A well connected friend of a friend in DC who works for the LA Times leaked this to me mere minutes before HuffPost confirmed this, apparently Romney did make a bold pick and he may have just lost Florida and Ohio in the process and allowed one of my favorite progressives an opportunity at Ryans seat.
It’s Ryan
jconway
| Sat, Aug 11, 2012
12:11 AM EST
YOWZA! Brief thoughts: Ryan is eloquent, charismatic, has a gentle manner, and Paul-Newman blue eyes. He is a very substantive pick, in that we will mulling over his very thoroughly-considered ideas and choices over the next few months. (Contrast with Palin.) It will force a genuine choice in national priorities. Read up on his budget plan, The Road to Serfdom The Path To Prosperity.
True and irrelevant fact: Ryan's voice reminds me a lot of our differently-winged friend Rob Eno. :) - promoted by charley-on-the-mta
Discuss
98 Comments . Leave a comment below.They seriously look like they could be father and son:
“What of soul was left, I wonder,
(( http://paulryan.house.gov/ ))
When the smirkin’ had to stop?”
Happy days.
If this is so, it seems to me that Romney is really going all the way with the mendacity. Amazing. Some recent lying.
Our own Charlie Pierce:
…from the Romney website. It’s time for our side to double down and include single-payer health care in the Democratic platform. What starker contrast could we make than running as the Medicare-for-all party vs. a ticket that includes Mr. Medicare-for-none?
I think they’re all set for a logo…
nt
if my party is bold enough to seize the opportunity.
The end of Medicare, as championed by the House majority, now on the national ticket?
Go!
So the Daily Show can’t jump on it right away?
In general principal this seems maybe a week too soon to announce. But in the specific case of this candidate and this time, it changes the subject after a couple of weeks getting severely beat up.
OTH, Ryan’s budget becomes the topic of conversation and I doubt that will help the ticket over the next few weeks before Tampa. Much of the ‘not-paying-that-close-attention’ crown understand the Ryan budget as the GOP budget and not much else. Now the general public will get exposed to the weeds in the budget in a way that only the political and policy junkies were previously into.
Now I’m really looking forward to hearing Biden get into it.
I’m curious how the Romney plans on winning Florida now. I hear the Sunshine State has a lot of people who are particularly interested in Medicare, which Ryan wishes to end.
Needless to say, I can imagine few scenarios in which Romney wins the election without Florida.
Paul Ryan is the Republicans John F. Kennedy, minus the womanizing.
I like the pick b/c hopefully the voters wil finally choose which direction we go. I respect Ryan for providing a blueprint of the future which is the risk in this pick. Raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires (families earning $250K a year) will not solve the entitlement crisis as Dems like to tell us.
Major reforms and profound changes are needed and I appreciate the cold water Ryan splashed on my face when he proposed his budget. My wish is this does not degrade to a contest with Mitt causing a women to die of cancer or Ryan pushing granny over a cliff. This may be the most intelligent Republican ticket in a long, long time. I am waiting for Obama’s plan on entitlement reform and how to lower the deficit. I heard on tv. Obama projects a deficit of $22 billion? I mean WTF?
Jack Welch said people like freebies and I do believe people don’t want to think 10-20 years down the road as Ryan’s budget does, and Obama will probably win in Nov with his lack of specificity and tax the rich and Mediscare ads.
Regrettably for this unenrolled voter, this VP pick may put Professor Warren over the top, if Obama was unable to.
1) love the logo up thread very well done
2) so long Florida
3) WI now a Dem pickup
4) Cant wait for our ads
5) CAN’T WAIT for Veep debates-second cycle in a row
where they will be entertaining and informative
6) Dans right! This and Browns attacks will help Warren and Dema everywhere
POTUS MUST release his inner Truman now Rombey is literally wedded to the Do Nothing 111th!
Yes, this will make the teabaggers happy at the expense of ceding the election to Obama. Now the Republican campaign is going to be all about putting a happy face on why we should all tighten our belts so that Romney and his pals can keep even more of their wealth than they already do. Given that this is the direction he has chosen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney gets zero bounce from the Republican convention (except from his base).
I agree this choice does put Brown in a pickle. He really is not going to want to be forced to answer questions about details in Ryan’s budget .
BTW, Dan remember when you were citing polls a few weeks ago as evidence that Obama’s strategies were not working? How are they looking now?
Ryan dressed-down Obama during the healthcare debate (see link below). Problem is it takes six minutes to explain the Ryan Plan vs a 30 second ad with grandma going over a cliff. Dems win on that score.
Even though the Ryan Plan impacts those born after 1957, let’s believe jconway and the elderly in Florida believe they will be impacted. They have a choice, do they think of themselves (ie Greed is good in this case) or their grandkids?
As for the polls, Gallup shows it is tied and Rasmussen Mitt +2%. Zero bounce is wishful thinking. Doing nothing with Medicare, Medicaide, and social security and hoping they survive without major reforms, is wishful thinking.
FYI, I need to limit my posts, getting complaints from a few folks. I wish to continue our discussion, but this is my last post for the day but look forward to your additional input on the subject.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MNKfbO_PvkI
Maybe, but nobody else thinks so. Most recent polling is all going Obama’s way. Even Fox News has Obama up +9, for God’s sake. Swing state polling is the same – increasingly large advantage to Obama (data at 538).
The big question is whether the Ryan pick will help Romney turn around a failing operation. Because that does appear to be exactly what Romney, a turnaround guy, after all, is trying to do.
I have never really noticed that their polls are particularly biased to the right – at least not like Gallup or Rasmussen.
No Democrat has said we should “[do] nothing with Medicare, Medicaide, and social security”.
The ACA (and the government-sponsored single-payer health care system that will come after it as night follows day) will address the shortcomings of Medicare/Medicaid. The solution to the Social Security issue is straight-forward: Lift the ceiling on payroll taxes (perhaps phasing it in) so that high-income individuals pay the same rate as working stiffs.
The Ryan Plan guts our government, that is what it is intended to do and if put into effect precisely what it will do. Any voter who isn’t already wealthy who votes for this ticket is pathologically self-destructive, ignorant of the impact of the proposals advanced by these two extremists, or both.
Now all the bad parts of Ryans past budget plans are going to be fodder for campaign ads. Many voters like the idea of balancing the budget in the abstract, but don’t like the details when presented with them. Up until now most people haven’t been forced to confront what Ryan actually proposed because it never had any chance of passing the Senate. Now that changes.
I am sure that many in the Right are happy that the spotlight is going to be put on their ideas, but I think they will be disappointed by the reaction.
I really don’t know how they are going to be able to paint a picture of a “failing economy”, push tax cuts for the rich, sky-high military budgets, and fiscal austerity for everyone else, and make that seem like a good thing to those who have not already drunk the cool aid. Meanwhile Mitt’s missing tax returns will continue to hang over him like the Sword of Damocles. Maybe not a zero bounce, but I predict it will be lower than in past Republican conventions.
I think that the problems Ryan brings to the table for the general make the pick unexpected for most pundits and most people. I think most pundits have shy’ed away from Ryan on a strategic level. So if the pick is strategically ill advised, why go there? We keep hearing about how this shores up his base, but was that a problem now? It seems to me that one thing the Ryan pick would really help with though is that it would meet with the approval of a significant portion of Paul supporters.
It may be an attempt to quiet enough Paul supporters to avoid a nasty internal GOP family squabble at the convention. The Paul supporters have been able to derail the nomination scripts to varying degrees state by state in ways that have caught the GOP script writers off guard. There may yet be some kind of arcane GOP party rules for the convention that the party is afraid the Paul supporters have discovered that they present a real danger to the nomination or at least to a unified party. If so, I could see the party explaining to the campaign that unless the Paul supporters are placated enough to peel a significant portion of them away from what ever their planned machinations are, there could be a mess at the convention. Thus an ill-advised pick that nonetheless is necessary for his campaign – just for reasons that aren’t immediately obvious.
Its total speculation and I have know idea how I could tell if I’m right or not. I’m just trying to figure on why the pick when everyone seems to see it as a problem (euphemistically they say their ‘surprised’ by the pick).
Remember, Paul had like 8%, don’t act like he came in second. Santorum was Romney’s strongest opponent with a huge social conservative base that wasn’t too thrilled with Romney, Gingrich came in third, and Paul pretty much always came in last with single digits. Santorum WON many states.
As a Santorum supporter opposed to libertarianism as much as he is (“I am not a libertarian, and I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement.“) I think I see a bone being thrown my way, not just because Ryan is Catholic like Santorum, but because he has gone out of his way to renounce the atheism of Ayn Rand and Objectivism with similar strong language (“I reject her philosophy”). The mainstream media is trying to connect him to Ron Paul as a small-government budget cutter, but if you go back a year, you find “Libertarians say Paul Ryan is worse than Bill Clinton” because he wasn’t anti-government enough.
… and you won’t need to limit them. On point; fact based; supporting links. More of this, please.
Duncan Black:
The Education and Jobs Of Paul Ryan, According To The Wiki
Public high school.
Public university.
Worked for family business.
Congressional staffer, with service jobs for additional money.
Speechwriter for Jack Kemp.
Staffer for Sam Brownback.
Member of Congress.
Capitalism, just as Rand envisioned.
The New Yorker:
Got that? He spoke to the Ayn Rand Society and he makes his entire staff read her “work”.
I direct you back to the excerpt I posted, where he says that it’s an “urban legend” that he made his staff read Atlas Shrugged, and that it’s “part of an effort” to paint him as a Ayn Rand devotee. Yes, he admits that reading Ayn Rand when he was young was what inspired him to become involved in politics and read more philosophy and economic theory, but then he rejected Objectivism.
“I reject her philosophy” is a pretty strong thing to say. But I suppose her atheism is the only thing the Libertarians here on the left side like. So you will just deny that he said that and stick with the strategy of painting him as a Randoid. This is going to be interesting when he leads conservatives away from Ayn Rand and Libertarianism and back toward responsible adult conservatism.
I posted one with a link.
I win.
Google is handy in these cases’. You can usually dump a whole blurb in the search box and find lots of links. I actually don’t know where the original article was published, I think it was the National Review that comes up first.
Mine has actual facts. If Mr Ryan wishes to lie as much about his Randian views as Mr Romney lies about his positions on choice, that hardly inclines one to believe him.
I guess you’re the proof. The guy says he was into Rand when he was young, her books were the reason he got involved in politics, but now that he is more mature he says “I reject her philosophy. t’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview.”
I think that is a very significant conversion, and I believe it because it is just like my own, I too was into the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and wore a tie around campus in the 80′s, but it didn’t last long and after college I saw how empty and amoral it was, just kind of an escapism, an ego trip.
Isn’t it great that the Randoids are about to be taken to school and have their hats handed to them? The amoral Libertarians are being told to not let the door hit them on the way out. Did anyone see this coming besides me? (I wasn’t expecting it so soon and so explicitly, this is awesome!).
He was not young in 2005. This recent article in the LA Times makes it pretty clear that his disavowal of her is only for show. He still uses her terminology.
Given the fraudulence of Paul “The Magic Asterisk” Ryan’s “budget,” one is ill-advised to take him at his word.
to an audience of young eager thinkers who he knew were going through the same propaganda and philosophical education in the form of a novel that he went through. He was probably invited to give a talk, so he’s not going to insult them, he’s going to pander to them. Is the whole speech on line? I’d like to see if there was just a hint of a Sista Souljah Moment about the flaws of Objectivism, such as the atheism, or the haircuts and neck ties. But even if he didn’t, and there was no such schooling in 2005, that’s OK, the time is now.
There is a diary on RedMassGroup by Seascraper about this:
He might cross post it here, but if you go over there, you can rate comments to your hearts content. You can even rate them, unrate them, re-rate them, unrate them, over and over, it’s still free.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79612.html
They can’t be very happy with “I reject her philosophy.” They are happy in a generic way that he wants to cut the budget and other “consistent” beliefs, but they aren’t happy he rejected the whole basis of objectivism, that’s just spin.
Here’s a reaction from a Liberty Caucus guy in Texas. He says the Ryan plan is a starting point, not for negotiations with the Democrats, but for deeper cuts!
While I’m sure that from your vantage point the chasm between “bio-conservatives” (or whatever it is you call yourself) and “libertarians” is huge, from where I stand they are two indistinguishable variants of failed right-wing horse-twaddle.
Paul Rand is espousing total garbage, heavily influenced by the ranting of Ayn Rand. I don’t care whether he claims to reject her or not, none of it matters.
It’s all right-wing horse-puckey to me.
Actually the chasm between Bio-Conservatives and Libertarians runs North-South across the Left-Right split. Everyone is either a Libertarian or a Bio-Conservative, you can’t be both or neither, it all comes down to how you answer this question: Do you believe genetic engineering to create humans should be legal or prohibited? if you think it should be prohibited, no matter what else you think, you’re a BioConservative, otherwise, Libertarian. There are lots of left-wing Bio-Conservatives and lots of left-wing Libertarians.
n/m
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/biopolitics
Not even a little.
On the contrary, it is a sign of Romney’s near total weakness with respect to his own right. They demand Ryan, and Ryan they get, yessir, rightawaysir.
Definitely a substantive pick, and one that raises the stakes. Might even overshadow the top of the ticket.
And one that should please the Obama campaign even more than it does the crazy right wing.
Been quite some time since the GOP had an “abolish Social Security outright” guy on the national ticket. Who was the last one, Wendell Wilkie? Sheesh.
Forget who I read, (Chait?) but he suggested that VP nominations are either to shore up the party (August convention), win the election (November), or help govern (January).
The Ryan pick seems very August, especially as TPM reports that Romney is now distancing himself from Ryan’s budget. We have a very strange Republican ticket where each candidate is running away from that for which he is most famous.
Ryan-August
LBJ–November’
Gore– January?
This seems like an August, but an August during the primaries. He is a creature of the the most generally damaging parts of his own party, not unlike Mondale. Were the economy even a little uncrappy, things could go as poorly as they did for Mondale.
I think Paul Ryan is an awesome choice and certainly a game changer. Let’s make it a point to save this thread for the future so we can grade just how wrong BMGers were, which is important for future predictions we can ignore from these brainiacs.
People are sick and tired of our leaders for “doing nothing”. We all kick the can down the road and hope everything will get better. Nobody wants to make the tough choices and I mean both parties. Your party rarely talks tough but when the do, they get booted out.
This is going to be very interesting and I think Romney is taking a chance that Americans are looking for something bold to get things moving in this country instead of the same old shit. Your dicks will put the microscope up Ryan’s ass looking to see if he gave someone a titty-twister in high school or whether he ever said he liked to fire people… but I think a lot of young Americans will identify with Paul Ryan. The next week or two should tell us something.
Ryan vs. Biden will be great.
I’m very very happy about this choice.
with Ryan on Mitt’s ticket. Make no mistake Mitt was in a downward spiral and this choice was made out of weakness, but with Mitt going far right into teabag territory I do agree we are going to have more substantial discussion on positions.
But first, let’s start with Mitt and Ryan’s differences on health care. We can get to Obama/Biden later. Let’s play, hey Mitt why did you think Ryan’s health care plan sucked? Which one is going to flip positions? The presidential candidate? or his lacy? I sure hope it’s the one who wants to be the leader of our country. I would really be a disaster if Mitt let the undercard run the show, no a place you want to be.
Paul Krugman has looked at the numbers. Rep. Ryan is a despicable fraud:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/opinion/krugman-fiscal-phonies.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/opinion/krugman-pink-slime-economics.html?ref=paulkrugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/on-ryan-apologists/
If he wins, it’s because Mordor wins occasionally too.
I just love being called a brainiac! I’m sure everyone else does here, too, johnd. You’re so very sweet!
and in some cases I don’t think I like some of you… but I am not blowing smoke when I say you appear to be some of the smarter, more knowledgeable and occasionally humorous people I interact with (on politics and worldly events in general.
If you say something like “Florida is lost” due to the Ryan selection then I retain the right to call yo on being wrong… and call you a brainiac.
Everywhere there are people smarter than me and people smarter than you. There are enough smart people.
“Brainiac” is not a positive term like “clever”, “insightful”, or “intelligent”. It has a “you think you’re so smart!” kind of ring. Do you really want that?
I suspect such rhetoric just reinforces the false idea that all conservatives are trolls. If you keep in mind that conservatives and liberals mutually view each other as immoral, you might see that such rhetoric has a stronger effect than it would among friends.
*
As to whether Florida is lost or not to the Romney campaign, I’m not going to predict. But one could say that the Ryan “turn medicare into coupons” plan might run into trouble among Florida’s large elderly population. That possibility seems indisputable to me.
But I will call out someone’s outright prophecy when I hear one. Brainiac can be a positive term, but I didn’t use it that way. FWIW, I use this for anyone who predicts wrongly. I often use it to demean sports “experts” who predict game outcomes and are totally wrong, on a regular basis. Look at the records of the Boston Globe sports predictions on NFL football games and you’ll see flipping a coin beating their predictions but for some reason we still call them credible experts.
So it wasn’t a nasty barb but a flick at people who predict with 100% certainty about something which they are simply “guessing”.
The Miami Herald:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/a-view-of-ryan-from-florida-131855.html
to put a microscope up Ryan’s ass, as you so drolly put it, to look for material with which to beat him. He published it. He made a big deal out of it. He got it through the House. And America hates it, as subsequent events showed. Pretty simple, really.
I would love his budget to be drawn out and discussed openly. Maybe we’ll like 1/2 of it and drop the remainder. Isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t we suppose to take a Republican plan and a Democrat plan (if they had one from the House or the Senate) and find a compromise?
However, if you don’t think your Discovery teams won’t be researching every spec of Ryan’s history then you deserve to be treated drolly. Wait and see how your partisan hacks will talk about things which have nothing to do with his selection of being VP. I’d bet you lunch but you have already cowered away from my offer of a lunch bet concerning the Bush/Obama tax cut extensions…
… his budget went over like a lead balloon. I think that makes the pick strategically problematic for Romney in the general. I think most people were thinking along the same lines too and that accounts for why the pick was such a ‘surprise’ to media pundits – conservative, liberal, or martian.
1. I should look this up, but I remember reading that some focus groups when presented with actual GOP proposals, did not believe that the GOP politicians really proposed those things or really meant them. In other words, there are illusions about the Republican platform that keep Republicans more popular than, based on policy alone, they should be.
2. “Who’s Paul Ryan?” Low information voters — strike that — nonwonky voters don’t know who Paul Ryan is. They don’t know about his “budget”. They don’t know about his inane ideas about turning inefficient Medicare over to a still more inefficient private system. They don’t know about the magic asterisk that sits in the middle of his “budget”. To the extent he has gotten any media coverage it’s mostly been adoring and undeserved.
These are all good reasons people to donate to the Obama campaign and to the DNC. Do it now. Help them expose the combination of emptiness and meanness in their plans now.
like Paul Ryan seems to have touched. What the visceral feelings?
I would hope the Republicans call Ryan’s budget proposal a “starting point” for a realistic budget that could pass both houses and the President. I would hope Romney talks about Ryan’s budget he same way, a good starting point which needs to be worked on, sections deleted, sections added, edited…
This is an election, not a legislative debate. Romney didn’t have to pick Paul Ryan to be his running mate, but he did. Ergo, Ryan’s budget – every word of it – is now firmly yoked around Romney’s neck. It’s not a starting point; it’s de facto the Republican ticket’s platform. That’s why Romney’s move was such an enormous risk, and that’s why Democrats are so happy about it.
You could never pick a VP who overlaps with you perfectly, so you’ll always have disagreements. Joe Biden’s voting records were open for criticism but his views were not inherited by Obama.
Over the next few months the electorate will decide for us.
Paul Ryan and the GOP had years to treat his budget as a “good starting point which needs to be worked on, sections deleted, sections added, edited…”. Instead, they took the “My way or the highway” approach that has been so destructive to our economy and culture.
I don’t know about kbusch, but I can say that my “visceral feelings” are spurred by Mitt Romney’s choice of the most divisive and most dogmatic rabble-rouser I can think of. Paul Ryan is the poster child for the head-in-the-sand craziness of the extreme right wing. He advocates systemically destroying and dismantling the foundations that have made America great and strong since the Great Depression.
The choice of Paul Ryan is thumb in the eye of every American who rejects the selfishness, greed, and hostility that motivates the extreme right. That’s why the “visceral feelings”.
Please be honest and say “anyone” picked would have been lassoed with the GOP budget. I’m only guessing here but I think you strongly dislike (see I didn’t say HATE) all Republicans. What would you have said if Chris Christie was chosen, Marco Rubio, Mitch Daniels…?
Paul Ryan is going places in this country. He’s young, he’s energetic, he’s smart and he has the guts to talk about our problems instead of kicking it down the road like all of your partisan brothers. Talk to me about Obama’s budget that not s single Democrat in either House voted for? Excplain that Tom? ZERO!!!!! How is Obama going to fix our National Debt, borrow more money to pay it off? Hope for a volcanic inflation to hit all of us to make $17 TRILLION seem like a manageable number. How much of a monetary burden do you feel like putting on your children grandchildren and great grandchildren? Isn’t this about the time where you ask me to look at the shiny object of GW and the GOP having large deficits?
Nobody else could be “lassoed with the GOP budget” because nobody else wrote the budget. The GOP budget is the Paul Ryan Budget. You know as well as I that this is intended to be a loud crystal-clear signal that the GOP intends to double-down on the extremist rhetoric and fiscal policies that it has been attempting to jam down our collective throats for years.
We are going to “fix” our national debt by growing the economy, by taking back some of the wealth that the top 1% has stolen. The primary reason the economy has been tanked is that we have a consumer economy and the top 1% has sucked up so much wealth that nobody has anything to consume with.
Isn’t this about the time when you again try and duck responsibility for the results of our first attempts at the programs Mr. Ryan so fervently pursues? You’re absolutely right — George W. Bush took office with a surplus, and virtually overnight turned it into a massive deficit. Why SHOULDN’T we talk about that? If these “ideas” work, why is the economy so bad?
If the GOP is so good for the economy, why did the GOP destroy the economy?
You will never get your hands on the money and wealth people have now, never! You must know that even your attempts to raise the tax rate from 35% to 39% will not deliver anything substantial AND doesn’t touch the hundreds of billions the Gates, Buffets, Soros, Kerry, Blumberg, Forbes and others have squirreled away.
Get your feet back not he ground of you want to be part of any solution moving forward and stop living in the past. The debate between the two ideologies will be great and the Tea Party is here to stay. I hope they can come to some negotiated solutions on our problems but …
If you are correct then we are all screwed.
The top 1% have strangled the rest. No other society in human history has survived this kind of wealth concentration. Neither will we.
I believe the tax cuts in January will be extended once again for everyone. I’ve asked some people here (like you) to explain to me how anything else happens. Someone said the American people will force their Congressmen to capitulate and raise taxes only on the wealthy (and the regular folks who make more than $250K). That will not happen!
Now we’re talking about getting your hands on the “wealth”, not the income, of the country’s richest folks… HOW??? How exactly are you going to take Bill Gates’ wealth? Are you going to have a wealth tax (24% of everything you won), a house tax (24% tax on any house over $1M)…
Please explain to me how Americans will support any law which will go take someone’s money away from them (while we live in a country where people won’t even support taking more income taxes away from someone).
Even give me a wild, crazy long shot type of plan because I think your idea will NEVER happen. Other BMGers should speak up here… not whether it should happen but what exactly they think could happen.
Perhaps we need wealth taxes (with a hefty floor) as you describe. A significant hike in federal estate/gift taxes (again with a hefty floor) is certainly helpful.
I suspect that a tax on the sale of real-estate valued in excess of $5M (figure chosen randomly) will probably have more traction than, for example, eliminating the home mortgage deduction for everyone.
Legislation to impose a mix of taxes that return and then maintain the GINI coefficient of wealth distribution at some reasonable level is, in my view more likely to happen than adoption of the Paul Ryan budget.
I wanted to hear from you or someone what could possibly happen since I believe NONE of this will ever happen.
(Unoriginal but interesting point follows) Romney has thus far run an extremely vague campaign. Vague about his proposals. Vague even about his biography. He has wanted to keep the focus squarely on the economy and Obama’s alleged mismanagement of it. A Pawlenty or Portman nomination would have been consistent with this style of campaigning. A Ryan nomination is not. Romney has tied himself to someone with rather specific proposals and, of a sudden, he will have even more difficulty keeping the focus on his anti-Obama themes.
You haven’t answered David’s comment about the “not a single Democrat voted for”. Until you do, I will regard your repetition of this point as trolling and unworthy of response.
*
Finally, Ryan’s “brilliant” “brave” solution to our nation’s problems consist of one big magic asterisk. Hell, if I had a magic asterisk, I could solve all our financial problems too. I could even solve those of Greece and Spain.
This isn’t bravery or brilliance at all. It’s bullshit.
1. Because his budget cutting consists entirely of a giant magic asterisk. No one should get credit and be treated as seriously contributing to the budget discussion of all his has is a magic asterisk.
2. Because replacing medicare with medicare coupons is a horrible step backward. It’s so horrible people don’t really believe that’s what he’s up to. It ceases to keep medicare as an insurance program.
… tax breaks for the wealthy. The problem is that the only way you can promote that these days while keeping a straight face on also being a deficit hawk is to lie by omission dd .
May 16, 2012…
Not a single Democrat in the House or Senate, not a one!!!!
as you well know.
Folks here are all over Ryan’s budget but where is Obama’s? Where?
So, the Republicans tried to advance Obama’s budget, in vague terms, and everyone voted against it. But I thought the Dems voted against it because it would be replaced with an updated one… well??? Why didn’t Obama ever submit his budget to the Hoses for a vote?
It’s too bad you’re so partisan, otherwise you’d realize RYan’s courage. It is so easy to sit on the sidelines in any political situation and simply lob hand grenades at what people are saying. But I think people like Ryan deserve credit for trying SOMETHING! Where are other Republicans with their budget proposals… where are Democrats with their alternatives? People are freaking cowards to do anything since that would be risky and invite condemnation from opponents. Well Ryan took a chance and good for him. Obama and the Democrats should have grown some stones and submitted their budget for an up/down vote or for discussions.
* = Ryan’s contribution
I am pretty confident how the idea of ending Medicare will play with older ones – not only senior citizens but Boomers who have parents on Medicare and who are already extremely worried about how to care for aging parents and potentially frightening expenses involved. No, I don’t have data, but I’d expect this issue to be way more important as a deciding factor for older voters than the budget deficit is to younger ones (and even many younger voters who do care deeply about the deficit may not like Ryan’s plan).
I think privatization would have played a lot better in an era of rising stock prices where people could be persuaded that they could do better managing these types of things on their own. I don’t personally know many people these days who think, for example, they’d do better with their own 401k than a defined benefits pension.
Had America’s workers been under George W. Bush’s privatization plan for Social Security in 2008, the economic collapse would have been FAR FAR worse. As it was, the wealth of most middle-class Americans was wiped out with their home equity. If the GOP had had its way, middle-class retirement benefits would have been taken away at the same time.
I really can’t comprehend the self-destructive insanity of middle- or working-class people who support the current GOP economic madness.
…It would be really strange for it to be more popular now.
This option is a very interesting idea for many of us since there’s a lot of people who don’t think they’ll ever get their SS money back. Half of Millennials don’t even think SS will exist when they retire.
I think it will exist but I also think our Democratic leaders will have means testing so people will not get their money back. I could support some sort of means testing for SS but I would require people at least get back every penny they put into it.
Make privatization an option.
If you haven’t already downloaded the statements available from the SSA about your expected benefits, then you should. I don’t mean to pry into your personal affairs, I’m saying only that it’s VERY UNLIKELY that private investments can return as much as federally-legislated SS benefits.
It isn’t Democrats who are proposing to means-test SS benefits. Virtually every SS recipient gets back far more than they put in.
I’m serious, John, I don’t know why you suggest a need for some requirement that “people at least get back every penny they put into it” — the system already in place does far more than that.
My Mother is on SS and I’m sure she got back everything she put in by the end of the first year. And she’s collected for 20+ years at this point. What I’m saying is many people don’t think this is going to continue that way.
“Many people don’t thing this is going to continue that way”?
ONLY because the GOP lies about Social Security, and supporters who should know better repeat those lies. It is ONLY the GOP who has attacked SS virtually since its inception. The solution to the minor issues facing SS in the future are readily addressed by phasing out the cap on payroll taxes and (perhaps and more controversially ) by allowing the retirement age to move upward by two years over ten or twenty years.
The best way for “Millennials” to assure the continued existence of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the rest of the safety net is to restore our economy. In the scenarios where our economy is healthy, the current safety net works well. In scenarios where our economy continues in the downward spiral the GOP has taken it, privatization makes life worse, not better, for seniors.
No additional legislation is needed to allow anyone who chooses (and is fortunate enough to have the means) to invest in their own retirement future. The Social Security system was never intended to replace individual retirement savings and pensions — it was always intended as a supplement.
The “option” of privatization is just another ruse of the GOP, a thinly-veiled attempt to destroy Social Security while transferring its funds to already-wealthy Wall Street interests.
The quick fix of simply taking more of our money to fix it should be removed from the list of fixes. The creep of increasing our contributions is a lazy bullshit answer which has been used too many times by our leaders. Control the spending end of SS not the funding.
… panicking about SS? Historically it’s been so well funded it’s been robbed from to pay for other stuff (Regan’s cold war mostly). If you’re really going to worry about an entitlement who’s growth threatens other revenue streams, it health-care.
Here…
Thanks for the chuckle this afternoon.
So let me see if I understand your argument. You repeat the lie that SS is about to fail, you imply (if not explicitly state) that people don’t get out what they put in (which you retracted when pursued on the question), you are silent on the observation that current benefits greatly outweigh any reasonable returns if those same funds were locked up in private investments, and — after all that — you reject the simple and obvious adjustment that corrects the impact of the baby boom.
What do you suggest, John? Are you proposing to euthanize the baby boom in order to reduce SS spending? You simultaneously complain about not getting what you put while proposing that SS spending be reduced!
The “creep of increasing our contributions” is the only rational answer to the demographics that have been obvious for sixty years, the inflation that has made the payroll tax actually regressive, and the increase in life expectancy that America has enjoyed since SS was created (although the GOP would apparently like to reverse that as well, based on their dogma about health care policy).
Your cry for “NO more money for SS” is hilariously disconnected from reality.
good. Sorry the rest of my party is making you scream bloody murder every other day. What will life be like if we win the Senate (and the POTUS)? Will you be moving out?
I’m sorry if you couldn’t follow my conversation about SS, but I’ll try to explain it better.
When did I say this? SS is on course to disaster with it going broke by 2033 according to the SS Trustees.
No, I said younger people, both Millennials and my age 55 have little to no confidence that we will get anything back from SS. I never retracted that. I believe some bullshit means test criteria will come into play which will screw people out of all the money they contributed over their lives.
Sorry I missed this earlier, yes this is happening because we are stealing the next generation’s SS money to pay all the money we now pay out to existing payees which I explained with own Mother’s monthly check easily outweighing what she paid into the system. This will not last…
You are right that I reject the solution but you’re dead wrong saying this is the “simple and obvious” solution. Stop taking more and more of worker’s money. Worker’s make a fixed amount of money… inflation takes a bite out every year and gives them less buying power, higher Fed taxes reduces it further, higher State taxes takes more, higher fees, tuition, gas prices… takes more and higher SS and Medicare taxes take even more. Stop reducing the amount you take from working people and start looking at other ways to stop the bleeding (raise the retirement age…).
Do they really think they can motivate enough low-information and anti-abortion voters to win this thing?
which is a place from which mistakes are often made.
who lacks Sarah Palin’s executive and real-world experience. Is it because Sarah Palin is female and Paul Ryan is male that nobody wants to point this out?
Ryan has never had to meet a payroll, and, by definition, since he works in government has never created a single job, or any wealth. The local radio talk show hosts are going to tear him apart–don’t you think?
To johnd’s claim that the Congress unanimously rejected a presidential budget, I thought there has to be something wrong with this, or least another side of the story. There is no way that a President’s entire party in both chambers abandons him on such a key vote. Our worst Presidents at their lowests points in the polls could do better than that. Sure enough, the President was already a step ahead and had proposed something new, and Democrats liked the new proposal better. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time the votes took place even the WH was just as happy the vote failed. The GOP brought it to a vote despite being old news just so they could make this claim about having no support. When Mitt Romney made this claim, Politifact rated it Mostly False.
Took enuff time, when will Harry Reid bring it to the floor? Don’t hold your breath, right?
Listening and reading about Ryan, I am impressed how far he has come at such a young age. He serves meat and potatoes when voters prefer cotton candy and clowns for entertainment. According to methuenprogressive, Ryan is a candidate for low-information voters. Interesting, Ryan represents a district that voted for Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama. What a bunch of dummies in that district, right? I would also ask Methuenprogressive if these low-information voters being targeted by Romney are smart enough to have valid identifications?
Walker won re-election by telling the truth and making people take their medicine. Now I am being told Ryan’s budget is radical. He cuts $5 trillion over 10 years. Is that really too much? Now I read Obama has cut $700 billion out of current Medicare recipients. Even Rachel Maddow had a bad day at the office today, please watch as she gets obliterated by Rich Lowry.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/08/12/national-reviews-rich-lowry-destroys-msnbcs-rachel-maddow-meet-press#ixzz23LfPVrnA
For those who clamor for higher and higher taxes, I found then Congressman Weiner debate Sean Hannity back in 2010. I use to ok with raising the tax bracket, but this got me to reconsider.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Emfc1Ae3jA
That, of course, is an out-and-out lie. I don’t know how many times it’s been debunked. In brief, what the ACA does is reduce the rate of increase of payments to insurers and providers. It does not affect benefits. And, ironically, the now-infamous Ryan budget actually retained those cost reductions.
Failure in the Congress reflects on Congress, where the GOP controls the House and in practice controls the Senate since they have no shame about filibusters. If Harry Reid doesn’t bring something up it may mean he’s not prepared to bang his head against the wall for the umpteenth time. What I question is when Obama is going to start channeling Harry Truman and run against this do-nothing Congress.
I am tired of excuses as to why you can’t get a budget passed.
David- I need to reply here since I an on a count pitch dot of speak, with my posts. Glad to hear you endorse that aspect of the Ryan Plan. If we reimburse providers below the real world costs of that service, are you telling me there will be no impact in quality? Mitt does not want to make that cut and will set the policy if elected. I almost died laughing when someone said Ryan is similar to the Cheney pick and Mitt is like W. Bush.
With the high negative earth is ending predictions with selecting Ryan, perhaps he is the strongest pick Mitt could make. If this election is on brain power and ideas, Romney and Ryan win. If it is on themes like “Hope and Change” or 30 second ads, the Obama and VP Cheapskate will win.
TT U 2morrow.
The law requires the President to propose a budget, but the Constitution gives Congress the ultimate power of the purse. We could also use a new Congress that doesn’t block everything the President proposes. The President has bent over backwards, much to the chagrin of his base, to get Congress to enact his agenda, but a combination of constitutional checks and balances, Senate rules, and partisan opposition have made it next to impossible.
A sign of his trolling is how painfully obvious your answer is.
And no one is interested in what danfromwaltham is “tired” of.
If I understand the rating system correctly, I think I am suppose to say “SIX”. Whatever number means “Excellent”.
And another for you
We all know Ryan’s Medicare proposals impact those under 55. See clip below as Wolf Blitzer doesn’t let her get away with her lies how current seniors or those 55 or older see no changes. Perhaps the media will be fair in their reporting, and not be so biased like former WWF/WWE referee Dangerous Danny Davis who as most wrestling fans remember, was an terrible referee, likely taking bribes from The Million Dollar Man Twd Dibiasi or Bobby Heenan.
Now, let’s go on the record. Debbie Schults is either a liar or ignoramus. She said, with a straight face, that she did not know the party affiliation of Priorities USA Super PAC. They are running the cancer ad linking Romney responsible for a woman dying. I must say, Sarah said lots of dumb things, but we have a more stupid idiot in Debbie Blabbermouth. Enjoy the clip below and don’t be drinking or eating as you watch, you may spit it out laughing.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/12/video-dnc-chair-doesnt-know-party-affiliation-of-obama-super-pac/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5NJF5Fcvmg&feature=youtu.be
I’ve ever heard talk. I would be happy if I never saw/heard her again. I can take so many other Dem mouthpieces without a problem, even Rachel Maddow (who I can’t stand) would dwarf the visceral hatred I have for this woman.
..it’s comments like this:
Calling people names, etc, that cause you to not have a whole lot of respect around here. How about, “DWS was wrong when she said x, and here is my counterevidence”?
Where were you, Chris, when mark Bail said “what is amazing is how
stupid McCain turned out to be”. Mark then mentioned where McCain graduated 435 out of 438.
How about Demintfan saying “It is such a good thing that Romney is such a sack of excrement”. Ain’t that sweet!!!
Oh, and on polls, ever here of John Zogby? Swing staes show Romney/Ryan leading 49-41 over Obama/Biden. Huge bump by adding Ryan.
http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/the-ryan-bump-new-zogby-poll-shows-huge-boost-for-romney-in-swing-states/
http://www.jzanalytics.com/
« Blue Mass Group Front Page
Sun 19 May 11:03 AM