Showing posts with label Paul Ryan budget plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Ryan budget plan. Show all posts

Monday, August 13, 2012

Paul Ryan is the perfect vice president for President Obama

Think I’ve lost my mind?  A staunch liberal and progressive like me promoting a stalwart conservative, and Tea Party darling, like Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin for vice president has to have an underlying motive.  Well, of course I do, and of course I don’t mean Ryan as a running mate for Barack Obama, but rather for Mitt Romney who has just chosen Ryan to share the campaign trail with him.  In my opinion it basically cinches a win for Obama in November.


Paul Ryan helps another Senior Citizen
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said Romney’s V.P. decision is bad news for the middle class, a large voting bloc.  She says by adopting Ryan’s budget plan, Romney has thrown, “…seniors under the bus and undermined their health security by ending Medicare as we know it. It would increase health care cost for seniors, including those on fixed income, by thousands of dollars a year.”  Refusing to raise taxes, they have put ideology ahead of the general public.

Brazile thinks Romney has turned into, “…the most extreme conservative candidate we have had in generations.”  Good for the kooks on the severe right, including the Tea Party, but it will lose the Independents for the Bobbsey Twins, especially those in the swing states.  While Obama scored with moves to save the economy from depression like rescuing the auto industry, the health care bill, eliminating Osama bin Laden, Ryan was working with House Speaker John Boehner pushing America to the edge of financial disaster.

John King reporting on CNN says that Ryan’s latest budget plan would: “…curb growing deficits by slashing domestic programs and lowering tax rates for individuals and businesses. The Medicare eligibility age would rise from 65 to 67 and spending would be capped. Seniors could stay in the current fee-for-service model or opt to receive government assistance to purchase private health insurance plans.”  Ryan also favors privatizing Social Security.

Romney constantly harped on the President’s lack of business credentials until Obama turned Romney’s business affairs into question with his refusal to release more than two years of taxes, and the fact that Romney says he wasn’t in control of Bain Capital during the significant out-sourcing of jobs.  Senate leader Harry Reid announced a creditable source told him Romney didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years.  On top of all this, Thomas M. Holbrook said, “His {Paul Ryan} working-class credentials include driving an Oscar Mayer weiner truck.”

Obama campaign comments on Paul Ryan choice:

Kevin Bohn on CNN quotes a statement from the Obama campaign: “The Republican ticket favors tax cuts for the wealthy while putting a greater burden on the middle class, it would gut Medicare and shift costs to the elderly, and it would make deep cuts in education.”  Continuing, "As a member of Congress, Ryan rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy.”  Do we really want more of the same?

The Ryan budget plan, fully backed by Romney, would repeal President Obama’s health care bill, and Medicaid would be turned over to the states with a $750 billion cut over 10 years.  Medicare would be designed to be run by private insurers and would cost seniors more or offer them less, while traditional Medicare would still remain an option, according to Richard Wolf on USA Today.  It is reported that the block grants to states would be a 33% cut by 2021.


Yeah...sure!
There is a good rendering of Paul Ryan’s array of budget plans since 2008 and leading up to 2012 on Wikipedia.  The amazing thing is that none of his plans fully passed through Congress, with even some Republicans opposing him.  The 2012 version was passed by the House but economist Paul Krugman said the plan didn’t even count tax cuts as revenue-negative.  Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Budget added, we may never balance the budget again, nor do we need to.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman summed it up for the right: over the period of a year, “…Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district–are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property–if it doesn’t like you).”

Enough said.  See you in November.

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