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Monday, June 02, 2008

Two Local Newspapers Approve Ryan's Roadmap

Both the Beloit Daily News and the Janeville Gazette have publicized their support for Rep. Paul Ryan and his "roadmap" plan in two editorials over the past week. The BDN editorial titled McCain-Ryan? Not a bad idea seemed like the average GOP pep-rally.
BDN Editorial:
Besides all that, Ryan is a serious lawmaker with particularly impressive credentials on key domestic issues - economics, the budget, Social Security and Medicare - which McCain has admitted are not his strong suit.
Where do they get this impression from? That's like saying a bank robber is highly qualified to be a security agent. But seriously, I would like to know WHAT Ryan's impressive credentials are on those issues? And I'm not talking about a certificate hanging on the wall.

The title of the Gazette editorial "Ryan's 'Roadmap' is a good place to start debate" is self-explanatory. It concludes on this note.
JG Editorial excerpt:
But Washington must get talking about the problems, and Ryan has provided the first word.
No he hasn’t. Hillary Clinton has been talking about health care reform since the beginning of time and Al Gore made the Social Security lock box a campaign issue in 2000. Ryan's roadmap offers a $5000 tax credit for health care, a nearly equivalent benefit contained in the democrats expansion of SCHIP. Ryan had his chance and voted against the "real" first words on reform on all of these issues.

Countless others have made attempts to adjust the tax code as well and have taken the country in the wrong direction. Just witness the Bush tax cuts and the widening gap between the rich and the poor for the past six years. Ryan’s roadmap is based on a very backward if not utterly contradictory foundation: That the country cannot afford to keep it’s obligations to Social Security and Medicare unless we introduce massive tax cuts and credits. This is the M.O. of corporate driven top-down economics of old right-wing business politics - otherwise known as the status quo.

However, Ryan and his supporters imply that the left and others who might oppose his plan are the status quo, yet claims that America is majority center-right, i.e. the status quo. You can't have it both ways.

It's really stunning if not obnoxious that Ryan’s proposal asks the lower 80% to be prepared to accept some difficult decisions and prime up for some sacrifices, while he has plenty of room for massive and costly tax cuts that are geared toward the wealthiest.

Here's an amusing anonymous comment about Paul Ryan from the Sound Off column in the Gazette.
Sound Off:
"Remarks in Sunday's Sound Off castigating Rep. Paul Ryan were offensive....." -- Anonymous
I'm assuming that was referring to this comment last week.
Sound Off:
I find it very interesting that he wants to fix what he helped create by rubber-stamping everything Bush has asked for." -- Anonymous
Well, around 90% is not everything, but I get the point. What I find more offensive is the idea that someone is not offended by Ryan's rubber-stamp voting record and even worse to imply that we should ignore it.
May 25th Sound Off:
"I don't know what Rep. Ryan is thinking, but as a Republican he's going to have very little authority in the next government." -- Anonymous
This is assuming Ryan is part of the next government. But I can't blame Ryan and his supporters for the growing sense of entitlement and cavernous narcissism. If there is any audacity in hope, this November is the time for it to show itself.

On a separate note here, also in the June 1st (Sunday) Gazette, the editor Scott Angus wrote a separate opinion piece titled, "Tax drop is good news, but lets not go too far" that offered some restrained praise for the state of Wisconsin dropping out of the top ten highest tax states for the first time since 1980. Good news for Gov. Jim Doyle. What I found revealing here was the fact that Angus's perspective on the praise apparently was not shared by the Gazette editorial staff, as the heading at the top of this editorial was "Editor's Views" instead of the "Our Views" heading at the top of their "official position" newspaper editorials. The paper is owned by a member of the WMC Board of Directors.

1 comment:

Joshua Skolnick said...

Do these clueless newspaper editorialists really think that Paul Ryan represents positive change when he really represents Bush Regime business as usual upwards redistribution of wealth politics?

What has he done to think outside of the box? Anything from him to mitigate peak oil or global warming? Convert the GM Janesville plant to producing rail cars? (GM once built trains, with peak oil we will need them again)? Offer alternatives to trickle down economics (American incomes for the lower 90% of the income distribution have fallen). No!

He is a shill for big oil, big insurance, the big shots in the hedge fund/derivatives sector, and a cheerleader for hollowing out the US manufacturing sector, and for the US automotive monoculture (despite not doing much to keep manufacturing in Janesville, I have not heard him pontificate about shuttering the GM plant).

RYAN REPRESENTS MORE OF THE SAME DISASTER CAPITALISM. The media is engaging in the same spin in favor of Ryan as they have about the manufactured "Maverick" moniker attached to McCain. It is all done as a service to those who butter their bread - big energy, big finance, insurance, and developers.

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