-- 1pm (CST)-- and help us kiss Paul Ryan good-bye. And if you'd like to help his campaign before then... be our guest, over at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Charles Pierce executes a perfect Ryan take-down

Charles Pierce, Esquire magazine columnist and general observer of all things horrific and decayed in America, takes but a few words to demolish Paul Ryan after the congresscritter's latest opus. The choice beginning:

Make no mistake. You can have your Bachmanns and your Cains. You can have your Coulters and your Malkins and - what the hell - your Breitbarts. You can certainly have your Marco Rubios, who gained 100 CPAC points for making the conference's first teleprompter joke, though there may be several more amongst the murmuring when Willard Romney takes the stage here this afternoon. You can even have your your Santorums and your Ron Pauls. But that zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan is the wonk every wingnut woman wants and every wingnut man wants to be. He thinks Serious Thoughts about The Big Issues Facing The Nation, and they truly dig him the most. If Ayn Rand, that randy old crackpot, were still alive, she'd whack him over the head, stuff him in a sack, and drag him off to her apartment, where they would make hot Objectivist monkey-love until the rafters knocked and the angels wept.

Paul Ryan is also a remarkably accomplished bullshit artist.

His speech on Thursday night was chock-full of the usual goodies: praise for the brave Republicans who voted for his "budget" last year, the one that would have eviscerated Medicare to the point where Newt Fking Gingrich called it "right-wing social engineering," and that was before Willard had driven Newt around the bend

'

More here.

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 to Fed: Why are you trying to lower unemployment?

The "let them eat cake" congressman from southern Wisconsin is at it again.

At a House Budget Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-You Kidding) chastised Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for simultaneously trying to lower inflation and stimulate job growth, even questioning whether it's the Fed's proper mission to worry about jobs (it is, actually).

Ryan's puerile stance boiled down to: Why is the Fed trying to stimulate job growth when inflation is up? Gee, congressman, why would anyone from your party want to focus on jobs?

The Associated Press summarized the meeting this way:

Ryan criticized the Fed's decision to establish an annual inflation target of 2 percent. He said Bernanke seemed willing to accept higher inflation in order to get lower unemployment.

Yup. The chair of the powerful House Budget Committee is far more worried about inflation than about helping tens of millions of Americans get back to work. Never mind that if you don't have a job, inflation is the least of your problems. Nothing times nothing is still nothing.

Throughout the hearing, Ryan and his fellow Republicans on the budget committee seemed to be channeling presidential candidate Mitt Romney's statement this week that he simply didn't care about the poorest Americans. Of course the underlying ideology remains: Fix the economy for rich folks and hep will trickle down.

The dripping faucet theory of the economy began under Reagan and we're still waiting for the drips to come through.

UPDATE: John Nichols of The Nation has more.  And the Capital Times editorializes on Paul Ryan's cruelest ploy.

Ryan's constant complaints about no budget exposed as phony

Paul Ryan complains, almost on a daily basis, that it is now more than 1,000 days since the U.S. Senate passed a federal budget. He makes it sound like dereliction of duty, and it plays pretty well with Fox News and other media outlets.

He must have been surprised when the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, covering his recent visit to its city, did some homework and included this in its story by McLean Bennett:

Senate Democrats have contested Ryan's and other Republicans' claims they haven't approved a budget in so long.

"That is just absolutely wrong," Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said in a recent speech, refuting claims the Senate hasn't passed a budget in more than 2½ years. (A video of Conrad's speech is posted to the Senate Budget Committee's website, budget.senate.gov. Conrad chairs that committee.)

In his speech, Conrad noted senators in August approved what was known as the Budget Control Act.

"The Budget Control Act contains the budget for this year and for next year," Conrad said.

Bennett committed an act of journalism, actually doing some reporting instead of just stenography. Perhaps it will inspire others to do likewise.

Ryan: If it's legal, whatever corporations do is moral

Crooks and Liars writes:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) suggested on Sunday that anything corporations do is moral as long as they follow the law.
Fox News host Chris Wallace asked the House Budget Committee chairman if Republican presidential candidates should be criticizing each other over the way they made their money and handled their personal finances.

"I don't think so," Ryan replied. "We need to defend the morality of the free enterprise system and upward mobility. We need to defend the morality of a system in American that says you are free to take risks, to make money, to create jobs and to do it however you want to so long as it's legal. That's something we should be proud of."

More, and video, here.

Fox News + Paul Ryan + Dollar Bill Birthday Cake = Unforgettable Rich Boy Image

My jaw dropped when Chris Wallace presented a cake adorned with a green dollar sign to Rep. Paul Ryan. How unbelievably appropriate, and what a Kodak moment for his Democratic opponent Rob Zerban.

What in gods name were they thinking? Let them eat cake.

Here's another take on it, from Mediaite site: Chris Wallace terrifies Paul Ryan with a birthday cake.

Here's the screen capture for those who want to pass this mind searing image along to others.

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.

Paul Ryan Pushing For Tax Hikes On The Middle-Class

Politiscoop Excerpt: (Sept. 2011)
MADISON-Paul Ryan, author of the plan to end Medicare, went on Fox News this weekend to advocate for tax hikes on the middle class.

Ryan, proponent of tax cuts for billionaires, opposes payroll tax cuts for middle class workers and told his Fox News cheerleaders that it was "class warfare" to suggest his advocacy for only the richest Americans was unfair.

Huff Post Excerpt:
(Sept. 2011)
He also said he opposes the president's proposal to require millionaires to pay the same tax rate as the middle class, known as the Buffett plan. "Class warfare might make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics," Ryan said.

Quote
"If Paul Ryan wants to claim class warfare, we certainly know which class he's signed up to serve." -- Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate

Paul ($350 a bottle) Ryan hosting fundraiser -- at Racine wine shop!

You'd think that Paul Ryan, after being embarrassed last year to be caught drinking $350 bottles of wine in a DC watering hole with a couple of "economists," would stay away from the stuff.

But he's hosting a fundraiser for State Sen. Van Wangaard, who's facing a recall election -- at a Racine wine shop.

Tickets are only $125, which should leave a slight profit if you get four glasses out of a bottle.  Or maybe they won't be serving the good stuff.

Root River Siren has the details.

Paul Ryan Gets one well deserved Cold Shoulder for attending MLK Awards at Gateway College..

The title of the YouTube video read, “Al Levie refuses award from Paul Ryan.

Al Levie walked away from Paul Ryan. Levie refused to go along with Ryan's hypocritical side show on stage, after he received the MLK Humanitarian Award.

Al Levie is one of three recipients of Gateway Technical College's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Awards bestowed Monday and made these remarks in his acceptance speech. Levie is a social studies teacher at Horlick High School and is on the state executive board of Voces de la Frontera and the Racine chapter of the NAACP. He is an advisor to the student youth group Youth Empowered in the Struggle.

Here's a part of Levie's speech:

Lincoln saw the rights of workers superseding the rights of capital. He said labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

The struggle for equality is not only a civil rights struggle; it is an economic justice struggle. There is no wealth problem in this country only a distribution problem. Our society needs to reorder its priorities and meet human need instead of fostering individual human greed.

As a recipient of Gateway Technical College's Humanitarian Award, I pledge to redouble my efforts in the struggle for social and economic justice. Concretely, that means fighting to roll back the power of the corporate elite in our society, making the ultra-rich pay their fair share in taxes, fighting for adequate funding for our public schools, restoring collective bargaining for public employees, fair and humane immigration reform, and restoring the voting rights for all people living within our state and country. That is what democracy looks like.

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.

"Romney co-signs Ryan's suicide note'

David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, on The Daily Beast:

President Obama would dearly like to do it again [accuse Republicans of wanting to get rid of Medicare] in 2012. But this time, Republicans made it easy for him. Obama does not have to accuse them of having a secret plan to eliminate Medicare. In 2011, all but four House Republicans and all but five Senate Republicans voted for a very public plan to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from Americans younger than age 55.

The Paul Ryan plan would instead offer future retirees support to buy a private insurance plan—with the amount of the support rising at the rate of general inflation. If health care costs continue to rise during the next three decades at the same pace as in the past three decades, then—under this proposal—today’s 30-somethings would receive support sufficient to cover about 25 percent of their Medicare costs, leaving them to find the other 75 percent themselves. The money saved would be applied to balance the budget and finance a big tax cut, reducing the top income-tax rate to 28 percent from the otherwise scheduled 39.6 percent.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer at the time expressed worry that the Ryan plan might prove a “suicide note.

And at first Mitt Romney shrewdly kept his distance. “I appreciate what Paul Ryan has done,” Romney said on May 27, 2011, and cautiously added, “I’m going to have my own plan.” Asked whether he’d sign the plan, Romney demurred: “That’s the kind of speculation that is getting the cart ahead of the horse.

A week later, Romney’s resistance was weakening. Asked June 2, 2011, whether he would sign the Ryan plan if it comes to him, he said yes, but added again, “I’m going to have my own plan.”

Voters don’t care if politicians are rich. What they want to know is, what will this rich politician do for me? Or to me?

Through the fall, Romney yielded more and more ground to pressure from congressional Republicans entranced by Ryan’s vision.

In November, Romney did at last release that Medicare plan of his own. Structurally, the Romney plan resembled Ryan’s. But it remained vague on the key feature: how much premium support would future seniors get?

Then Gingrich began to rise in the polls, the first adversary to seriously worry the Romney campaign. To protect his right flank, Romney in December for the first time expressed unequivocal support for the Ryan plan—and the end of the Medicare guarantee for those now under 55.

Would a President Romney do such a thing? Would Congress really ultimately go along with it? Probably not and certainly not. But can President Obama credibly allege that a President Romney might do it? And will those allegations exact an electoral cost?

If the answers to those questions prove to be “yes,” conservative critics will blame Romney for his “weakness” as a candidate. But the real weakness will be that Romney acceded to those conservatives’ pressure to co-sign Paul Ryan’s suicide note.

'The Bloodying of PolitiFact' -- and the facts

Trudy Lieberman, in a piece entitled, "The Bloodying of PolitiFact" on the Columbia Journalism Review website, looks at the controversy over PolitiFact's decision to make Democrats claims that Paul Ryan's plan would end Medicare as the "lie of the year."

Let's cut to the chase. Lieberman writes:

The fact is Republicans by supporting Ryan’s voucher plan did essentially vote to end Medicare.

You can read the analysis here.

She also has a bad word for "snarky little blog posts" on the subject, so we'll leave it at that.

Who loves ya more, Paulie? Romney or Santorum?

Mitt Romney worships Paul Ryan. Can Rick Santorum possibly love Ryan more?

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:

Santorum,  the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania has, for months now, aggressively backed the Medicare changes that House budget chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R) rolled out in April. That would be the plan that proposed privatizing the program and giving qualified recipients federal money to purchase health coverage. The plan was a political flop. Polls found that voters weren’t exactly keen to scrap the entitlement program as it exists now.

 Most Republican candidates approached the Ryan plan with caution, if not outright criticism. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich didn’t mince words when he described it as right-wing social engineering.” Mitt Romney, while praising the principles of the Ryan plan, ultimately proposed another version of Medicare reform, which would have a government-run plan compete against private options. And that looks a lot like the plan that Ryan, partnered with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), rolled out last month.

But all along, Santorum has stood out in the GOP field as the Ryan plan’s biggest cheerleader. The day after Ryan rolled out his original plan, Santorum praised the House budget chairman’s ideas.

“I commend Chairman Ryan’s long-term budget proposal that tackles entitlement programs, particularly his proposed reforms of the Medicaid program,” Santorum said in a statement. “I also believe the Republicans’ approach to reforming Medicare is right on target to streamline the program, reduce waste and allow future Medicare beneficiaries to have more of a say in the needs of their benefits with a market driven approach.” 

Santorum has endorsed the Ryan-Wyden plan, too. But he has also argued against the exact policy feature that makes the plan politically palatable: the guarantee that the government-run Medicare of today will still be around tomorrow. The day before the Iowa caucus, Santorum criticized the idea of public option in the Medicare program during a town hall speech. “I have a problem with the public option part that Ron Wyden has insisted on,” Santorum told Iowa voters. 

Democrats can only hope that a Ryan lover is the nominee. In fact, Ryan himself in the second spot on the ticket would really spotlight his discredited plan. Dems would be happy to hear him explain it for a couple of months next fall.

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

John Nichols in The Nation:

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

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

Read more here.

Paul Ryan-- A Career Built On A Tissue Of Lies By And For The One Percent

Let them eat cake pops

I'm not sure if it was Abby Melamed or Bonnie Simmons, but one of them told me when I was working at KSAN that the reason for playlists is because on the very day that a dj got completely sick of hearing a song he had played a gazillion times... well, on that day, the audience was hearing it for the very first time. The Republicans "get" that much better than the Democrats and they repeat their mindless and simplistic talking points ad nauseum, while progressives would rather debate complex, lofty principles... that don't fit on bumper stickers. We've been writing about the danger of Paul Ryan for 4 long years. Yesterday, though, Paul Rosenberg, did a searing essay on the role of lies in Ryan's career that every DWT reader should take a look at. Like any competent look at Ryan, it starts with the premise that he's a robotic pawn of the one percent and that without an ability to manipulate a lazy media with almost no ability for critical thought he would have no career. Rosenberg writes that "Last week, in an act of profound deception, the American 'fact-checking' organisation, PolitiFact, chose a true statement as its 'Lie of the Year.'" He goes on to show how misguided PolitFact is with this assertion that "Ryan's plan 'is necessary because of the programme's soaring costs.' In fact, the problem isn't Medicare per se, it's the entire cost structure of American medicine as a whole, which is roughly twice the per capita cost of healthcare spending in other advanced countries-- even those that have 50 per cent more people aged 65+ than the US has." 

Indeed, as Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson explained just over a year ago, in their paper "A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession," all of the US long-term federal debt is due to just three oligopoly sectors: the military-industrial complex (the backbone of empire, with bases all around the world and almost half the world's military spending), the medical-industrial complex (with twice the per capita costs of other systems), and the financial sector (which has recently cost trillions of dollars in lost wealth and economic activity).

All three of these are enormous cash cows for the one per cent, and equally enormous cost-centres for the 99 per cent. Without the costs imposed by lack of competition, regulation and accountability in these sectors, the US would have no long-term debt problem. We would be paying it down, rather than running it up.

This connects with yet another Paul Ryan "pants on fire" lie: that his budget plan is what it claims to be-- a deficit reduction plan. It's not. In the next decade-- the maximum time-frame in which budget projections are normally done-- the Ryan Plan produces just $55bn in deficit reduction over the next 10 years, according to an analysis from the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is because $4.2tn in tax cuts (heavily tilted toward the rich) almost entirely offsets $4.3tn in spending cuts (largely targeting low- and middle-income Americans). 

Reductions in healthcare spending from ending Medicare kick in just after that, and-- as Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted on his blog last April, "spending on everything other than healthcare and Social Security… is projected to fall in half as a share of GDP in just 10 years, and eventually to fall to levels comparable to those during the Coolidge administration-- even as the US presumably maintains a post-isolationism-level military force."

In short, the Ryan Plan is really an extreme (and extremely unrealistic) government-slashing plan. That is its goal and purpose. Calling it a deficit-reduction plan is a pants-on-fire lie, which PolitiFact would surely recognise as such, if it were actually in the fact-checking business, as it misleadingly claims to be. In sharp contrast, it should be noted, the Congressional Progressive Caucus "People's Budget" plan would balance the budget by 2022, with a $31bn surplus. But there's a bipartisan one per cent consensus to utterly ignore it, as if it did not even exist as a possibility, much less a publicly offered plan.

Instead of Ferguson and Johnson's realistic analysis of special interest waste, the bipartisan one per cent conventional wisdom in Washington is exactly the opposite: the problem is "wasteful government spending" on programmes that benefit the vast majority of the American people: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, not to mention investments in infrastructure, education, developing green energy, etc. This basic obfuscation and inversion of the politics of public debt is best thought of not as a lie-- a discrete, isolated speech act-- but as a fraud-- a continuous, ongoing practice to deceive, which is all about misleading people with half-truths, rather than outright lying to them. After all, outright lies can attract unwanted, sharply-focused negative attention. Far better to keep things far blurrier, with half-truths that take forever to analyse and argue.

PolitiFact's "lie of the year" this year is just one more part of that fraud. Drastic cuts to Medicare are not needed. A drastic expansion, to include all Americans of all ages, would be far more cost-effective for bringing the US' healthcare costs in line with the rest of the advanced industrial world. But that's the last thing that the one per cent special interests in Washington want. They don't even want you to consider that possibility. And PolitiFact is here to help them with that, presenting broadly-shared one per cent opinions as if they were facts, and not even realising what it is doing in the process.

...If Americans cannot cast off lies that directly steal money from their own pockets, and steal their children's future from them, what chance is there confronting lies that only harm them indirectly? What chance is there with lies told in their name? With lies purportedly told in their interest? Lies told for their own benefit? What chance is there to stop being, at bottom, a people of the lie? What chance to once more become a people of the dream?

Welcome to Paul Ryan's crabbed little world-- a world he wants to impose on your children, whose role is serfdom or indentured servitude. It's Mitt Romney's world as well, of course. A lot needs to be done to stop that-- starting this year with replacing Ryan with Rob Zerban. You can help do that by contributing $5 or $10 to Zerban's campaign at that link. To read the rest of this post-- it's pretty long-- go to the original at DownWithTyranny.

Another award for Ryan: Most discredited budget plan of the year

Paul Ryan continues to rack up the awards for worst of 2011. On the heels of Scam Artist of the Year,  the latest, from credit.com on the most discredited ideas of the year:


Most disCredited Budget Reform Plan

Paul Ryan’s budget takes the cake in this category, and eats it too. “We need to get rid of all these accounting tricks, all these budget gimmicks, and we’ve got to attack the drivers of our debt,” said Ryan very earnestly, reminiscent of Our Gang’s Alfalfa without the cowlick. However, upon a not very close examination it became completely obvious that Ryan’s budget was itself filled with accounting tricks and budget gimmicks, some supplied by the conservative Heritage Foundation and others resulting from blatant mischaracterization of Congressional Budget Office assessments.

Worse, instead of attacking the drivers of the debt, it seemed to mostly attack drivers of postal trucks, by more or less eliminating Social Security and Medicare, as they have been understood for generations, for people who are today under 55 years of age. Ryan’s budget became laughable, like the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact (which purported to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy), only faster. Even Newt Gingrich, in a rare burst of candor, referred to it as “right-wing social engineering.” In any case by the end of the year, the Ryan being talked about most was an NFL quarterback, not a congressman from Wisconsin.

More here.