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Guest Post: Mitt Romney's Selection Of Paul Ryan Is A Sign Of Desperation
Mitt Romney's Selection Of Paul Ryan Is A Sign Of Desperation
Many folks were surprised last night as rumors began leaking that Romney tapped Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, for the prestigious VP slot. The surprise came largely because many were expecting a more mundane pick like Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman. The reactions from the GOP base is positive overall, although the story is still fresh and drawing conclusions is difficult. The reactions from the Democrat/Liberal base are predictable and I am guessing that the Obama campaign is licking its lips over the prospect of skewering Ryan like a kabob. I have a slightly different take, my feeling is that this pick is an indication that the Romney team is struggling and sees the prospect of winning in November diminishing with each passing day. People like Pawlenty and Portman is the equivalent of swinging for a base hit - the selection of Ryan is swinging for the fences. It is desperation and an attempt to shake things up substantially in the hopes of energizing a splintered and unimpressed Conservative base.
However I prefer to focus on the economics of politics, not the politics of politics - so lets take a look at what exactly makes Ryan such a risk.
Paul Ryan, to be sure, is an impressive politician. He has a perfect pedigree, is good looking and probably considered to be the premier fiscal wonk of the Republican party. His budget is considered by many to be the boldest and most courageous attempt at tackling America's most pressing issues, entitlements. Of course there is always more than the shiny facade pimped by party loyalists and for those that have bothered to investigate Ryan's record the picture becomes a bit murkier.
For starters there is the very pressing and disturbing votes of the Bush legacy. Specifically Ryan's support of: TARP, Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind (NCLB). All three are wonderful examples of how the Republican party only fights for fiscal sanity when they are a minority party, the second they become the majority they expand Government programs at an alarming rate. NCLB is a monstrosity that gave the Department of Education teeth, Medicare Part D tacked on hundreds of billions (half a trillion as of today per year) to the debt and was passed in the House in a manner very reminiscent to ObamaCare and TARP is an egregious disregard of the free market system and should make any citizen sick to their stomach. While Ryan may be able to justify all these votes, there are Republicans in the House who did *not* vote for these programs and quite a handful.
Then of course there is the famous Ryan budget. A budget that reminds of me the great Oz. It is daunting and impressive, but if you look behind the curtain there is a tiny little man pulling a whole lot of levers. This very budget (despite being all bark and no bite) was used to galvanize Obama and the liberal base. Remember how Ryan's policies inspired the idea that he would throw grandma off the cliff? Yet despite the proven record of the Left to make a mountain of a molehill team Romney decided to go all-in and select Paul Ryan. More importantly, for what?
In order to understand that Ryan's budget is nothing more than smoke and mirrors we turn to a detailed analysis of the budget. This interactive analysis lets you compare and contrast the Ryan and Obama budgets side by side and examine the projects for spending. Below is a series of images I selected, but I encourage to explore the interactive tool yourself.
Let us take a look:
First we got Medicaid. Clearly the difference is notable and appreciable. In fact based on this image alone it would almost invalidate all my criticism of the Ryan budget. Medicaid is pure welfare, as opposed to Medicare that is at least partially funded by FICA. Medicaid was always intended to take care of the downtrodden and unfortunate and has now ballooned into health care for all. ObamaCare functions and survives primarily on expanding the Medicaid rolls by shoving more people onto the public dime. Medicaid alone is now responsible for a quarter of many State budgets and continues to financially drain the Federal and State coffers at an alarming rate. Worst of all, it badly distorts the insurance market driving medical prices up for every single individual. So it is nice to see Paul Ryan tackle this egregious and disgusting program that does far more harm than good, but the courage and bravery amount to a spending freeze. By 2021 will be spending more on Medicaid again. Perhaps Ryan tackles the other entitlement programs better?
Next we have Medicare. What's this? Apparently Grandma is not going off a cliff, instead it would appear that she is being pushed up a hill! Ryan's plan spends MORE on Medicare than Obama. This is quite the shock considering that Ryan's plan is considered to be the most courageous entitlement reform evah! It is ironic that Obama and the Left are painting Ryan as the grim reaper chasing your granny, where instead he is slowing down Medicaid to HELP granny. Oh, you have to love politics - don't you?
Next up is Social Security. No, it is not a graphical glitch. Ryan's plan does absolutely nothing for Social Security. Yet conservative websites and pundits swoon over Ryan like he is the next coming of Barry Goldwater, more on that later.
Lastly, the national debt. This is probably not surprising, but after all the hoopla and all the bravado the end result is that the speed at which our fiscal apocalypse arrives is merely slowed down by a teeny weeny bit. Yet one would think that as grandma flies off the cliff with her belongings and rusty wheelchair bouncing off the jagged rocks that America is about to embark on the greatest age of austerity ever devised.
Not really. We have a budget from an individual who thought there was nothing wrong in forking over a blank check to Wall St, nothing wrong with expanding Medicare by half a trillion and nothing wrong with growing a department that Reagan's campaign promised to eliminate. We sure have come a long way, have we not?
Conclusion
So this of course begs the question, why did Romney do this? Why select a VP that will provide such easy ammunition for the Left with virtually no reward? The answer is quite simple. Romney and Ryan represent exactly the same problem even if one appears to be a moderate and the other appears to be an epic fiscal warrior. The Republican party fights for and pushes through the status-quo. The images you see up above and the Ryan record is the status-quo. No doubt about it.
Yet Romney is counting on the ignorance of Republican base to run with the facade of Ryan's conservatism. If that illusion holds then Ryan's image will invariably boost Romney's own image as many will view Romney's decision as courageous and bold despite Obama's willingness to distort Ryan's budget. In other words, you are witnessing a most fantastic and glamorous circus. A bad Hollywood movie, except that ending will be quite real and not something you can pause or turn off.
However we all know what happens when politicians threaten the sacred cows of entitlement spending. They get destroyed. Barry Goldwater was America's last libertarian-Republican candidate and he was obliterated because he dared to speak up against Social Security. Barry's loss paved the way for the great society and the invention of Medicare and Medicaid. How ironic. Poll after poll shows that Americans refuse to accept changes to entitlement programs, despite their clamoring for someone to fix our debt.
Romney and Ryan will lose in November and the image of the heartless Conservative killing granny will resonate with America, the tragedy of course is that neither Ryan or Romney are willing to actually cut anything! The tragedy will become even more amusing as we will witness a nasty and partisan fight further dividing Americans as they fight and defend differing policies with the exact same results.
Romney's campaign is ignoring the lessons of Barry Goldwater and going all-in on an individual that has consistently voted for awful legislation and whose budget is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. A move that can be summarized in one word: desperation.
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This is a hail mary on Romney's behalf. Running against SS, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. is political suicide. The dems will hit Romney over the head with this. We all know tjhe dems are full of shit like the Pubs but I don't understand this decision. The right wing was going to vote for Romney anyways but he loses the independents and galvaizes the left wing. Bad political decision.
AND ... this fuck up opens the door for a Dem majority in the House.
The bottom line is we are a nation of mooches who want something for nothing. Entitlements are like crack cocaine; no one is going to give up what they've got coming to them. The problem is that the path is unsustainable, and any one with half a brain should understand this. Romney/Ryan '12 may only be able to do so much budget cutting if they even get elected. Obama/Biden have proven they enjoy spending, as did the young retard, Bush 43.
With the ballooning budget deficits, the people of this nation will have to make some hard choices. As a nation, do we want to shrink the size of our federal government??? Or do we want to continue to spend money we do not have and borrow from future generations, knowing full well the future we leave our descendants will leave them slaves to massive debt repayment???
We continually elect representatives (of both parties), who spend like drunken sailors, all the while enriching themselves and those who can help make them even more powerful.
Bottom line is the plane is heading into the side of the mountain. Obama will get us to crash and burn slightly faster than Romney and Ryan will.
The bottom line is we are a nation of mooches who want something for nothing. Entitlements are like crack cocaine; no one is going to give up what they've got coming to them. The problem is that the path is unsustainable, and any one with half a brain should understand this. Romney/Ryan '12 may only be able to do so much budget cutting if they even get elected. Obama/Biden have proven they enjoy spending, as did the young retard, Bush 43.
With the ballooning budget deficits, the people of this nation will have to make some hard choices. As a nation, do we want to shrink the size of our federal government??? Or do we want to continue to spend money we do not have and borrow from future generations, knowing full well the future we leave our descendants will leave them slaves to massive debt repayment???
We continually elect representatives (of both parties), who spend like drunken sailors, all the while enriching themselves and those who can help make them even more powerful.
Bottom line is the plane is heading into the side of the mountain. Obama will get us to crash and burn slightly faster than Romney and Ryan will.
The problem is corporate welfare: Banks, agribus, Militray industrial complex. Start with them.
Interesting post. While I agree that the deficit must be corrected, I disagree with you regarding the problem being "entitlements". (unless of course you are referring to corporate and bank welfare.....)
First you have an ever increasing disparity between the top 1% and the rest of America. Point in case ""Today the Walton family of Walmart own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America."
Second we are witnessing a destruction of the middle class, these are the people who drive consumer spending and our economy.
Third, the real unemployment numbers rival those of the great depression
Fourth, Jobs that are available are at much lower pay, putting many people below the poverty level.
And now we come to the crux of the issue.... do we let people and children starve and become homeless so the 6 Walton Heirs can accumulate more wealth, influence and control?
John Stienbeck's insight into your (and most American's) thinking is accurate to this day....
“In the U.S., the poor regard themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
You cannot leave out "entitlements". Jobs and decent pay are most certainly an issue, but entitlements have contributed to the erosion of the kind of work ethic that made this country the powerhouse it once was.
@hardcleareye, You wrote: "And now we come to the crux of the issue.... do we let people and children starve and become homeless so the 6 Walton Heirs can accumulate more wealth, influence and control?"
Problem is the voters of America's inner cities have elected the same party to "represent" them for the past 50 or so years. These poor dumb victims elect self serving/self enriching politicos to put them in cages, give them a half assed education, and let them live like animals so that eventually children give birth to children. Still going on! Kids are shooting and killing each other over meaningless turf and issues of respect. Drugs are a pacifier and a currency to get them nowhere but prison or an early grave. The political scum bags get to have a police, sanitation, and fire fighting force that has an allegiance to the administration. Power and wealth accumulate amongst a very few.
Walmart is a model that works for the Waltons. They put every mom and pop store across the nation out of business. Their cheap prices do not allow for a an affluent work force. McDonalds is another example of a shitty American company. Just because a company has a business model that is completely evil does not mean you have to do business there.
The banks were given money in 2009 to make loans. They used the untold billions to invest in treasuries, made a few percentage points on a few hundred billion, and gave themselves bonuses. Now they use multi-trillions in customer deposits as margin money for their egregious and immoral bets. I do not use illegal because the scumbag politicians have not made this practice a felony.
The bottom line is we the people keep electing self serving scum bags to represent us. Whether we elect Obama/Biden or Romney/Ryan doesn't matter.
1. Cut defense in 1/2
2. Tax the rich more (like in the 80's)
3. After 1 and 2 are done go to work on the other issues ... Medicare, SS etc.
BUT you have to do 1 and 2 first to get any credibility before you even try 3.
Obama bot. Try cutting these Federal agenciesfirst.
There are three types of people in this world, dicks, pussies and assholes.
Dicks just want to fuck all the time.
Pussies get fucked.
And assholes just want to shit all over everyone.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2cV_q-mVAAA
There is no duo out there as far as you can see that is going to save AmeriKa from it's fate. It's over, get used to it. The People have been screwed every which way from Sunday.
thank you for calling crap on crap.....republicans are just as big government totalitarians as democrats - spend spend spend until you have to print money to spend....
i thought that romney was going to be installed as president to be the war president but with this selection of a political runt like the one mccain chose, it is very evident that romney is playing his script properly....ie do whatever you have to do to lose the election to the indonesian citizen....
americans are so fucking stupid to believe this two party crap that i don't know whether to cry or laugh....
hey they want the rest of you to believe Chris Christie is a conservative too !!!!!
hey they want the rest of you to believe Chris Christie is a conservative too !!!!!
Ron Paul's budget:
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Budget Level: Sane
Dude, nice chart system, who do you use?
Who says Romney selected Ryan? It might have been that no one else took up his offer to share the ticket with him. We just don't know
Yeah, anyone who'd want to be Pres or Veep right now is immediately suspect. Romney and Ryan give off that ora of ambition and neither seem to have much in the way of compassion. I would not be surprised if this turned out to be true: Ryan is the only one who said "yes". Pikers, Romney should have had a Cheney doing the vetting for him.
They appeal primarily to those who hate Obama (or are just severly disappointed) and Obama is beginning to look like he wants to quit.
What a show, the way this all appears.
More confirmation that REAGANOMICS is a 100% FAILURE!!!
That theory of just cutting taxes and never pay for the tax cuts is fairy tale economics.
Tax cuts is Government spending...
National Debt TRIPLED then DOUBLED under Republican Theory 1980-1992 / 2000-2008.
Bruce Bartlett, Chief Financial Advisor To Reagan, said "We made it all up"... duh!
David Stockman, Father of Reaganomics, Dir OMB, said "Republicans bankrupted America"... double duh!
Desperation? ha. The VP is the resident bozo. It doesn't matter who is VP. Just like it doesn't matter who is president. This presidential campaign is the biggest non event yet in the history of "democracy". Somehow you muppets are supposed to care about this and be deluded.
This years election is not much different than trading in the stock market. It is simply a matter of mitigating risk for reward. My friend Ron Paul unfortunately was thrown under the bus in the rigged poitical system we have (just like rigged markets). So we are all left with a decision. Which group will do the least damage?? Well only you can say. Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya?
As*hol#!s are rife in the land. Desperate? Wait untol the smoke clears.
The tragedy is not that Romney/Ryan won't make any substantive cuts, the tragedy is the farce that created the Romney-Obama matchup in the first place.
Goldwater and the nti-Communist right drove the logic of invading vietnam.
If we had stayed out of that swamp infested hellhole we would have had billions to invest into
infrastrucutre and balance the budget.
No, we would have had an even "Greater" Society.
The article's title promises to disclose why picking this guy is a sign of "desperation."
What the article is is a list of why this guy is not true to his mantra.
It's almost like the author wanted to do a hit piece on this guy but wanted to bait people in first.
It's desperate because the guy voted for Medicare D? Really?
Gotta put this in the list of "sh-t" articles that have been popping up here with greater frequency of late.
Irrespective of which "candidate" wins the "election", the vast majority of America will continue to lose. The only thing really being decided this time around is which tribal faction gets to pick the carcass clean.
If you turn off your iCircus and can stop chewing your "bread" long enough and listen carefully, in the still of the night, you can hear the raspy dying breath of Liberty.
The problem with Ryan is that he is a "Christian Taliban!"
Next time, try to ADD to the discourse, fucktard. The problem with Ryan is that the government will spend $3.8T next year, of which approximately $2T is on defense and social security and he has vowed not to touch either. That is a problem and suggests, as others have postulated, that his budget is a lie. Try harder next time, moron. This isn't DailyKos.
Pick out the Obama bot...
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. We spend more money on yogurt as elections and it shows plain plain yogurt... GEEE a balanced budget by 2040..... I'll be dead.... Lame lame lame.
This article is exactly what is wrong with America,
From what I can see, Romney's pick would simply mean more war, more debt, and more bailouts. Oh well, the MASS ARRESTS are going to CLEAN HOUSE in the very near future. There will be no more pissing on the Constitution allowed after this occurs... http://tinyurl.com/cd5cyjo/
said this many times...want to cut through the hand wringing, whinning and BS...simply cut everything by 10%...every Department, every budget, every entitlement. Do the same thing every damn year until things balance. Then term limits and a balanced budget bill with real teeth.
Gary Johnson 2012. He will be on the ballot in all 50 states. He actually addresses issues in an intelligent way.
We don't have to choose between Evil #1 and Evil #2.
Actually, it's a sign of HOPE and CHANGE. The kind we can believe in. :)
Desperate move? The voters should be in a desparate mood when they vote. If this is viewed as desperate, then you really have no clue about the dire situation the US is in financially.
To say Republicans care about fiscal sanity is nonsense, given their preoccupation with gays and forcing everyone to live by a narrow coda of social rules invented by a nomadic tribe of people in the desert thousands of years ago.
The fact is that Romney is completely unaware that the dials on an Etch-A-Sketch can also go to the *center* of the bloody thing, let alone to the left side. So he simply inhabits the two-dimensional up-and-down line on the far right margin, in wedded bliss to the TP nut-wings.
It is true that Rome once burned. My guess it would have burned twice as fast if the fire was started from both the left and right hand sides.. but that is just complete asshole speculation.
There is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats anymore beside social issues that the government shouldn't be involved in anyway. The two parties spend all their time dividing American's over the most polarizing issues they can find (abortion/gay rights/etc.) and ignoring the topics American's agree on (fixing the rigged economy / ending the wars).
Anyone still playing the fake Left vs Right game needs to wake up. Here's a hint on who's going to win the election in November... Goldman Sachs. They've already bought it.
The ruling class and their political spokesmen have figured out that the best way to win an election is to be sure you control both choices. How many times are you going to be suckered into fighting against your neighbors over which party is going to get to screw you over? Kind of hard to mount a resistance to the scam when half the country is fighting the other half isn't it?
Voting when you're only given one choice is just legitimizing the scam. What if everyone refused to vote for the "lesser of two evils"? What happens if no one votes in November? How about a campaign for "None of the Above"?
"If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it." - Mark Twain
taeonu: Great comment! I couldn't agree more. Would give you more than 1 thumbs up if I could
http://nota.org/
Regardless of whether you get Obama or Romney, the results will still be disastrous.
https://miningstockvaluator.com/
Ryan is a risky choice. Romney is risking all those votes that surely would have come from Obama supporters had he picked someone more liberal.
Been a fucktard long. Arkady?
Oh, and BTW, everyone here that is opining that it won't make any difference for whom one votes is pretty much on the button. And just because I correctly identify the author is a lefty asshat doesn't mean that I am a big Romney supporter, either. I just fucking DESPISE brainless partisans on either side of the aisle.
I'm curious how any of the above graphs could have been constructed since Obama never presented any detailed budget in the last four years-we've been running on continuing resolutions and still are. Ryan's budget actually passed the house so data for that is available. The comparison simply can't be made. However, block granting medicaid as was done in the Ryan budget is the most sensible approach to eliiminating at least one entitlement at each state's disgression. Vouchering medicare for those under 55 wouldn't affect costs for about 10 years so the question regarding future costs depends on the effect of more privitization of medical costs. However, by 2023 the cost curve would start to bend down with consumers paying more directly out of pocket. This needs to happen. Competition always lowers costs so this approach to privitization of both entitlements is a good start. I imagine if government and/or big insurance were subsidizing cell phones the way it does health care we would be paying $2000/phone instead of $200. We also need to get the government out of the student loan business so that rates can be set by the market (i.e. don't loan money to art or psychology students except at very high rates as, like Greece, you aren't likely to be repaid)
Who are the powers that Be? Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi, JP Morgan, Well Fargo, Dick Bove, Fuld, Buffett, Hank the Stank Paulson, this bank roll is the powers that be, which of course the bank roll initated from Tarp Bailouts, and the Bernankster and tax cheat Timmay, and Summers, Geinsler, Rubin and the rest of the wetdream team,
A vote for anyon except Ron Paul is a vote to keep getting ripped off.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/the-scandal-that-ends-the-obama-presidency/
So them Repubs got them a VP candidate! The way I see it the only judgement to make is not "Is this guy the best we can do" but rather, "Is this guy better than The other VP candidate. All the rest is bullshit and hyperbole.
Vice President Ryan
or
VicePresident Biden
Those are the choices. Shall we now compare and contrast ?
Holy shit! Post a "Red Meat" article, like this, to ignite a Left/Right, Blue/Red debate ... and it's attracted (4) pages of comments so far! Kinda reflects on the level of "Enlightenment" of the current crop of ZH readers posting comments. Oh well, at least most of the ZH Articles appear to be posted by Adults.
Red and Blue meat. Sad to see. These issues are about lender of last resort and spender of last resort. They both must be put back into their cages. Everything else is circus designed to distract. I am afraid the middle class does not have the time to see this until it is too late and they are no longer middle class.
I notice you're contributing to the thread, LT.