Ryan is too radical and outside the mainstream for America. Many millions of working-age Americans would lose health insurance. Senior citizens would anguish over whether to pay their rent or their medical bills, in a way they haven’t since the 1960s. Government would be so starved of resources that, by 2050, it wouldn’t have enough money for core functions like food inspections and highway maintenance. And the richest Americans would get a huge tax cut. This is the America that Paul Ryan envisions. And now we know that it is the America Mitt Romney envisions. Six Things to Know About Ryan (and Romney's) vision for America 1. Ryan really believes in ending Medicare as we know it. The essential promise of Medicare, ever since its establishment in 1965, is that every senior citizen is entitled to a comprehensive set of medical benefits that will protect him or her from financial ruin. The government provides these benefits directly, through a public insurance program, although seniors have the right to enroll in comparable private plans if they choose. But the key is that guarantee of benefits, and it’s what Ryan would take away. He would replace it with a voucher, whose value would rise at a pre-determined formula unlikely to keep up with actual medical expenses. 2. Ryan really believes in ending Medicaid as we know it. Like Medicare, Medicaid is effectively a guarantee: It’s a promise to the states that, as long as they offer Medicaid and contribute their share, the federal government will enough money to cover everybody who is eligible for the program, no matter how many people it is. It’s also a promise to individual Medicaid recipients, that the insurance they receive will be sufficiently comprehensive to cover any service they might need—plus some extra services, such as lead screening for children, that are particularly critical for low-income Americans. 3. Ryan really pushed for privatization of Social Security. From Ryan Lizza’s profile of Ryan in the New Yorker: Ryan and other conservative leaders, among them Senator John Sununu, of New Hampshire, wanted to be sure that Bush returned to [privatization] in 2005. Under Ryan’s initial version, American workers would be able to invest about half of their payroll taxes, which fund Social Security, in private accounts. As a plan to reduce government debt, it made no sense. It simply took money from one part of the budget and spent it on private accounts, at a cost of two trillion dollars in transition expenses. But, as an ideological statement about the proper relationship between individuals and the federal government, Ryan’s plan was clear. 5. Ryan really does want the biggest transfer of wealth, from poor and middle class to rich, in modern U.S. history. Forgive the long direct quote, but this statement from Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is something that every single reporter covering the campaign should read—and that every American planning to vote should understand: The new Ryan budget is a remarkable document — one that, for most of the past half-century, would have been outside the bounds of mainstream discussion due to its extreme nature. In essence, this budget is 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). … Specifically, the Ryan budget would impose extraordinary cuts in programs that serve as a lifeline for our nation’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and over time would cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their health insurance or become underinsured. It would also impose severe cuts in non-defense discretionary programs—much deeper than the across-the-board cuts ("sequestration") that are scheduled to take place starting in January — thereby putting core government functions at still greater risk. Indeed, a new Congressional Budget Office analysis that Chairman Ryan himself requested shows that, after several decades, the Ryan budget would shrink the federal government so dramatically that most of what it does outside of Social Security, health care, and defense would essentially disappear. Yet alongside these extraordinary budget cuts, with their dismantling of key parts of the safety net, the budget features stunning new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. These tax cuts would come on top of the average tax cut of more than $125,000 a year that the Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimates that people who make over $1 million a year will receive if — as the Ryan budget also proposes —policymakers make all of President Bush’s tax cuts permanent. Ryan believes all of these things. Romney does too. Is this the future a majority of American voters want? Over the next few months, we’ll find out. 6. Ryan really holds an extreme position on abortion rights, even relative to other conservatives. I didn't grasp this until I learned, via twitter, that he’d co-sponsored a bill declaring that life begins at fertilization and defining fertilization as “the process of a human spermatozoan penetrating the cell membrane of a human oocyte to create a human zygote, a one-celled human embryo, which is a new unique human being.”
What's the problem space ghost? These are facts. Facts that cannot be disputed. It is the vision Ryan and Romney have for the country. Both have called for debating the issues America is concerned about. So let's have it.
Exactly -- a total waste of time when he just mindless copies & pastes left wing attacks. These adolescent scare tactics are making Obama look small -- far smaller than the Office of the President should look. Isn't it time to have an adult discussion of our debt crisis? Do the American people want this incessant negativity that is emanating from Obama's campaign? Or do they want solutions and practical answers to our problems? Romney's vote is on the latter, and they will provide a sharp contrast versus Obama. The contrast: Romney: A vision for a better America. Practical solutions to restoring our economy and creating jobs. Obama: Failed policies that he won't talk about. Scare tactics and negative attack ads to tear down his opponent. You pick.
How does Ryan's plan build a better America? I remind the conservatives on the board again, that their vision of macroeconomics is severely limited. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/b...has-industry-pulling-back.html?pagewanted=all way to rag on the almighty job creators---with piss-poor policy choices.
Let's deal with facts then. Medicare is quickly going broke. If it is not reformed in a meaningful way, it will collapse under its own weight. Medicare as we know it will end in the next decade either throu it's reform or it's financial failure. I would prefer to reform it than see it disappear and leave those who depend on it with a bag full of nothing.
Medicare only looks like it's going to go broke because the private sector blew up in 2008. People keep on crying wolf over the deficit, even as their figures are wildly out of wack. People that claim, for example, that healthcare spending will account for x% of GDP in 2020 (for Christ's sake) are charlatans at best. It doesn't account for exogenous growth shocks (peak oil? economic recovery?), and the general fact that beyond a few quarters, GDP growth predictions are about as reliable as a crack addict. You can be damn sure the projections will be leaning the right way if the deficit hawks have their way towards negative growth, though. In any case---the "solvency" of Medicare is a moot issue. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbarro/2012/04/11/why-you-should-ignore-the-medicare-trust-fund/
I deserve that. That's what I get for posting early Sunday morning without coffee. anyway Mr Obama has been doing this for three years now. Reforming healthcare, 24 straight months of job growth, the most domestic oil production in a generation, saving Detroit and the auto industry, this is just the start.
I know right? An 8 point lead in the polls is really scary. I wish it was something like 10-15 then we might be able to catch our breath again. Then again, as President Al Gore can attest the polls mean nothing.. This is the problem with politics. You defend your viewpoint it makes you look weak and scared. You say nothing and it makes you look spineless. There's no winning on either side of the issue, and it goes both ways for both parties. I do have one question for you, if Romney's dad was born in Mexico, why aren't the liberals calling for Mitt's birth certificate? Come on, we should get on this. I think that's what his taxes are really hiding..
"reform" sounds nice. Don't fall for the spin. Here you have folks like Ryan who want to end it. There are ways to reform it without ending it and they don't want those types of actual reform. Conservatives voted in block against medicare and social security from the beginning. Maybe you don't know it but once you turn a universal benefit for all, rich and poor into a welfare or income based program the wealthy stop supporting it and then its quality and political suport for the program dies and you can kill it. The opponents of social security and medicare know this well and that is why they want to turn it into a means tested program. In addition of course the financial and health insurance industries are lobbying like crazy to privatize these programs so they can make big bucks by selling health insurance and financial instruments to seniors as replacements for social security medicare. Surely that isnt' too diffficult to understand their fiancial motivation understandably spun as "reform"? Maybe you don't understand Ayn Randianism. They just dont care if nothing replaces it- or at best they believe naively in the market like some of the more naive libertarians on the board. If old folks don't have any money to demand medical care then the market will drop the price to next to nothing. Doesn't work that way. Poor old folks just won't have access to health care. This is not speculation. Try reading about the access to health care of poor seniors prior to Medicare or the poverty rate among seniors prior to social security.
The system is unsustainable, no question. But lets get one thing straight. Simpson-Bowles was an attempt at reform (even if I have plenty of issues with it) The Ryan plan is straight up right wing deconstruction of government under the guise of "refor.m" It will do nothing to reduce the deficit and instead will balloon it even further by gutting programs that the poor and middle class rely on to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. It is the most blatant attempt by Republicans to dismantle the government in history and we should stop using words like "bold" and "courageous" to describe this monstrosity. I'm one of those people that wasn't opposed to the idea of a grand bargain and truly believe that we probably have to make changes to social security and medicare but the Republican efforts at "reform" are simply efforts to eliminate these programs.
Glynch, I see what you are getting at. While Medicare for all sounds great on paper, there are huge practical problems with it. The largest problem? There is a growing number of doctors that will no longer take Medicare patients. Why? Frankly, they lose money on Medicare patients. The doctors receive a constantly decreasing payout from Medicare, and the costs involved in reimbursement constantly increase. If a gifted student who is interested in becoming a doctor knows they will lose money on every patient, they will choose a different career path. As there is already a shortage of doctors, we can ill afford to steer people away from becoming doctors. If we could devise a system that would ensure a fair and timely wage to the docs without becoming too expensive to sustain, I am all ears. Sadly, simple math tells me that such a system is highly unlikely.
This, to me, smacks of the same hyperbole as the right claiming that Obama was having the government take over health care and instituting death panels.
Show me the math that the Ryan plan reduces the deficit in anyway. Painful cuts without reducing the deficit make zero sense. There hasn't been a shred of evidence that it would do anything. You cant cut spending all over the place and then subsequently cut more taxes to eviscerate any of the gains you made. Even European austerity measures haven't been as crazy as the Ryan Plan Simpson-Bowles actually has some math that points to a level of deficit reduction. The Ryan plan has none of that.
I'm sick and tired of telling the 99% what's good for them. So I'm giving in to the dark side. Lower my taxes, keep a strong military to defend me from the peasant revolts, I mean, domestic terrorists, and get rid of abortion (and contraception while we're at it) to keep the poor poor and more labor force for me. Muwhahahahahaha.... At least it's a coherent vision.
Obama's plan? No budget in 4 years, over trillion dollar budgets each year and as far as the eye can see, stagnant economy, stagnant job creation, higher taxes, more regulation, more litigation. No wonder he wants the media to talk about Ryan's plan.
