Paul Ryan Blew a Golden Opportunity

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As a self-described critic and observer of Congressman Paul Ryan, I can appreciate that he did not grandstand his class-war lemon "roadmap" on national TV. Of course if he had, he would not have only come across as the flim-flam man some folks believe that he is, but viewers would have assumed that republicans have a plan. I suspect party advisers knew how the public would react to it and nixed the idea.

In retrospect however, Ryan blew it. He had the rare chance few people get in politics to clear the air about his own reckless spending, job killing legislative positions and deficit ballooning tax policies. He chose not to. He could have explained to everyone in plain English how we got to this point. He could have said that although he doesn't agree with the President, he could have related how the economic stimulus worked but may come up short in some communities not because of poor intentions, but because the wounds inflicted over the past twelve years are much deeper than anyone thought. He did not. He could have suggested that members of both parties in congress would do well to drop the hyper-partisan vernacular and come together for the good of the government and the nation. He did not. He could have identified his own personal ideological hang-ups of liberalism vs conservatism, rich vs poor, left vs right, individualism vs. collectivism, democrats vs republicans, private vs public, trickle-up vs trickle-down, gays vs straight, up vs down and on and on. He did not. He could have said that he is making a personal commitment to lead a new way not built on party surrender or blind cooperation, but on a path of solving our budget problems without the conflict of those unnecessary obstacles. He did not. He could have said we’ll win or lose elections based on our wide party and ideological differences, but we will solve our problems as Americans. He did not.

As a nation, we need to cut costs in health care any which way we can. We need to produce a balanced budget sooner rather than later and protect our jobs, the golden years safety nets and the economically disadvantaged. This is a matter of life or death for many, it is a crisis - but instead Ryan has applied his ideological hang-ups as the core foundation to obstruct the policies of those he opposes. Ironically it is Ryan, the new budget director, who is working the numbers not with basic math and common sense but with an ideological calculator.

Paul Ryan had the golden opportunity to transcend the bitter and divisive electioneering of career politics and show America a new and different generation of fresh and bold leaders. He did not. He had the chance to prove me and many others wrong about his party politics and his person. Unfortunately, he did not.

Related: Paul Ryan is not who you think

Walker Pledge To Norquist Combined With Class War Budget Will Devastate Wisconsin

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This has been on my radar for a few weeks since I developed a Reaffirmation Pledge to the Constitution for members of Congress to sign. I'm now working on a similar page for state governors and legislators to consider.

On the federal budget side, Norquist's ominous taxpayer pledge acts as a catalyst forcing Republicans in Congress to borrow for budget and spending needs instead of laying taxes to raise the revenue as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. This has resulted in a long string of annual deficits eventually accumulating into a massive $15 trillion mountain of debt.

The Pledge to Norquist however has a slightly different effect on governors and state legislators since states cannot print money or operate continuously on borrowed debt. Instead, it forces those governors to raid any source of revenue under governor or state control.

An astute letter writer to the Leader Telegram recently picked up on Gov. Scott Walker's "we're broke" mantra and tied it into his pledge to Grover Norquist to justify decimating public services and public education.

Leader Telegram Letter Excerpt:
The beauty of this strategy is that it works. When public services are underfunded, the public is angry that services aren't provided and they demand further cuts or privatization. When public schools are underfunded, quality of education suffers and parents put their kids in private schools, which are now receiving taxpayer assistance through vouchers.

Meanwhile, Walker flies, at taxpayer expense, around the state touting his budget cuts while receiving his health care and pension on the taxpayers' dime. Occasionally, he lands in the state Capitol and signs into law legislation that funnels more government giveaways to his corporate cronies, while the poor schmucks teaching our kids and the snowplow driver clearing our streets are one budget cut away from losing their jobs. It's time to close the Norquistian bathroom door by recalling Walker.

E.W. from Eau Claire

So, what the Norquist Pledge means to Wisconsin to put it another way, is that any time Walker needs additional revenue for his WEDC slush fund, campaign contributors, ideological projects or any additional state spending, whether legitimate, emergency or otherwise, is that he will never have to raise that revenue the old-fashioned way by raising taxes. Norquist forbids it. Instead, he will loot education treasuries, anti-poverty programs and public employee's pensions and benefits just like he did the first time with his class war budget act, cut state aid to communities and then tell them they could fill their budget hole with unnegotiated-for (stolen) employee capital compensation (tools). This is also another reason why Walker applies for every dime from the federal government the state is eligible for - the federal government is just another source of revenue to raid in his view.

State budget dollar amounts will likely never be cut, instead they will grow from inflation and increased costs and made to balance using government service's funds and public employee wage and benefit compensation to refill the kitty. This means no program or employee is sacred unless deemed absolutely necessary to fulfill their ideological mission.

Locally, we will be be paying more because local school boards and municipalities wanting to maintain the same level of service will have to find the revenue Walker extracted from them OR make the choice for a controlled decline. Either way, the public will only grow angrier and local officials will be the bogeyman. This is the scheme in a nutshell.

The ramifications of Act 10 combined with Norquist's irresponsible and anti-constitutional pledge makes for a devastating weapon for unprincipled opponents to defeat. This I believe is the right-wing's ideological calculator designed to mismanage and destabilize government enough to drown it in a bath tub. While this is happening, an uninformed public will only grow angrier demanding more tax cuts, government vouchers and privatization.

This I believe could feed onto itself and bring the entire U.S. government down ushering in a long era of single-class serfdom and fascist-run capitalism.

Never Forget Paul Ryan's Struggle To Destroy Social Security And Medicare

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For the sake of not rehashing this story from the National Catholic Weekly about a Paul Ryan speech at the Atlas Society’s "Celebration of Ayn Rand" event, I'll just touch on a couple of my immediate thoughts drawn from the article.

Although some of Ryan's statements in the story have been public knowledge for some time, I think most will find the added transcripts amazing considering they are from 2005 and how Ryan's "Shrugging" words back then closely match his rhetoric on the campaign trail today despite recently claiming an estrangement to Ayn Rand's world view.

You'll even find the reason as to why Mitt Romney believes 47 percent of Americans are moochers and victims and why Ryan thinks Romney's only mistake was that he was obviously inarticulate making his 47 percent point, but he still stands by the message. The truth is, Ryan and Romney are both class warfare-breathing demagogues who are willing to divide the population in an effort to win over more converts to their Atlas Shrugged world view.

America, The National Catholic Weekly Excerpt:
This philosophy leaves no room for Catholic notions of Government in service to the common good, there is no room for a social conception of the human person.

In several previous blog postings, I’ve described Ryan’s budget and debt solutions as being tabulated using an ideological calculator. We know when government collects $3 trillion in revenue but has $3.5 trillion in bills, simple arithmetic would show we’re $500 billion short.

So let’s put all our heads together and come up with a balanced plan to A.) generate more revenue and B.) make some spending cuts, and continue to adjust accordingly. Let’s burn the debt crisis candle at both ends to double-time the speed to solvency. The American people get that.

That’s what Bill Clinton was talking about at the DNC. It's arithmetic and common sense. But in walks Paul Ryan with his one-man plan largely extrapolated from a fictional novel and tabulated with Norquist-pledged trickle-down Laffer curve voodoo economics. There’s no math calculator and no real numbers showing any additional revenue or cuts. It’s simply a sales-pitch he tells that uses a projected debt crisis to transform not only government but our entire contemporary American society into something completely cold, dark and alien.

Not long ago, Ryan actually called this personal mission to deconstruct the constitutional role of government “his struggle” and repeatedly claims we have excessive collectivism, this coming from a man whose policies and principles have played a significant role in legislating more than half of the nation's debt. Indeed, a sure sign of excessive collectivism would be excessively large surpluses. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

As a nation, I believe we need an adult conversation about balancing a budget using simple math, not someone who wants to add and subtract using arguments and abstracts for personal responsibility, individualism vs collectivism, public vs private, the concept of subsidiarity, church vs state, God-given rights, hammocks, upward mobility and the morality of capitalism - but no numbers and no math. We want to balance a budget and solve a debt crisis and Paul Ryan is trying to solve the crisis in Atlas Shrugged.

WTF??

Recommended: Secret Ryan Transcript: Social Security and Medicare are the Target

April Fools Day - Where's The GOP's 2012 Annual Budget?

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Although many in the mainstream news media including Rep. Paul Ryan himself calls his ideologically driven class war plan Path To Prosperity a "budget," the proposal is little more than a report from his fictional "Roadmap For America's Future" spun into a congressional resolution to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid. It contains no breakdown of current and expected income revenue or expenditures for the FY 2012. Instead he continues to use an ideological calculator in drawing made-up numbers to fill tables of projections to 2020 and more charts showing projections to 2080. The fact is, Ryan cannot produce an annual government budget that would satisfy his Oil/Insurance/Wall Street masters without first dismantling these coveted safety nets

It should also be noted that "adult conversation" Ryan begins his phony budget debate by lobbing bombs at Democrats. On Fox News during a preview to his "budget" unveiling, Ryan said Democrats "will lie and demonize" his proposal.

Republican Congress Signals Shrinkage - S&P Downgrades U.S.

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The handwriting was on the wall.

Some excerpts from the S&P statement:

Think Progress Excerpt:

[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

[...]Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

This is a damning indictment of the ideological calculator Republicans and their Tea Party mutants signed up for when they superceded their oath of office by pledging to nitwit norquist never to raise tax revenues under any circumstances. The message is clear to the S&P. Why can’t others see it?

As long as these sloven miscreants remain uncompromising on tax revenues, the outlook on the long-term rating will remain negative. The more they cut spending, the more they signal shrinkage. Like everything else lacking in government today, we needed a "balanced approach" of cuts and revenue for growth and to get the budget and debt on solid footing.

Michael Moore was right. America is awash in money. Even the S&P knew we had to start pumping it out of areas that are beyond floodstage in order to wet the seeds of job growth laying in drought.