Mitt Romney says a lot of things on the campaign trail, many of which turn out to have no relationship with the truth. But in selecting Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Romney made a statement as clear, unequivocal and truthful as he's made since announcing his run for the presidency: No matter what he says for the next nearly three months, the only path he genuinely cares about following should he be elected president is to pursue a far-right economic policy that cares only about the success of the wealthy and corporations, and takes no account on the outcome for all other Americans. Because in selecting Ryan, in effect, Romney can be saying nothing else
Romney's severe 1920s business conservatism has always been his core belief as a politician, even beyond his Mormon faith. That's why he so easily flip-flops on so many issues. He doesn't really care about abortion, gun control, immigration, stem cells, foreign policy or even health care reform, so it was easy to take whatever position was politically expedient at the time. To Romney, these issues are just obstacles he's forced to address so he can gain power and pursue his corporate-centric, Bain Capital agenda.
Which brings us back to Romney's choice of Ryan as his running mate. Romney is making his statement loud and clear: He doesn't care about the middle class. He doesn't care about women's rights. He doesn't care about those who aren't doing as well in the current economy. He only cares about cutting taxes for the wealthy, cutting spending and providing an environment for the rich to get richer while income inequality gets worse, the middle class continues to collapse and the ranks of the unemployed and working poor swell to Hoover-era levels. In embracing Ryan, he is casting his lot with a public figure who has aggressively fought to redistribute wealth upward, from the working and middle classes to the very wealthiest.
After all, that set of values is exactly what Ryan is all about. Republicans might want to sell him as practical or intellectual, but he is nothing more than someone who Nate Silver documented as the most conservative VP nominee of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is nowhere near the mainstream, even (especially) on non-economic issues. This is a man who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand, gave a thousand dollars to Tom DeLay's defense fund, and supports fetal personhood (a concept so fringe it was voted down by the people of Mississippi), which would ban certain types of birth control.
In short, Ryan holds the positions of a right-wing extremist who poses a threat to basic American values that have sustained the people of this country for the last 80 years (and the welfare of lower, working and middle class Americans, not to mention the basic rights of women), tucked neatly behind a pleasant looking facade. Don't believe me? Okay, how about listening to Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who, as reported by Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic, called Ryan's budget:
"Robin Hood in reverse -- on steroids. It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any
other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation's history)."
This is the guy Romney chose to run by his side. Why? It's all about Ryan's far-right economic values, which match those of Romney. In April 2011 Ryan's proposed budget (which was passed by the GOP-controlled House) included provisions to phase out Medicare, drastically cut taxes for the wealthy (beyond the levels of the Bush tax cuts), raise taxes on the middle class, and gut a range of programs meant to aid the working and lower classes (62 percent of his cuts hit these vulnerable Americans, including things like cutting Pell grants). After an epic backlash (and some GOP losses in races in which Democrats ran against Ryan's plan to end Medicare, including a special election for the House in New York's GOP-leaning 26th district in 2011), Ryan revised his Medicare plan, this time turning it into a voucher system (rather than guaranteed insurance) that would leave millions of seniors without adequate health care, as well as turning Medicaid into a block grant system that would, according to a study funded by the Kaiser Foundation, leave 14 million to 27 million Americans who currently receive care without health insurance. Oh, and of course, Ryan supports the privatization of Social Security.
Robin Hood in reverse, indeed.
(Paul Krugman was in early on the dangers of Ryan's policy positions, expertly exposing Ryan's lies in a 2010 column that demonstrated how awful Ryan's policies would be for the middle class.)
The only reason for Romney to choose Ryan is that he agrees with Ryan's economic policy ambitions. There is no other explanation. Tapping Ryan was clearly not a strategic choice. While Marco Rubio might have helped attract voters in Florida (as well as Latinos in other states), and Rob Portman may have been helpful in the key swing state of Ohio, Ryan's value in his home state is virtually zero, since the only way Romney wins Wisconsin is if it's part of a massive landslide. Other than making some in Romney's right-wing base happy (and they were going to vote for him anyway, since they hate the president so much), Ryan doesn't deliver a single electoral vote to Romney. And as Ryan's out-of-the-mainstream, sure-to-be-unpopular positions make their way to the American people, he will be a hurdle for Romney to overcome in attracting moderate voters, not a candidate who helps deliver votes. (The ads targeted at seniors informing them of Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it virtually write themselves.)
No, the only explanation for Romney's selection of Ryan is that he actually agrees with his positions on economic issues (which is all Romney really cares about). That is the takeaway from Romney's pick. And that is the reveal of the selection: Romney is telling the American people, loudly and clearly, what he believes in. And if you're not a member of the wealthy elite, a Romney-Ryan administration will be devastating for you.
Of course, the rhetoric coming from the Romney-Ryan camp for the rest of the campaign will all be about helping the middle class get jobs and improving the life of ordinary Americans. But don't believe these lies (and they are lies) for one second. Ryan's record (it's hard to pin a "record" on Romney, since he has been on both sides of so many issues aside from his business conservatism) demonstrates exactly what a Romney-Ryan administration would do in power, and it would be an utter disaster for anyone not in the top two percent of wealth in the U.S. In announcing Ryan as his pick, Romney made the laughably dishonest claim that he and Ryan would "protect Medicare and Social Security." If by "protect" he means eliminate the popular programs and replace them with vastly inferior versions under the same name, then yeah, he wants to protect them. The disconnect between what the Romney-Ryan ticket says it wants as outcomes and the policies it advances will be massive.
By picking Ryan, Romney is telling the American people what they can really expect if he wins: The end of Medicare as we know it, the privatization of Social Security, massive tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class, and a general approach to governing that considers the wealthy and corporations first, and everyone else not at all. That is Romney's true religion. And by choosing Ryan, he has decided to run for the White House with the very symbol of these far-right economic policies.
Romney's choice of Ryan speaks far louder than any (usually dishonest) words that have come from his mouth. Let's hope the American people are listening.
Follow Mitchell Bard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MitchellBard
Deborah Weinstein: Just the Facts: Obama's Welfare-to-Work Plan
That is like Eisenhower naming George Marshall VP in 1952 while "distancing himself" from the historic Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII, steering it toward democratic capitalism and a top trading partner.
And it will be no more credible.
What this is about is Romney trying to straddle that vast gulf between the far-right GOP base that adores Ryan and the moderate voters that Romney needs (and is already losing).
So Romney 1) picks Ryan to grab the base (done), then, 2) disowns Ryan's crazy ideas to try to not further offend the moderates (by no means done).
I don't see how this will work. McCain tried the same thing with Palin -- and, crazy as it sounds, the GOP is even more extreme now than then. People outside the GOP generally don't like, trust or believe Romney. And this latest set of dance moves is not going to get many fans, especially when Team Obama lays into Romney/Ryan as the beginning of the end of the social-welfare role of government.
...should have read. "CONTINUE to redistribute wealth upward". It's been going on for 30 years beginning under Reagan.
As far as Medicare and Social Security goes, the 1% don't need. They're rich enough that they don't need it.
Q: Mr Ryan, what role, if any, should the federal government play in assuring the welfare of its citizens? Please be specific.
Q: As a followup, you've called Progressivism a "cancer." Does that mean that you wish to eliminate its manifestations -- such as the anti-trust laws, income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and federal oversight of food, drug and worker safety -- essentially most of what Americans think of as modern government and society?
Mitt the artful dodger made a suitable choice pandering to extremist right wing radicals of his party. Ever notice how the GOP rallies are made up almost entirely of white folks, mostly older white males? No wonder that the activist GOP-packed SCOTUS' democracy-corrupting Citizens United decision gave the rich and rich corporations the opportunity to flood campaigns with unlimited, usually anonymous funding to buy elections and have waged a nationwide voter suppression effort since there are just not enough bigoted, poorly-educated, usually older white males and those making over $100,000 per year to carry the day.
He has said we are on the edge of a fiscal cliff because of healthcare inflation.
Add to that entitlements.
On these things he will remain "on message", deceiving many along the way.
To complete the deception he will have also to promote the idea that war profiteers and obsolete weapons systems way over schedule and budget must continue to come down the pipeline.
A little discussed cornerstone of his vaunted but fraudulent plan is the EXPANSION of the Military budget, while of course at the same time cutting social services of all kinds.
The hell with infrastructure and education. The Private Sector has performed marvelously in those arena he would have us believe; similar to their stellar achievements on Wall St.
The Republicans certainly have appointed someone who stays on message, but it is an extreme message.
Even Republicans favor withdrawal from Afghanistan at this stage and the amnesiac American electorate too, though experiencing no remorse for immorally and wastefully destroying three nations in 4 decades pointlessly, might be wary of more blustery Republican jingoism.
And yet Ryan and his party will attempt to impose a belief that we can ENFORCE stability and Democracy with an even larger military, which already is obscenely spread all over the world.
It's real purpose being to protect American Corporate interests and nothing else.
Here is what The Ryan/Romney/Republican Budget has to offer.
PROPOSED CUTS:
$650 Billion - Special Ed, student aid assistance for poor schools
$310 Billion - National Institute of Heath
$100 Billion - Centers for disease control and FDA
$98 Billion - Head start and child care programs
$47 Billion - Energy grants to help poor families afford heat
$20 Billion - Job training for the unemployed
$11 Billion - After school tutoring programs
EXEMPT FROM CUTS:
$690 Billion - Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%
$321 Billion - Itemized deductions for top bracket taxpayers
$129 Billion - Subsidies for foreign profits
$97.5 Billion - Subsidies for business inventories
$44 Billion - Subsidies for oil and gas companies
$21.4 Billion - Carried Interest loophole for hedge fund managers
$10 Billion - Tax break on loans for vacation homes and yachts
1. Jesus for the afterlife & things like prayer.
2. Ayn Rand on Earth & things like budgets. Economic Libertarian = Social Darwinism.
I don't beleive that Mittens believes strongly in anything OTHER than that it would be cool to be president. His whole persona to me reflects an attitude of entitlement, that he should be president "just because". The sorry competitors offered up in the republican primary, each with their own crippling weaknesses further bolstered this attitude and he's had a free ride so far.
Maybe, but if it is a fact that Ryan brings zero political gain to the campaign, other than to fire-up an extremist base that already is going to vote for Romney, then it becomes easy for me to believe that Ryan does in fact represent Romney's economic point-of-view.
Clearly the right has decided that they will have better luck trying to max out turnout of people who will vote republican if they vote at all rather than trying to win the votes of people who will vote but haven't decided who for yet.
Unlike the democrats who can actually put forth policy and positions that appeal to both their own people and the independants, Republicans seem to have painted themselves into a corner where it is an either/or proposal and it is impossible to appeal to both.
The President is the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in history, the VP his understudy. That's the job they're applying for. You are suckers if you let them make this election about the budget and the economy, over which they have no control.
Then, as Norquist said, all they need is a president to provide the working digits to sign whatever extreme budgets Congress passes. Filibusters can stop reconciliation bills/budgets as far as I know.
Beyond that, if Congress is GOP, it can be expected to defer to Romney to make him look good to some extent (they sure did with Bush).
So you're technically right about Congress passing budgets. But the political interconnected realities bear watching.
You can tell it's Romney's flop sweat, because Ryan might boost him a point or two, but it FORCES every Senator and Representative to have to say .....if they SUPPORT or DON'T SUPPORT the Ryan Plan...poisoning their campaign, and Giving Dems the HOUSE.
Enlightened self-interest is grounded in the realization that all things are indeed interconnected, and that we are living beings within a larger living web of life. Whatever we do to any aspect of that web, we therefore do to ourselves. Elevate and support others and steward the environment with reverence, and the web blossoms. Denigrate and deny others, and exploit the environment for short-term personal pleasure, and the web suffers. When we know ourselves to be occupants OF the web, the pointlessness of selfish self-interest becomes apparent and is discarded as childish and silly. When we don't know that, we behave like children, demanding that the "me" get whatever it wants with no regard for life, health, safety, family, community or environment.
I've read Ayn Rand essays and come to the same conclusion: a pseudo-philosophy that boils down to "greed is good" -- and we should remember that Scrooge was the *villain* in the story, of whom Ayn Rand would make a hero. What rubbish!
The tragedy is that an entire political party (GOP) and political movement (conservatism) would endorse this shallow, greed-based, anti-social philosophy on their presidential ticket.