NEW YORK -- So much for the meme that the 2012 presidential campaign was just a content-free snarkfest of attack ads about secret offshore tax havens and failed Obama promises.
By choosing Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, Mitt Romney assures that the election contest will be in public what it already was beneath the surface: a referendum on the centrality of government social-service programs to the real lives of average Americans.
For the first time since Ronald Reagan, the (now) Tea Party-infused Republican Party is running as a full-throated foe of what the Democrats -- usually with bipartisan votes -- built over three-quarters of a century: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, federal education spending and tax credits designed to support and enhance middle-class life.
In one of the more memorable and significant Freudian slips, Romney introduced Ryan in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday morning by calling him "the next president." And in terms of ideological purity and drive, it's true. If this ticket wins, Ryan and his Randian, libertarian, anti-federal philosophy will be the beating heart of the Romney administration -- despite the Romney campaign's immediate effort to distance itself from the Ryan budget.
A generation ago, Rep. Jack Kemp of Buffalo, N.Y., Ryan's political role model, pushed the Reagan administration to adopt his plan to slash income tax rates. The "Kemp-Roth" tax cuts of 1981 were the result. It began a 30-year-long era of starving the Treasury in the name of spurring private spending. Democratic sages such as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) accused the GOP of having a deeper motive: to force a reduction in the size of the "welfare" state by denying it funds.
Instead, administrations of both parties have borrowed money and essentially kept the Social State intact.
Now the issue is: Do we keep it and pay for it? Or dismantle it and end modern government as we know it?
The central concept of the Ryan budget is the direct descendant of Jack Kemp's original thinking: give people a direct (and easily limited) cash grant for social services and let them shop for them on their own, or invest the money on their own. Kemp managed to get the idea enshrined into a housing voucher program at HUD, where he was secretary.
The experiment ended badly.
Now it's back, and a hundred times the size.
In part because of Ryan's budget -- endorsed by the GOP in the House and, in general terms, by Romney -- and in part because of hard times in the economy, the president's campaign long ago became, at its core, a defense of the Social State as we know it.
In a tough economic climate, he says, the last thing we can afford to do is dismantle the existing machinery of defined-benefit guarantees in Social Security, Medicare and other programs.
Ryan, and now Romney, are now saying just the opposite: that in tough times we can't afford not to dismantle that machinery, so taxes can be kept low or cut further.
That's the essence of what the election is about. It always was. Now it's out in the open. The functional question is: Which party will have the mandate -- and control of Congress -- to decide the final outcome of the debate?
Follow Howard Fineman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/howardfineman
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Manufacturing is on the rise, & 4.5 million jobs have returned in 4 years. If they had passed Obama's jobs bill, just imagine how low unemployment would truly be. Obama had to cut the jobs bill up in itty bitty pieces to help the vets. GOP wouldn't dare vote no on Vets. Now when they come home, they're able to take advantage of getting jobs, businesses getting tax breaks when hiring vets, & the expanded GI bill which provides better education for the vets & their families.
Romney wants to take away Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Obviously you missed that part as well as other vital information! R/R wants to privatize everything, which will extort the hard working Americans monies only for their fat cats. You think things are bad now, you have no idea what you're wishing for if you want to return to the Bush Era, only this time it will be much worse.
I wonder if it's because I was mildly, but respectfully critical of President Obama or mildly but respectfully critical of Howard Fineman?
It's strange ..just as I typed Republican party it seemed somewhat ludicrous..like that party as I knew it ...just does not exist anymore. It's a misnomer now.
They want to starve the unfortunate to death. The New Christian Way.
And the nation is lucky he did.
The 2008 crash would have spurred poor houses like they had in Great Britain in the 1800s.
We have all heard this :" When my union friend retired he had a pension and health plan after his forty years of service. When my corporate employee friend retired he got a gold watch."
Ryan plan eliminates the gold watch at the end of service, because there will be no end of service. "Work all day for low pay or no pay(subsistence wages), all the time, all your life." Some credit to final statement goes to John Cloud.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996169,00.html
A lot of brave people fought for the rights that the Right Wing takes for granted. The people who vote for the Romneys of this world will one day wake up and find out they aren't welcome at the banquet - but it will be too late.
for the last 12 years. Sure looks like that doesn't work!
Austerity doesn't work - see UK and Greece.
Pass the budget put forward by the Progressive caucus.
No increases in Pentagon spending + enforce the "buy American" provision.
Raise the minimum wage to $10.
This is an interesting assessment of Ryan's budget plan and free market plans for medicare from the Washington Post. Health care may not be immune from free-market principles, but we don't necessarily want to treat health care the way we treat normal markets. Here's the thing about markets: Lots of people can't afford to participate in them. That's usually okay. If you can't buy a television, you'll watch less TV. If you can't buy a car, you'll take the bus. But health care isn't like that. As a society, we don't think it's okay when people can't participate in the market for treatments for, say, Parkinson's disease. The way markets deal with scarcity is by pricing some things out of reach. Are we comfortable with life-saving treatments being out of financial reach for the people who need them? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020504796.html
Romney, in his heart, meant to do the right thing in MA.
NOW, his soul has been poisoned by the Tea Party, he can't embrace it any longer.
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This is an interesting assessment of Ryan's budget plan and free market plans for medicare from the Washington Post.
Health care may not be immune from free-market principles, but we don't necessarily want to treat health care the way we treat normal markets. Here's the thing about markets: Lots of people can't afford to participate in them. That's usually okay. If you can't buy a television, you'll watch less TV. If you can't buy a car, you'll take the bus. But health care isn't like that. As a society, we don't think it's okay when people can't participate in the market for treatments for, say, Parkinson's disease. The way markets deal with scarcity is by pricing some things out of reach. Are we comfortable with life-saving treatments being out of financial reach for the people who need them?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020504796.html
I sure as hell don't.
They want a dog-eat-dog world, and guess what? The deck is already stacked against you. The really big dogs already have all of the wealth. You have nothing in comparison and if they have their way, you never will. If you let them, they'll be coming for what little you have because they are never satisfied. This sort of greed is a disease. It ate their souls. There is nothing left but darkness. Let's NOT got there.
Obama/Biden 2012
Thank you. I've been appalled for a long time at the vastness of the wealth being accumulated by so very few .
There is just no reason for the drastic increases in prices across the board. Costs haven't increased in comparison and wages certainly haven't.
We've been robbed.
The main thing that is hurting Ryan is his horrible political record in the do nothing 112th Congress; the most useless Congress in American history. And he wholeheartedly advocated blocking and standing in the way of every piece of legislation in the House of Representatives. How can he stand on a podium and tell people that what he will do is better? He can't. And he has proven in the past two years already that he can't.
I say stick a fork in him. He's well done and it's over.
Obama/Biden 2012!
Vulture/Voucher 1040s!