Paul Ryan's Conservative Roadmap

Joshua Hendrickson

Well, I suppose those rightwingers who have whined about On Point supporting only leftwing viewpoints can finally break out the champagne. As for the rest of us, we already knew that NPR is happy to present all sides in their programming–unlike other media outlets that shall remain nameless (cough, cough, Fox).

I guess I’ll go to Ryan’s link now so I can stockpile some ammo straight from the source before posting anything more. (Holds nose and clicks.)

MM

The Census Bureau has reported that 44 million people, one in seven Americans, lived in poverty and 51 million people lacked health insurance in 2009. Mr. Ryan’s budget proposes cuts to Social Security (as well as privatizing it), and cuts to Medicare (creating a voucher system that would fail to cover costs in the private market), which would push more people into poverty. That’s unacceptable.

Social Security is not going bankrupt. The program has a separate stream of financing. We’ve been paying more than is needed, and according to the CBO, it can pay all scheduled benefits through 2039 with no changes whatsoever. The program will be able to pay 78% of benefits after 2039, and with relatively minor changes it will remain solvent. The Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.5 trillion surplus; it’s projected to be more than $4 trillion in 2023. The CBO says that if the payroll tax was applied to all income, it would be solvent for the next 75 years.

Medicare and Medicaid are not out of control; it’s our healthcare costs that are out of control. We pay twice as much per person as other industrialized countries and have worse health outcomes. If our costs were in line with other countries, we would have enormous budget surpluses rather than deficits. The problem lies with the insurance industry (over 31% of every dollar goes to paperwork, overhead, executive salaries, profits, etc.) and the pharmaceutical companies (we pay 2-3 times the price for the same exact drug sold in Canada or in Europe). A universal health care system would cut our bureaucratic burden in half and save over $300 billion annually.

Joshua Hendrickson

So much for that. The file is inaccessible to me, because it’s in a format that I have to download and then reformat using a system I don’t possess. This is what I hate about the internet–not all things are universally accessible. I do not have the knowledge to deal with this, nor do I trust programs that expect me to download them when all I want to do is read them and leave them. I just want a dinner and a movie–not a marriage!

So, since I don’t have free and equal access to this man’s “roadmap” I shall have to judge it sight unseen, in the broadest strokes possible:

A “more conservative” America. Why? Thirty years of Reagan, Bush, a Clinton who did everything Republicans could ask for (and who still hated him), Dubya, and now Obama, who is as in with Corporate America as any Republican. A shift in the electorate to the right. Years of laissez-faire economics, deregulation, and unrelieved drug war. It sure seems to me like America, with the partial exception of Hollywood, has been as conservative as any rightwinger could hope for during my lifetime. I guess the party of greed and self-interest as the highest virtues is never satisfied, and why should they be? If greed and self-interest are, as they claim, the highest virtues, then by rights they should never ever be satisfied with getting the most cake. That anyone with half a brain pays these folks the slightest attention, except to call them out for what monsters they are, is utterly beyond me.

Joshua Hendrickson

So let me ask a question of Mr. Ryan:

Given the history of the last thirty years of deregulation, drug wars, and Republican presidencies, on what grounds can you possibly call for a more conservative America?

Michael

“A “more conservative” America”

1. a more conservative America had no problem outsourcing jobs to the dreaded Communist(of course not russia but no problem with China.

2. a more conservative America screams about the free market yet again she no problem doing business under a government that has nearly complete control of the country (China again)

3.a more conservative America screams about how everyone is paying too many taxes therefore we need tax breaks, than in the next breath says not enough Americans are paying taxes so the wealthy should pay less as well

4.a more conservative America screams about protecting liberties and freedoms, but this freedom loving conservatives (including ryan) than go on to vote for the patriot act.

5.A more conservative America, states government should keep out of peoples presonal lives than goes on to tell americans how Government has to stop gay marriages, weed, women rights to abortion.

6.A more conservative America,prides itself on stating deregulation and less oversight is the only way, but than cry bloody murder when a Company/person (Enron,BP,Goldman,ML, just a few) Dicks them over and the government can’t fix it.

7.A more conservative America, grew up with such safty nets which know since there much older no longer need and don’t want to pay for it anymore.

michael

A more conservative America, thanks but no thanks we seen how that lead us compare to those more liberal countries. Rampant Corruption, Higher health-care, cost, longest in U.S. history,the rise of the Mercenary Class,Stagnant Wages, Large Deficit’s(Mostly under republican presidents, even with obama it was projected that the next president after bush who took office would inherit a 1.2 Trillion dollar deficit)largest gap between rich and poor,and neglected infrastructure to bat.

And to top it off a Communist Country known as China has better high speed rails than a Democracy known as the U.S. as well Those anti-communist and anti-socialist have no problem moving there companies to work under such a government.

michael

yet again see’s no problem doing business under a government that has nearly complete control of the counties private/public sectors(China again)

michael

Please ask Arthur Brooks how his book squares with China(which is anything but free market) and those same people/companies willing to move their companies overseas to work under such a government and how there growth rate well exceeds what is happening in the U.S?

Gary

This guy is my rep. I live in Mukwonago, WI . I have written this goof several letters asking him to explain why tax cuts for the rich are such a good idea. he never answers, just sends me a form letter. I guess I need to include a campaign contribution to get a real response.

This guy is an embarrassment to Wisconsin.

MM

Rep. Ryan’s budget proposal would raise middle class taxes and provide a new package of very large tax cuts for the wealthy. The plan would make deep cuts and end traditional Medicare, the CHIP program, most of Medicaid, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, privatize Social Security, and limit other spending. This plan is draconian. I strongly oppose it and I believe most people will reject it too.

“The Roadmap calls for radical policy changes that would result in a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals. Because of the Ryan plan’s enormous tax cuts for the affluent, even the very large benefit cuts that the plan would make — and the plan’s middle-class tax increases — would “not” put the federal budget on a sustainable course for decades. The federal debt would soar to about 175 percent of the gross domestic product by 2050. In contrast, most fiscal policy analysts recommend that the debt-to-GDP ratio be stabilized within the next ten years, and at a far lower level.”
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Analysis
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114

jeffe

I just read his tax reform ideas. Well, who wouldn’t want to pay only 10% of income for the federal income tax.
Simplifies tax rates to 10 percent on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25 percent on taxable income above these amounts. Also includes a generous standard deduction and personal exemption (totaling $39,000 for a family of four).

Trouble is he kind of leaves out state and local taxes and how they come into the tax system.

I don’t see how this would work without cutting a lot out the federal budget. Does the good congressman from Wisconsin have any designs on cutting the huge military expenditure? The cuts in SS and medicare will no doubt hurt the neediest the most. From what I read his proposals would make this country a great place to live if you’re a millionaire. If you make the medium income or less (working poor) have a disability or have children with disabilities I don’t see any provisions to help the weakest members of society.

His health care ideas are interesting in that it shifts the majority of the cost on families and individuals.
The idea of buying insurance from companies out of state for health care is a huge risk as from what I gather states will lose control of this. We could see a race to the bottom in terms of insurance companies moving to a state that offers the least amount of regulations.

I will be interested in hearing what Congressman Ryan has to say, even though I don’t support his political ideas.

Mark S.

While I, as an independent, have shared some conservative opinions in the past and to a small extent still do. However, I increasingly feel in my gut that one word describes the contemporary conservative movement for its fanatical religiosity, disdain for social safety nets, worship of naked corporate plutocracy and manipulation of blind, xenophobic, spittle-shouting “patriotism” of low-information voters for their own narrow, authoritarian agendas.

The word is “evil.”

The kind of country that these demigogs and master manipulators would give us is not a country in which I would want to live.

Mark S.

Pardon my error in sentence structure. These people are so frightening that it becomes hard to focus on such trivialities as grammar when a country is descending into madness.

Zeno

I have to agree with the above posters. The “Republican Party” has transformed itself from a rational more centrist party into a party of Christian Theocracy based on lies, hypocrisy, Christian religious rule, no government regulations (except Christian based rules), unencumbered free market. …the only counties that fit their vision for America is a mix of the religious rule of Iran merged with the free market capitalism of Somalia, and the centralized power to monitor all individuals as in North Korea.

…All that with freckled face smiles, and flag waving moral superiority in a state of constant war. Truly an Orwellian vision.

cory

Would righties consider federal funding to relocate disaffected lefties to a new country of their choice? My personal choice would be Scandinavia or the Low Countries.

It is a win-win scenario. Righties can be finally rid of the hated lefties, and us lefties can choose to emigrate to a country that more reflects our core beliefs.

Let me know, Mr. Ryan. I’ll get on the paperwork as soon as i get it.

jeffe

Wow, now my question was removed. I get it. OnPoint is worried that people will post things that the good congressman from Wisconsin might find offensive.

You should read Paul Krugman’s opinion in today’s NY TImes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/opinion/20krugman.html?ref=opinion

Then try reading Dinesh D’Souza’ absurd article in Forbes on Obama. If this is how the business class are thinking, that’s offensive.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem.html

This country is really heading towards a two level society, one of the wealthy, and the rest of us.

Kash Hoffa

Looks like the best that humanity can do, for all its so-called progress and enlightenment, is return to the dark ages – serfdom (think immigrant, 3rd world, and minimum-wage labor), a system setup up to keep the rich as they are (wealthy, comfortable, entitled, and separate). This time around, peasantry may be a bit more comfortable (if not dense – high population density) due to modern advancements such as gadgets, cable TV, high-calorie snacks and drinks, but peasantry it will be. It’s the ultimate sick-joke that those people most at risk by these wackos running on divisive, disconnected platforms are the most ready to vote for them.

Nick

NO MATTER WHAT THE CONSERVATIVES CALL AND DESCRIBE THEMSELVES, THEIR FORMULA IS THAT BIG BUSINESS IS THE SOLUTION. However, that formula has given us the highest rate of unemployment and financial woes since the Great Depression.

CONSERVATISM IS A TROJAN HORSE FOR BIG BUSINESS.

Brett

What, no neocon posters defending the good Representative?? Hmmm?? I’ve heard from Rep. Ryan; he’s been on several media venues….I have to say, as a Congressional leader, he’d make a great used car salesman. His ideas are all used, so there wouldn’t be much of an adjustment. Also, in this economy, people are going more for used cars as opposed to new ones…just sayin’

CHRIS M

They don’t come on until later, Brett. Right now they are getting their marching orders & talking points off Fox News so they can go out & spread the “news” according to Rupert. They’ll make their appearance in about a hour or so.

michael

jeffe,

turns out Dinesh D’Souza’ is a religious fundamentalist as well,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3f8b1wdXkU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueSJHRU7B9o&feature=related

Newton

The GOP, and Mr. Ryan in particular, should be ashamed to offer the same old failed policies: tax cuts for the rich and shredding domestic spending. Their track record is awful. Want proof?

Since WWII, the 3 administrations with the greatest job growth per year were all Democrats. The 4 worst were all Republicans.

My source? The Wall Street Journal:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

jeffe

Here’s a question for Rep. Ryan. I just read an article in today’s NY Times about a woman who was laid off from Boing 4 years ago and has not been able to find a job. She’s 57 and fears that she might not ever work again. Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older.
She’s worried she is going to end up on the street and destitute. So do I if I lose my part time teaching job.

I don’t see one Republican addressing this, I don’t see many Democrats addressing this issue either.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and they related a story about a relative who just passed away. They had to go to look at the belongings that were in a storage room as it was going to get thrown out. It turned out that this woman who passed away at 90 had lived a good middle class life. Her husband had been a foreman at a small factory. They made a good enough living that after they retired about 30 years ago, they had enough saved and were comfortable enough to travel. We both looked at each other and sighed, knowing the days when the middle classes could make enough to have a decent life and retire are over, for good. That to me is one of the reasons people like Rep. Ryan are nothing more than snake oil salesmen trying to sell me a nothing more than bull manure.

Newton

The Flim Flam Man
-Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan’slan

“Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

Mr. Ryan’s plan calls for steep cuts in both spending and taxes. He’d have you believe that the combined effect would be much lower budget deficits, and, according to that Washington Post report, he speaks about deficits “in apocalyptic terms.” And The Post also tells us that his plan would, indeed, sharply reduce the flow of red ink: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.”

But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan’s request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html?hp

Kevin

Good to see all the open-minded comments here at least hearing out Rep. Ryan before berating him with—oh, wait. The show hasn’t even aired yet and already everybody has their mind made up. I hope the On Point producers got lots of sleep last night. They’ll need it to handle all the foaming-at-the-mouth, open-minded, diversity-loving, liberal callers.

http://www.onpointradio.org/about-on-point/john-wihbey John Wihbey

Hello there online community – We want to thank everyone who posts here. We read them all, every day. For the record, unless you insult someone or use profane language, your comment should be up there. (Our spam filter occassionally behaves irrationally, but we’re working to fix that.) If you take a look at the 10,000s of comments posted over the past couple of years — and the huge range of opinion expressed on every manner of topic — it’s pretty tough to argue that we block things. We often have one of the best comment threads anywhere online, with very intelligent comments all over the map. If you have a problem, email me at jwihbey@wbur.org. Send complaints/housekeeping notes my way. Otherwise, we hope that your comments will be substantive and encourage debate on the topic at hand. -John, producer
P.S. Jeffe, your last comment had a misspelling that got caught in the spam filter. Watch out for the word “shifts”… We approved the comment as soon as we saw your first complaint.

Yar

What am I?
I consider myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. The terms liberal and conservative have so much connotation, their denotation has lost its meaning. I often hear people say we are a center right nation. The literal definition of the center is just that. Using center right, is a slur on those more liberal than yourself. Just as right wing is a slur on one who is more conservative.
Saving the environment; liberal or conservative?
Freedom of speech; conservative or liberal?
Access to safe medical services; liberal or conservative?
Government programs; conservative, or liberal?
My point, is we have partisans who are using data taken in polling to fan the flames of partisanship in a way to achieve power for one side or the other, we also have businesses who fund both sides in effort to keep gridlock in place so not real change can occur.
Our country is being played by interests to suppress dialog across the center. With statistics and money a divide and conquer strategy is simple economics. The media “buys in” or at least is co-opted by the money from political advertising.
There is little argument that we have a political system dominated by moneyed interests.
Is our system working?
Would you want to pick a lawyer from the winner of a football game? Isn’t that sort of what our current political system does? The skills to win a contested seat may be vastly different than those of governing.

What our founding fathers had that our current generation doesn’t, is a close connection to the land, most people were in agriculture, animal husbandry, occupations that have strong environmental factors that teach management skills to live inside a system not attempt to control the system.
Only in the last century have we attempted to control the environment, we are now seeing we make a poor substitute for God.
We need leaders who understand resource management, not ones who only build financial conduits to their political financiers.
We are adrift in a fog of blurred vision and are in danger of becoming ungovernable.

My vision for needed action involves a Big Federal Program, Does that make me conservative or liberal?
I believe our youth are our only road to future strength.

All our youth, we can’t keep dividing our poor and our wealthy between prison and college.
I would mandate two years of public service for all high school graduates, and dropouts at age 19.

A version of the Civilian Conversation Corps.

Some CCC workers would provide an hour of physical activity for current K-12 students leading inter-mural sports, cleaning the facilities, preparing nutritious meals. I would have the CCC work to establish rail corridors for passenger train service. The corridor would remain federal property, the rolling stock would belong to private companies.
I would teach all CCC workers how to safely use a gun. How to protect themselves.
I would recruit our all voluntary military from these CCC workers.
I would use the CCC anywhere the national guard is uses on American soil.
Am I a liberal or conservative?
This is a way to hand the reigns over to the next generation to a population that has the skills and not destroy our country in the process.
We are going to hand it over, the question is are they prepared to take it.
The real political schism is one of generational control, not ideology. Ideology is our only language we know to express political power.
I pray for 80 percent voter participation, we need to draft new language of leadership that acknowledges we are all on this journey together,and partisanship is only rocking a sinking ship. Money is not our defining power, as in World war II our power is a population that can build anything needed to overcome anything or ideology in the way.
America can produce, that is our ultimate power. We need to reconnect to that production.

Thank you for reading this, I hope it helps you see our wonderful country for the place it is and can become.
I am a farmer that can’t compete with subsidized food grown by exploited migrant labor who loves my country more than life itself.
That’s how I see myself.

L. Stetson

It seems to me these “young guns” are out to shoot the poor and elderly.

Newton

Arthur C. Brooks has, like so many of his fellow conservatives, confused unregulated capitalism with democracy. For 40 years, so did Alan Greenspan. Until the crash of 2008 caused Greenspan to admit he’d been wrong about deregulation:

Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity — myself especially — are in a state of shocked disbelief,” said Greenspan.

“This modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades,” he said. “The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year.”

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

In plain English, Mr. Brooks, the invisible hand of the market belongs to a pickpocket.

Kash Hoffa

As for Greenspan comment above, there are no mysteries – he’s trying to purge his conscience/soul of the consequences of the decisions he made when he had the authority and responsibility to. He could have realized these items when he was steering the ship, but elected to ignore them in order to enhance his own position. Whatever warped morality he operates under now causes him to struggle with his choices and the prestige and authority he wielded/wields on the economic matters.

Mark

A new conservative nation. Only the strong survive. The weak die. Period! Do we really want this?

Dan

Tom asks, Does it add up?

In short, no. As other have pointed out, Ryan’s plan is projected to add $4 trillion to the deficit.

So, y’know, there’s that. “Debt explosion that’s coming in America” indeed, Mr. Ryan…

Larry

Since 1983, when Reagen and Greenspan changed Social Security, the baby boomers have paid in extra to cover our retirement as well as paying for current retirees benefits.

SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT.

There is a 2.2 trillion dollar surplus in the Social Security trust fund. Washington borrowed (stole) this money.

We paid our money into it and we expect to get our money back!

Dave

When the very essence of Democracy is compromise, how can anyone’s ideological purity (from Left or Right) translate into effective governance? Those in Congress with extreme views seem far more interested in proselytizing than in actually governing(which is what they are elected for and paid to do).

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

Trickle down again…

We learn from experience that we don’t learn from experience.

Mark

Mr. Ryan, who started as a congressional aide 18 years ago and is running for his seventh term in congress, may or may not be a “young gun”, but he is certainly using old ammunition. And it’s a dud.

For 50 years conservative republicans like Mr. Ryan have been firing the same old rounds: lower taxes for those at the top, cutting or privatizing social security and medicare, and deregulating corporations. The result has been that every republican administration for the last 50 years has increased the deficit as a percentage of GDP and every democratic administration has reduced it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

I’m sorry, Mr. Ryan: you had your shot.
Put the gun down and step away from the economy.

Larry

Paul Ryan is the snake oil man we all have been warned about.

He works for the elite.

He wants to privatize Social Security.

He wants to make sure that all the wealth in this country is shoveled upward to the elite and the corporations not down to the people who create it.

David

A great portion of the national debt is the result our conflicts overseas and the maintenance of hundreds of military bases all over the globe. With the United States spending more on its military than any other country in the world, is a reduction of the military budget part of the Congressman’s plan to reduce the deficit?

Jesse Woellhof

This guy wants to cut benefits for the poor while cutting taxes on capital gains and dividends for rich people. More trickle down, and we just got numbers saying the poverty rate is way up! You CAN’T find a bipartisan economist that thinks we should cut government spending, at least until unemployment goes down! Can Paul Ryan explain why he disagrees with so many economists?

Jason Baade

I agree with much of what your guest is saying. Our nations debt and out of control spending are the most important issues to secure our nation’s future. That said, I don’t subscribe to the line of thought that says that republicans are the people to do this. If you’ll recall, the last President to achieve a balanced budget was a Democrat. And the first thing the newly elected Republican, Bush, did was give that surplus away. If you look at the past 30 years, Republicans, so-called conservatives, have been in control when most of our debt was racked up.

Larry

This guy is an embarrassment to Wisconsin.
Posted by Gary

Why don’t you guys vote he out? He is clearly not for the people, just a tool for the elite.

Anne

Mr. Ryan is only 40 yrs old. He’s been in congress since he was 29 yrs old. Has this man EVER held a REAL job? Has he been on a job interview, been rejected, been laid off, filed for unemployment?(Oh, that’s right, he probably doesn’t believe in unemployment). I think he is woefully out of touch.

Jesse Woellhof

“Government Rules caused this problem.” WHAT?@!! What about the Republican-led repeal of Glass-Steagal that allowed the mix of investment and savings banks that allowed the crash to hurt so many people?!

Abel

Any discussion of deficit reduction must address the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the more than trillion dollar budget of the defense industry. If we cut this budget in half, we would still spend four times as much as any other country. What is the GOP’s plan to slash military spending?

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

Where the heck were these guys when George W. Bush was racking up the huge debt we find ourselves carrying now?

We had plenty of free, unregulated enterprise during the Bush years and look where it took us.

Never forget, it was Paulson and Bush (Palin and McCain signed on too) that came up with TARP.

These guys rely on the fact that Americans have no memory and little understanding of issues (Obama is a Muslim, etc.).

Maybe as Cory has said, this is what it looks like when you’re on the way down. I hate to think it but it sure looks like it.

Larry

Paul Ryan represents Republicans at their best.

Cut any and all taxes on the rich.

Right the laws so that their kleptocracy is legal.

Slash the social safety net.

Rinse and repeat until the American middle class is destroyed and we are nothing but peasants for the ultra rich criminal class.

jim thompson, fort mill,sc

So called conservatives like Congressman Ryan are squandering the sensible conservative Republican Party of Goldwater, Reagan and Jack Kemp.

Ryan and his ilk talk about free enterprize, yet it is free enterprize where labor has no say and indded working people have little value.

We see this new GOP expouse a philosophy that says social security, medicare and now unemployment insurance as un Constitutional.

Then when you get beyond the Adam Smith economic views you indeed have a theocratic wing that is in power within the GOP not to mention the anti-civil rights crowd. Jesse Helms’s view of America is alive and well in today’s GOP.

Just look to this summer’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Justice Kagan. You had GOP Senators attacking Thurgood Marshall. Have they no shame?

Clint

I’d take the congressman seriously if he was willing to cut the military as much as social security. Is that on the table?

Sarah Cushing

We are not in debt because of social programs. We are in debt because of a continuation of Reagan but MILITARY programs. It’s our love of military and war that got us here. I am sick of hearing republicans say they are the moral people. They are not moral. They are scared and selfish. Listen to Bernie Sanders. Social Security is not in as dire a situation as Republican liars say. And if we taxed fairly the rich coporations then we wouldn’t need anything more. I am a small business owner. I don’t expect handouts. I expect to pay my fair share and when I find out that rich people and corporations pay less a percentage of tax then me Well, that is just not fair.

The real problem with the republicans is they are still feeling guilt over accepting the racist democrats into the party way back in the 1960′s, then they were shamed by Nixon’s betrayals and lying. They had to find a puppet actor to try redemption. Shame Shame.

By the way, I love my president. I think President Obama is the best thing that has happened to this country.

Larry

meant to say write the laws so that their kleptocracy is legal.

Sally Strange

Q: How many conservative Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None, they just sit around in the dark waiting for the invisible hand of the free market to do it.

Dave

“While I, as an independent, have shared some conservative opinions in the past and to a small extent still do. However, I increasingly feel in my gut that one word describes the contemporary conservative movement for its fanatical religiosity, disdain for social safety nets, worship of naked corporate plutocracy and manipulation of blind, xenophobic, spittle-shouting “patriotism” of low-information voters for their own narrow, authoritarian agendas.

The word is “evil.”

The kind of country that these demigogs and master manipulators would give us is not a country in which I would want to live.”

Posted by Mark S., on September 20th, 2010 at 7:39 AM

You got it! So we have to take back the honest aspect and dump what you identify. Its difficult, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater, while easy, will get rid of import fundamental ideas that have been hijacked by rotten characters, but that are still critical to America.

Brian

Where was the outrage during the eight years of fiscal recklessness when the GOP controlled all three branches of the government? Republicans’ sudden concern with fiscal responsibility can only be interpreted as an effort to deny Democrats the same fiscal power as they enjoyed from 2000-2008.

Larry

Paul Ryan

How about slashing the military budget that is bankrupting this country?

We are following the path of the Soviet Union and the Roman Empire.

Get ready Americans. You are going to pay dearly for the death grip people like Paul Ryan have on the government.

Young Gun. What a deadly joke on us.

michael

lol the same CBO states his plan would raise the debt.
I guess the CBO only matters to Ryan when it agrees with him. What a joke

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

TERM LIMITS! Get this bozo out of office!

“An adult conversation?”, not bloody likely with the likes of Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, or John Boehner.
Call everyone you know and tell them to check their voter registration before the end of this month and then get out and vote!

If you are so worried about the future generation being left high and dry then I suggest a claw back of the money already stolen with the Bush tax cuts!

http://tombsone001.blogspot.com mohammed n. razavi

We have two choices,three actually. 1st is the Mexican model, no one pays taxes if they can buy of politicians. 2d is the ChineSe model, some get rich some get poor,population is controlled,the elderly poor die, and the corrupt are sometime shot in the head for covorting with the rich, third go bRoke giving tax cut and fovors to rich and the Corporations. Which one these is closest to your plan,I am waiting anxiously.

Martha Schwope

Young Guns? Why would I support anyone with that name? You sound like a gang. You’re naming yourself as part of the problem — the romanticization of the military.

Larry

Free Markets?????!!!!!!!

They don’t want free markets. They are for crony capitalism and socialism for the corporations.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses.

That is their creed in a nutshell.

Annie

He says no one who is 55 or over will see any change in social security. I’m 54 — where does that leave me? I’m out of luck because of his capriciousness. Thanks, Paul. Can I live with you when I finally get to retire? I’m sure your home is much larger than mine and you’ll have room for me.

Susan W

Please remind your guest that we had a budget surplus and were paying down the national debt under President Clinton, a Democrat!!! When the republicans took control they squandered the surplus and increased the national debt.

Lynfh

I have two questions. How is it we can ask our military to sacrifice with their service yet the American people are not asked to sacrifice to pay for it with higher taxes? And second, why can’t govt take a similar methodology as my household? My household has worked like a dog to become debt free. And when that happens you suddenly have money to spend because it is not all going to pay debt. Attack the debt by paying it off… then we can reduce taxes. Americans need to step up and make some sacrifices and quit being spoiled brats.

jeffe

This guy is so full of it. What he did was skew the numbers to make it fit his plan. You can’t deal with the deficit without taxes. What he wants to do is destroy the whole thing. How is that Clinton was able to balance the budget and now the government can’t?

By the way we are already lost, were has this guy been?

It is a rich get richer scam.

What? No free market? Are these people kidding?
The free market works if you want pay workers as little as you can and you keep looking for the cheapest labor market. Case in point, Sanyo had a factory in Mexico and then moved it to Indonesia for a cheaper labor force.
They also left a huge amount of suffering due to pollution and chemical exposure.

Jeff

We the taxpayers are already paying 47% of the healthcare expenditures, covering the most expensive and ‘uninsurable’: the elderly, disabled, sick, mentally ill, the poor (through medicare and medicaid) as well as military servicepeople and their families.

The only way to mitigate these costs is to put the younger/healthier in the same risk pool with the above groups, through a single payer system.

Does Rep. Ryan support this fix? Why do we continue to allow a profit motive in health care financing to siphon off so much money and deny people coverage?

Larry

We have two choices,three actually. 1st is the Mexican model, no one pays taxes if they can buy of politicians. 2d is the ChineSe model, some get rich some get poor,population is controlled,the elderly poor die, and the corrupt are sometime shot in the head for covorting with the rich, third go bRoke giving tax cut and fovors to rich and the Corporations. Which one these is closest to your plan,I am waiting anxiously.
Posted by mohammed n. razavi

Paul Ryan would love to turn the US into a Mexican criminal state. The rich win. Everyone else is ground into the dirt.

http://home.comcast.net/~wizardofwhimsy/index.html Robert Dente

Mr. Ryan is just another propagandist selling Crapitalist snake oil to a bunch of uninformed Americans who swallow it by the case from the Jerry Springer mass media of the right.

Please stop giving these mountebanks a platform, Tom!

Larry

RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE?????????????

People over 50 can’t get jobs now. We lost 8 million jobs which will take at least a decade to recoup.

Paul Ryan is advocating poverty for people between 50 and 70 years of age.

http://michaelfogler.com Michael Fogler

The big elephant in the living room is MILITARY SPENDING. Without drastically cutting military spending (and the whole world would be better off if we did) there is NO WAY to reduce the deficit and debt. MILITARY SPENDING is the epitome of big government, wasteful spending, and debt accumulation. Without military spending over the decades we would have little if any of the debt we have today.

CHRIS M

What a relief they weren’t able to privatize SS like Bush wanted. People losts tons of money when the markets crashed and now they want people to rely on the markets for their retirement income? HAHA, no thank you!!

Flowen

Large corporate interest is more of the problem than government, but they cannot be separated. There will be no solution until that criminal partnership is broken.

We need to stop subsidizing and incentivizing these $ 1 million plus incomes at the expense of 99.7% of the population.

Free enterprise and free markets are a myth: they don’t exist. Distorted by the effect of lobbyists, tax legislation, regulation, congressional give-aways, and inept enforcement, the only thing free about our market is what the corporate interests steal from the population.

We need a good government, with legislators who value a wholistic environment, not their rich friends; and the government could be a whole lot smaller!

The government, like the population is obese, and it has become normal. We need a good government, but it needs to be a fraction of it’s current size: in revenue, taxes, employees, and in your face make-your-life-miserable function.

Of course none of this is politically feasible, so plan on continued and accelerating breakdown at all levels.

People get the best government they deserve and the worst government they will tolerate.

We are winning the race to the bottom.

Annie

So, if we under 54 get to have the same kind of saving vehicle as congressmen, WHY DON’T WE GET THE SAME HEALTH CARE?

Gary Thorburn

George W Bush was president for eight years, very recently if you remember. Why weren’t the reforms Ryan speaks about attempted then, when surely there was more political support for it. Why wait ’til now?

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

I am 54 years old and I want to stay in Social Security thank you very much. I am looking forward to Medicare because I have been uninsured for the last five years and it is a miserable way to live.

Private accounts? Their Greed knows no bounds.

S. K.

To hear your guests talk about how good it would be, “if only” we could really implement free-market reforms, I am struck by the resemblance to past remarks from leftists that socialism would have worked just fine, if only it had been given a real chance.

To me the point is that free market reforms _have_ been given a real trial–in the American political system. The failures we have seen in that regard have been the same ones that any would face in the next go-around, would they not? How do you answer that?

BHA

Social Security in ‘private investments’: one of G.W. Bush’s REALLY bad ideas.

The purpose of S.S. was to make sure people had SOMETHING when they retired. Put it in ‘the market’ and you are gambling with the money.

Compound interest works ONLY when you DON’T have an economic crash. This guy sounds like a cash balance retirement plan vs defined benefit plan supporter. Cash balance plans have been a BIG loser as far at the retiree is concerned. Sounded good when interest rates was 7, 8, higher %. NOT good the last 8 years.

Jim

Does their version of “free enterprise” include removing the price supports/subsidies/specials that are regularly granted to specific industries – agribusiness, pharma? Good luck on that.

More important, if they do manage to bring off that pipe-dream, the only way it will stay in place is to do away with private campaign financing. Otherwiae the money will eventually move things back to the status quo ante.

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

So Paul, you haven’t told us where your money comes from. The caller asked a legit question and you didn’t answer it.

Do you take money from the kochs or their various laundering organizations? Yes or no.

Al Dorman

Rep. Ryan just received $10,000 from AT&T (acc. to CRP). I wonder where he stands on Net Neutrality?

Bill Proia

major issue Mr Ryan et al are overlooking is election/finance reform. without that all will devolve into the crony capitalism/special interest politics he’s lamenting as undermining truly free and competitive markets, as congress will continue to respond to pet legislation of major donors, recent United Citizens case hasn’t helped obviously.

Sarah Cushing

social security should not be monies used in the stock market. Just another plan to buy a bunch of self important bankers and money movers more silk suits. I run away from wealth.

Local food, local government. live within the economic reality of the environment you live in. I make 18,000 to 20,000 per year no more. What standard of living can our earth provide to us all without dying?

Stop spending money on war and start growing food. Simple? Stupid? or brilliant.

I wish everyone would quit trying to be so important, well off. Grow food.

Steve Hall

Defense? 30 minutes in, and I don’t think anyone has mentioned defense spending.

Why not take on that military-industrial entitlement program?

jeffe

You know what these guys are leaving out, that the states depend on the federal tax revenues as well and if these get cut they will rise the state taxes and real estate taxes to make up the short fall. Or they will just let services fall by the wayside.

These guys are slick and they could sell a bridge in Brooklyn…

William

I heard a line years ago that liberals want to help the poor but a conservative wants help people not to become poor. As the size of government has increased so has the poverty rate and economic decline.

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

These past 30 years the Right wing has gotten just about EVERYTHING they wanted. The conservatives wanted taxes cuts for the rich, free trade, corporate welfare, credit card wars, deregulation of banks, mass media, and commodities. They sabotaged government revenue with irresponsible tax cuts and wild spending to create MASSIVE debt and sabotaged the industrial base of America with free trade agreements. They let sociopathic predators on Wall Street run wild and they didn’t just bring down their own banks, they brought down our entire economy. Neo-liberals like Clinton agreed with most of the above policies except for issues of fiscal responsibility.

So WHERE THE HELL IS THE PROMISED CONSERVATIVE NIRVANA???

Lyle Edwards

Arthur Brooks just mentioned Sweden as on the move when it comes to free enterprise, but don’t they have health care??

Al Dorman

Rep. Ryan also received $17,400 from Northwestern Mutual (acc. to CRP). I wonder where he stands on sending pensioners to Investment Managers?

Larry

No. The answer is to publicly fund campaigns and every candidate gets free air time on our publicly-owned airwaves. And a constitutional amendment that corporations are not people for god’s sake that should be beyond obvious.

Also, vote out all the incumbents including the “young gun” Paul Ryan who has been a Washington insider since 1992 and is claiming he is for the people.

mark meunier

The conservatives have always pushed Trickle Down , it didn’t work and never will

Larry

So WHERE THE HELL IS THE PROMISED CONSERVATIVE NIRVANA???
Posted by ulTRAX

You’re looking at it. The rich rule and everyone else can go to hell.

BHA

Good old free market system:

Robber barons, monopolists, exchange traded funds, etc. The rich get richer, the rest get poorer.

Annie

Would you please ask this guy if he’s ever had a real job outside of congress??

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

More like a pile of dog-refuse.

Jesse Woellhof

“Progressive policies are unsustainable.” So then how did Clinton balance the budget? Paul Ryan is arguing from false premise, can we please call him out on this? Please let someone defend progressive policies. Why is Arthur allowed to talk about what ‘most americans believe’ without any challenge?

Larry

Would you please ask this guy if he’s ever had a real job outside of congress??
Posted by Annie

He hasn’t. He should be pointing the finger for the debt at himself. He voted for the unfunded wars and the Bush tax cuts. He voted to double the military budget under Bush.

Sally Strange

Could your guests please define what they mean by “large” and “small”? I’ve always been unclear about this. Does it refer to the number of government employees? Does it refer to the power of the government to intrude in your personal data without a warrant? Does it refer to the number of dollars spent every year? This is why people who talk about “efficient and effective” government are credible, while people who talk about “small” government are not.

Dave Emerson

Tom, please respond to this astute comment made earlier by by Susan W:

Please remind your guest that we had a budget surplus and were paying down the national debt under President Clinton, a Democrat!!! When the republicans took control they squandered the surplus and increased the national debt.

Steve Cotton

Paul,

Our economic situation is the consequence of the top 20 controlling 85% of the wealth, 15& for the remaining 80% of the population. This is a problem since 80% of the population cannot support the broader economy with 15% of the wealth.

This is caused in part by massive job-outsourcing, which is fundamentally the consequence of the free market — namely, China gains a comparative advantage by employing slave-labor — where it costs dramatically less to employee a worker in China than it does in the US.

Companies are outsourcing manufacturing jobs for instance, to China NOT because of there competitive tax rates, rather, their incredibly cheap labor, which takes jobs away from American workers. Under a free-market framework, the only time we should expect those jobs to return to Americans, is when American wages compete with China’s.

If the free-market & cheap labor is what’s driving outsourcing, (not taxes) how do you intend to keep jobs here? Is this the direction you intend to take america, that is, allow wages decline to the point where we complete with China? If not, then when the free-market is causing this problem, why do you propose it as the solution?

Edith

Please speak about defense spending. The US spends three times as much for defense than all the nations combined.

When we went into the Iraq war, it was off the books. We were told that it would pay for itself through oil revenue. Suitcases of money went over there and we don’t know what happened to them. We’re spending loads in Afghanistan, every day. THIS is unsustainable.

Scott G

Why aren’t the “Young Guns” discussing the war budget. Cut it in half and Social Security will thrive for 200 years.

Ray

Oh come on, non of your arguments are taking inflation into account. In reality there is no such thing as national debt. The rest is eventually worked into inflation. We have a huge inflation wave coming, the conservatives are trying to get theirs, before it hits.
Inflation is a flat tax.

BHA

Rep. Ryan, Where where YOU when G.W. Bush ran the deficit up???

Debt to GDP was 56.4% when G.W. took office, 63.4% a the end of 4 years and 83.4% when he finally left. It was only higher during an immediately after WWII. Dropped steadily until Reagan took office, kept rising until Clinton took office, dropped until G.W. took office. LOOK at the history of Republican leadership, then SHUT UP.

Again I ask, WHERE WHERE YOU! YOU were in your congressional seat 2 year before Bush took office, WHY do you NOW start worrying about the debt YOU helped raise astronomically.

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

If I was a physically violent person and mr. brooks were standing before me I would have had to have smacked him. Bailout for the middle-class? My ass!

Annie

Arthur Brooks wants to bring the conversation to an adult level — how about he start by not callign health care reform “Obama-care?”

Larry

Paul Ryan and the Republicans are for the rich only. Period. End of story.

TO listen to him talk about destroying Social Security which has kept our seniors out of poverty for 50 years makes me sick and angry.

Jesse Woellhof

I think Arthur just made the argument that auto-workers are middle class, and therefore these workers don’t need welfare help such as the auto bailout.
Paul Ryan would have let the auto-industry go under, then?

Dennis.in.Omaha

The first caller from Omaha is correct. Our economy is CENTRALIZED around oil. Our other problem – imports – is using more petroleum to deliver products here and driving up the cost for everyone else.

Republicans are working for maintaining a centralized economy around oil. Ironically they are using the terms “free markets” and “free trade” to get rid of a level playing field for sustainable energy.

Larry

YOU ARE THE REASON IT IS GOING TO BE SHREDDED YOU LACKEY FOR THE ELITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BHA

If Mr. Ryan is concerned about people having health care, he should support SINGLE PAYER. Tossing $11,000 at someone instead of medicaid will NOT ensure they have health care. It won’t even buy them a health insurance policy.

TRICKLE DOWN DOES NOT WORK Mr. Ryan.

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

Paul should be shredded and trickled down to fertilize George W. Bush’s garden.

JacFlasche

Tom,

I remember reading the relative incomes of several professional when in high school. (late sixties)

The average for doctors was $25,000 a year.
I sort of suspect that even with adjustments for inflation that doctor expectations of wealth and a cutlture of greed has grown in this profession right along with the expectations of the thiefs on wall street.

Jesse Woellhof

CALL HIM OUT!! What 26% benefit cut on social security under current law? Isn’t that is a projection that assumes the jobless recession continues forever?

Jason

At least these two guys want to try and fix the problems.

Richard Levins

The issue is not big government vs small goverenmet. Rather, in relation to what. I am against Big Government’s intrusion into our political and sexual privacy, our right to travel, our being dragged into undeclared wars, and protecting criminals in high office that are too big for jail. I want big government for safety net, environmental protection, monitoring corporate behavior.I trust government slightly more than big business because it is at least nominally responsible to the people.
Debt is not a question of policy: in order for business to prosper it has to make a profit; that means that prices have to exceed wages. But then people can’t buy it all. Debt is the major way out.But that requires expansion. And as the economy expands, most small businesses fail in their first 2 years or get swallowed up, so that measures that claim to favor “small business” set us up for more monopoly.

Larry

Paul Ryan doesn’t want to make people who sit in their mansions and make money off of their money pay any taxes on their capitol gains nor on their untaxed estates.

Dave J

We have been off track since Roosevelt messed up in so many grand ways. It just takes longer for a country to realize the trouble its in when compared to a married couple. A married couple can screw up their finances and not realize it for 5 years while they live it up on borrowed money. A country can go on for many decades or even longer, before it realizes its trouble with debt. It will be corrected by either implementing libertarian ideas now, or by a massive war later. Since the libertarian ideas would come into play after the war anyway, I would prefer to go towards that now rather than later.

James Bullard

Paul Ryan says that when polled on individual government programs they favor them but when asked if they want to live in a socialist country they say know. Maybe the problem isn’t that they don’t really understand what socialism is and that if they understood they would answer differently. I think that most people in this country confuse socialism with communism and it is the latter that they are saying they don’t want.

Jim

Just more republican lies and misinformation. Consider:

The tax rate during the Great Depression topped out over 90%. There was an expectation that there had to be personal sacrifice, especially for the wealthy.

Wealthy countries like Germany and others offer free health care, free collage education. These are capitalist, not socialist systems.

Which party gave us a budget surplus and which one racked up the current deficit? Yet the tea-bagger prescription is always more looney, no-regulation libertarian, republican snake oil.

Does anyone still think turning Social Security over to the stock market is a good idea? Anyone??

Young guns? Give me gun control.

JacFlasch

Once again, most comments on this blog are more informed and interesting than the show.

daniel

Please stop insulting my intelligence. When you say that the Federal Government spends 20 cents of every dollar the economy produces, you neglect to mention that 12 cents of that money goes to the defense department. When it comes to budgetary woes,the war culture feeding off the military industrial complex, is the real culprit.

Rob

Congress Ryan, Says govt is “Doing nothing” is I’m sorry what the GOP has been doing nothing the govt is working hard to steer the country in the right direction. Granted the govt’s PR is suspect in all the good its done when things were so bad. Health care has been one of if not the biggest cost to us and financial reform was needed but both passed with a lot of benefits but also watered down by big business and lobbyist and some dems on congress but mostly repubs using uncertainty to infuse fear into the public and twist the narrative towards some legacy conservatism ideology that was the wealthy run the show and “big govt” is the enemy but the Koch brothers and big business our shaping the narrative!

Young guns road map is off mark with a twisted vision when many things in Europe work extremely well including environment and health care policies. We need a balance not extremes!

We should look at the best of Europe and the best of our American system and ideas and create a hybrid model instead of old school legacy thinking and catering to the wealthy (have and have nots) and continuing to neglect the middle class.

We need common sense back!

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

Edith said suitcases of money to Iraq, actually it was truckloads of cash that disappeared. It was distributed via suitcases. It will show up this fall in the “corporate” sponsored propaganda wave that will be visiting a TV, Billboard, print ad. radio spot near you. Get ready for an absolute flood of Republican attack ads that will distort this falls elections in unimaginable ways.

Register to vote, make sure your friends are registered and for gosh sakes, vote! Voter registration in most states ends 30-31 days before the next “election”.

Larry

Young guns? Give me gun control.
Posted by Jim

I’m with you on that Jim.

Who does think snake oil sales man Paul Ryan think he is fooling? He caused the budget deficit. He caused the deregulation that let Wall Street run wild.

He is the problem.

Now, he want’s to destroy the middle class to save the rich.

jeffe

Thanks for posting John Wihbey, I’ll make more of an effort with my spell checking.

Larry

Guide to the elections.

Whoever is being attacked the most (the corporations are against them) vote for them.

Should be easy. Spread the word.

Nick B.

A quick read of the comments shows the people are not buying what Paul Ryan, Arthur Brooks and the rest of the conservative shills for big business are selling (can’t afford it HA HA HA). I hope some of these comments got read on the air, I quit listening about 3 minutes in and listened to music as I read the comments.

JacFlasche

I don’t know if it’s still like this, but it use to be the law in Quebec that only the little mom and pop owned corner stores could sell beer on Sunday. This socialist government intervention kept most of these small corner stores in business. Yes anybody could go to the supermarket and buy cheap beer until midnight on
Sunday but human nature being what it is, it didn’t matter.
How about the neighborhood owned corner store where you live? In our capitalist paradise, is your mom and pop store still there? Unless you live in the barrio chances are it isn’t.

matt

I’d rather have a big and mighty government that I have control over (with my vote) than a weak government and strong cooporatations that I have not vote or control over. The GOP just wants to roll over and let the corporate tyrants take over america.

http://bookladi@gmail.com Donavee Copenhaver

There is much talk that those who object to this approach are raising “straw men”. I would like clarification when told that current spending will doom future generations to a drastically lower standard of living. This is an uncontested “scare” statement. What standard of living are we looking for? Is it to provide cruise vacations or vacation homes in the mountains or at the the coast? Are we looking for increasingly larger homes for smaller families? Should everyone have a boat and SUV parked in an extra large 6-bay garage? What are we “climbing up the ecomonic ladder” for? To what do we aspire? How do we define the “good life?” Are we all scrambling to acquire external compensations for internal needs? None of these questions are raised while they are the hidden drivers that lead us to the uncontrolled consumption and greed-based business practices that brought on the recent economic collapse. Until we address such issues, programs and policies will continue to be debated, used and discarded and policitians continue to play to voters’ fears while pursuing personal power.

Rebecca

Yes SS and Medicare/Caid need to be modified but they are not the only thing.There is a great documentary called IOUSA. It talks about ALL of Americas debt.

http://notyet Charles A. Bowsher

The Supreme Courts “Corporations as Individuals” continues to boggle my mind. Corporations can not fit into the voting booth, therefore they should not be considered to have the rights of individuals when it comes to our elections. Corporations are already represented at the ballot box by their employees, their customers and their owners (including stockholders). Simple and true.

Martha Schwope

After half an hour of searching and exploring, starting with his official website and supportive sites, I find nothing about Paul Ryan’s early life except that he’s lived in the same place where his family has owned a construction company for five generations. Before we trust free enterprise to take care of our problems, let’s do more investigation into Ryan’s roots and early development. I find it odd that there’s so little information readily available.

Nick B.

Holy mackerel, this thread is 100% WIN, and I’m only halfway through. You don’t often read or hear someone use the word ‘mountebank’. Good job listeners!

Mark G

The suject matter on today’s show is obviously not listened to by the vast majority of people who submit there comments on this site. You folks are the closed minded extremists who say that we are not spending enough! Eliminate the wars and we would still be having deficit spending. I have read comments about how we should take an honest look at socialism and consider it as a model for this country! Who exactly are the extremists? Nobody on the right that I have heard or read have ever said that they want to elimainate ALL regulations, want to eliminate taxes on the upper income brackets, or eliminate the safety nets of this nation. Why do so many folks choose to fall back on these tired, old, completely inaccurate stereotypes? It is because they do not want to hear or recognize any legitimate opinions and ideas that do not espouse their ideas and dreams of a leftward march to socialism. They choose not to hear the rfacts and bury there heads in the hope that some utopian vision of the world will somehow magically appear.

Chris

Ryan’s father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science in 1992
U.S.News & World Report LP. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/07/23/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-paul-ryan.html. Retrieved 6 April 2010

Guess he didn’t mind having a socialist program pay for his degree. Socialism is ok if it directly benefits the rich otherwise it is an entitlement that needs to be drowned in a bathtub.

monk

Paul Ryan has a slavish devotion to Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugs if required reading for all his staff members and he gives the book out as gifts to folks he meets. This according to his hometown newspaper.
Ayn Rand held that selfishness was the highest virtue and altruisn is an evil.
This is all we need to know about Paul Ryan.

EF Doyle, Cerrillos, NM

The Ayn Rand connection seems to be downplayed in the media. Those who would make a Virtue of Selfishness and ideals of greed and self interest are fundamental parts of the Republican philosophy now. I too think people should read Ayn Rand’s “Objectivism” and decide for themselves if this is the direction they want the country to go in. Her philosophy is purely self-centered, there are no moral obligations to others, she scoffs at the Christian ideal of love thy neighbor, there are no social obligations or even a social conscience. Big business loves this approach, it leaves them free to seek out profits with no concern for the environment, or society.

Larry

Holy mackerel, this thread is 100% WIN, and I’m only halfway through. You don’t often read or hear someone use the word ‘mountebank’. Good job listeners!
Posted by Nick B.

Learned a new word today. But I’m still going to spread the word that Paul Ryan is a shill for the rich.

Peter

Movement conservatives use the term “social engineering” when they see government acting in any capacity that tilts the playing field from the haves towards the have-nots. Historically and universally, movement conservatism’s underlying goal has been to preserve and consolidate the social and political dominance of the very rich. Their brand of onservatism creates and amplifies divisive issues such as gun rights, pro-life, immigration control, sanctity of marriage, etc. to divide and distract from its main program, which is to lift any social burden or restriction from the wealthy and their enterprises. Surprisingly, many rich people are not the least bit conservative, recognize that the health of society underpins their own success, and support causes that movement conservatives oppose.

ulTRAX

BHA wrote: “Again I ask, WHERE WHERE YOU! YOU were in your congressional seat 2 year before Bush took office, WHY do you NOW start worrying about the debt YOU helped raise astronomically.

Destroying New Deal and Great Society programs has ALWAYS been the goal of the Far Right… but was something they could never admit to. So since Reagan they ran a stealth campaign of sabotaging government with massive debt created by irresponsible tax cuts for the rich and irresponsible spending.

Now when their policies have wrecked government they claim we must dismantle those government safety net programs for our own good. We must further accelerate the trend to hand the nation over to business and the wealthy. The massive debt and the current recession PROVE those policies have been a disaster.

Only those on the Right with self-sabotaged intellects buy such despicably disingenuous bullcrap.

Flowen

Right on Donavee!

The fundamental problem is psychological; we need to learn to distinguish power-seeking psychopaths from real people when we vote our leaders in.

And, we ourselves need to recognize we are mindlessly pursuing the goals the commercial interests have established for us. There is much, much more to life than the ridiculous and self-destructive self-images the commercial interests exploit at a level below conciousness.

The population is scared, insecure, and angry; and the various corporate industrial complexes (the military industrial complex was just the first), especially the media, is feeding confusion. Just the right mixture for who knows what! Watch out!

The one essential thing that needs to happen is the price of energy needs to be allowed to rise. Period.

In the final analysis, you have to take care of yourself, best way. Good luck to all.

ThresherK

Wow. The AEI guy is the one guest making the most sense. Shows us how far removed from reality Paul Ryan is.

I welcome the discussion of crony capitalism, lobbying, and “carve outs” (special lobbied exceptions in regulations and tax codes that ordinary folk neither get, nor hear of). But Arthur Brooks is not a “counterpoint” to Rep. Ryan. There is another show to be had on the whole K-street/campaign finance/lobbyists-writing-bills issue.

Saying that, my alarm goes off when any conservative economist starts talking about morals and values. They seem to forget that this country grew rich and middle-class and happy by the tempering of robber-baronry by FDR. AEI protesting that any realistic free-marketeer recognizes the need for some government is a bit specious; I don’t remember them leading the charge to regulate mines and oil rigs when the Bush executive branch was asleep at the switch this past decade.

As far as the shower of piffle from Rep. Ryan, there was some pushback from our host, but not enough. The dual roles of host and “opposing counsel” may not be the best thing for one person to have on this show. Hey, maybe a liberal could be invited on!

L. Brookins

So the demographic cohort that has been paying extra FICA into a “trust” fund, in effect paying for their parent’s retirement and pre-paying their own since 1983, will be the ones to take the hit. The people now ages 50-55 (who Rep. Ryan so generously labels “the younger workers”) have been paying this extra amount their entire working lives and will now be the ones to try and keep their jobs til age 70 while saving up for their own retirement. I think Rep. Ryan needs to get out in the real world and work for someone other than government so he can see the pressures we who are self-employed or in private industry deal with everyday.

Kelly

I have had it- I am an american neuroscientist working at a top university here in the states and I am about to start my job search for a faculty position, however, I will be taking my technical skills and trainig overseas. Madness has taken hold here in America. We are ruled by the wealthy and corporations. I am planning to move to ‘socialist’ Europe.

http://shulmandesign.net Alan Shulman

I am pleased to see the general tenor of responses to Rep. Ryan’s proposals, and hope that it translates into appropriate votes on election day.

The key word in “trickle-down economics” is “trickle” as in “go live on a trickle if you can.”

Tom Wilson

Civility and constructive discourse are prerequisites for solving the nation’s problems. Rep. Ryan’s complaint that a “straw man argument” is being used against his proposals is chump change compared to the avalanche of confused logic, misinformation, and character assination piled on President Obama from the right. Conservatives like Rep. Ryan are not going to solve any problems until they are able to have a civil dialogue with those who have different opinions.

Steve V

The problem, as I see it, is more basic. I listen to, and speak with, people every day. Their knowledge about politics, the economy, the war(s), health care, etc, is (to be polite) limited. They do know all about certain TV series, Lost, American Idol, etc. And try to engage them in a conversation about the former subjects and their eyes glaze over. Simply put, most Americans don’t want to become involved in such matters. The issues are to “complicated” and they have other things to do. Listen to people talk and you hear them say they want lower taxes, to stop the war, a return to “family values”, but press them for details and they don’t have a clue. Our government functions best with educated, involved voters. I’m sorry to say we have few of either and will, therefore, get what we deserve (like it or not).

Kash Hoffa

@Steve V

“The issues are to “complicated” and they have other things to do.” etc…

This elitist comment serves no purpose – dissing your fellow commenter based on your estimation of his/her education on a topic won’t help the problems discussed here. There are a lot of people who are very well educated/informed on the leading topics (Alan Greenspan?) who still manage to make major blunders despite deep subject-matter expertise. Education is no panacea; arguably, education is possibly used to corrupt policy and process. Furthermore, our government simply wasn’t designed to cover the scale of concerns it now deals with.

Michael

I applaud the you for presenting the so called young guns on the show but once again hear no new ideas from that side of the aisle. They will ratchet up the fear and the morons will vote for them and once again we will be in a stalemate. When mysticism takes over and logic is gone there is nothing left to do but laugh at the idiots on both sides of the aisle.

Chris

Kash, I don’t think Steve’s point was to bash people’s education or lack thereof. I think his point was that many American’s have no interest in becoming “educated” in our political system because they think it is too complicated and takes to much time to figure out. Instead, they either don’t vote at all or vote for those they are “told” who to vote for by outside sources with little or no personal introspection on their part. Our democratic republic is not served by advocating your responsibility as a citizen to others or ignoring it.

Sam

Just wondering, if this gentleman would be the president in 2012 or 2016?

Jesse Woellhof

I may to look for something else to listen between 10 to Noon. Between Facebook comments and this page, there is overwhelming opposition to these two, with many excellent points being made that weren’t addressed on the air.
The guys wrote a book on their ideas, they dont need an entire hour of radio time to reiterate them. It’s just silly to hear them allowed to make all these assertions without any challenge while people are clamoring at your comments pages with counterpoints.

John B

Small government myth#1
Getting rid of government will make you free.
Answer; There will be a power vacuum
which will be filled with crime or big business
corporate interests, or both.

http://www.venturacommenter.org F. William Bracy

I’m encouraged by what I’m reading here. The apologists (for Bush, Reagan and the status quo) are clearly alarmed and beginning their retreat back into the woods. With any luck they’ll stay there up to and through the next two election cycles. Keep it up, guys. The equivocation in their rhetoric is genuinely palpable.

Steve V

Chris,

Thanks for your comment. In addition (Kash) I was simply pointing out that to many people “educate” themselves around things like television programs and not with politics. Hence we have 30 second sound bites, or 22 minutes of evening news, or newspapers with a serious lack of content, “informing” people about numerous important issues. Where do you go for real content, for the truth about any issue? You have to spend time and effort, to think critically. Many people today simply don’t spend (or in some cases have)the time or resources, hence they give up and settle for what’s easy and available. And having CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc shouting 24/7 simply complicates matters. I’ve adopted the attitude that everyone is trying to sell me something, from cars to clothes to investments to politics. How and if I buy what they are selling is my responsibility. And we all need to do the same. Caveat Emptor.

Thomas Egan

I think I’ll skip you tonight. Paul Krugman exposed this guy a few weeks ago. I guess NPR, in its newfound taste for the GOP, missed that column. The GOP has no ideas, wants to shred the social safety net. I don’t understand why they are getting so much airtime on NPR.

Betty

If entrepreneurs were known for their social justice conscience and support of the poor, we would not be in our current economic mess! On the contrary, sometimes required by law, the concern of those making money is to make money. There must be some regulation and accountability in place to limit the power to make money regardless of who it hurts. It is the job of government to care for ALL the people, not just those who make money! Senator Ryan can restate his plan as many times as he wants; but it will not change the facts. His plan will support financial interests, not the needs of all the people.

http://smallsystemsdesignassociates.com Jerry Smetzer

Is Ryan the intellectual leader of the oil and money soaked far right? His complaints about Obama creating “straw men” reminds me the unrelenting, and heavily financed republican mantra about liberals and democrats. He is just another reader of Karl Rove’s scripts. Give me a break.

Gary

We try to vote Rep Ryan out. There are a lot of right wingers in Waukesha County. Also the Dems never put up a serious candidate to run against him. He is virtually uncontested.

He only cares about getting his face time on Fox and worshiping Ayn Rand. He is really a fringe right winger. It is hard to believe but a lot of lower income folks and elderly have his yard signs out. I hate to be blunt but there are a lot of very low information voters in Waukesha county and Mukwonago in specific.

Really all he cares about is the rich and corporations and it is so obvious. Like I said lots of low info folks in this area.

Grady Lee Howard

Ryan and his wonk-bud presented as if their roadmap were already law. I guess that’s what they were doing, laying down the law as dictated by the Oligarchy. I’m 54 so I guess my SS contributions are gone and I’ll have to take the little private investment account the “Big Man” wants me to have, so he can put another private corporate tax on me, until my working days are gone and I die on the sidewalk (only 11 years). If a few have all the wealth, all the income, all the interpretation of law in their favor, unlimited bribing with impunity (Thanx Supremes), and the control of media (as Tom has gifted today)to threaten and generate fear there is little hope of resistance. Kelly may have the right idea about leaving, but if you keep some land they call it secession.

Steve: It’s that fear thing making people act ignorant and stick their head in the TV when you bring up issues. People are scared shiftless of the rich. That’s why more don’t comment here.

Ray is correct that INFLATION cancels a whopping percentage of national debt over decades, and the unlimited power to mint (print or electronically issue) currency can’t hurt either. It is the holders of debt (usurers) who dread inflation. We are being denied viable choices of a minimum standard of living that are right in front of our noses. Let poor people into your network and pull them up. Do for them what the wealthy promised and then refused to do for you.

Sarah Cushing says grow food. I agree and have tried, but most land is in corporate control. Farming costs money I lack. Contact me at beretco.op@hotmail to discuss further.

Most people are like animals fenced in a paddock, waiting to be fed and watered. They have no real means of self-sufficiency beyond the few tricks they do at the office (I include me.).It is the “owner’s” crime if they starve or suffer. If Ryan and his Brownshirts want to be Masters of the Race they need to read the Declaration of Human Rights first, or simply go to Hell.

Is Dennis in Omaha the same as Jim in Omaha. I wish someone in Omaha would contact us at Figgers Institute.

Robert A. Letcher, PhD

Oh, now I get it. Some Americans can’r accept what even the Rolling Stones sang to us decades ago: “You can’t always get what you want!”. Please note that the Stones didn’t qualify “want”. They did NOT sing, You can;t always get what you want//unless you happen to be a conservative ideologue who prefers taking care of #1 over taking care of “the last/least among us”. That might make sense in a country in which justice didn’t matter; “just US”. In my view, such a country would not be worthy of receiving any more respect than those conservative ideologues would share. May they live in even more challenging times.

K

John B. @ 12:57,

You are exactly right John!!!

If you want to know the result of weak government centralization, look no furhter than Mexico, though there are plenty of Third World examples.

During the most exemplary periods of our country’s greatness, strong central government has been the rule.

I don’t know what it is about today’s conservatives that so many of them can’t make the connection between quality of life for ALL and a strong central government.

… it’s as though conservatives choose to be or are completely ignorant of history and the world outside the U.S.

Tom Nunnery

Paul Ryan’s views on all subjects show balant ignorance of Americans’ needs.

Daniel Hudson

First, the American Enterprise Institute is no better than Fox News. It starts with a very conservative viewpoint and agenda, then researches and analyzes evidence to support them. Second, as conservatives bemoan budget deficits I rarely hear them challenge the defense/foreign policy spending. The war of choice in Iraq along with the Bush tax cuts broke the budget. We are not even allowed to know the true cost of that war and other defense spending. Funding them by tax increases is out of the question politically. Why do we need our biggest embassy in Baghdad? Many military bases around the world give every evidence of being permanent. Is stability not in the interests of other countries? Why do we continue to bribe Israel and Egypt to keep their peace treaty? Is peace not in their mutual interest?

Betsy Ross

I don’t understand the audacity of the people who call themselves “Republicans.” Today’s “Republicans” are so far away from the original GOP, it’s laughable.
Our most recent “Republican” administration put our nation into the situation it’s in, & now that party complains that the new “Democrat” president hasn’t fixed it fast enough… even though the current president’s policies are very reminiscent of those of his predecessor.
All of Capitol Hill is completely corrupt & every single one of them needs to lose their jobs because of their irresponsible, self-serving decisions that have only caused our nation to fall into an out of control downward spiral.
The idea that there are people out there who listen to ANYthing ANY of these guys say anymore, is beyond belief.
They’re all full of it & every time they speak, we get another dose of pure crap poured on our heads.

Cut SS.
Cut taxes for the wealthiest.
Raise welfare for the nation’s biggest recipients… corporations (including corporate farms).
Continue two wars that have cost our nation more than unimaginable amounts of money, but precious lives on both sides.
Encourage aggression on yet another front (N Korea) we cannot afford (both financially & I do not believe we have the lives to spare).

Why do we insist on trying to prove to the world that we are the biggest & the baddest & the most whatever? Egos are laughed at in real life. Don’t you think that’s what the rest of the world does… they laugh at the US like some smarmy, greasy-haired guy wearing far too much cologne who thinks he’s “all that” when he’s far too short, has a big gut, a receding hairline & is too obnoxious to stomach.

Can’t we come up with some people who just want to do what’s best for our people? our nation? Why is it always about being the most or the best? It isn’t a competition… there is no race. We are now so far in debt to China, we’d be completely sunk if they called in their markers.
We just need to worry about making a good life for ourselves & allow the rest of the world to take care of itself for a while. Our situation affects the rest of the world very drastically. But we can’t pass on anything positive if we’re all screwed up ourselves.

We need a major priority check.
That means keeping our water & the places we grow our food safe from contamination, educating ALL of our people, keeping our economy running (getting OUT of debt, not giving money/power to the rich, Wall Street bastards who screwed us over to begin with… let them fall, just like anyone else who fails), re-building our infrastructure so that it’s safe, modernized & functional, allowing honest businesses to thrive & cleaning up the garbage that screws over the People… & that includes getting & keeping religion OUT of government. No one needs someone else telling them how to believe or live according to THEIR personal beliefs. We started as a secular nation for the purposes of living with the freedom to believe as we choose & we need to allow religion to remain a personal, private matter.

At this point, we have two really awful options. The Tea Party is, unfortunately, an uneducated, unorganized joke so it cannot be considered a viable third option. Our media twists everything into a mass of garbage far too tangled from which to sort out any rational, objective message.

For decades, people have used the old adage, “Rome didn’t fall in a day, but it certainly did fall.” But here we still are. If we want things to get better instead of continue to worsen, we have to stop the status quo & get down to basics, either stop being afraid of change or BE afraid of change & just do it anyway… what’s important to us in our homes also carries over into what is important as a nation. After all, we are a nation full of homes… every one with differences, yet every one with something(s) in common. And we all have to call the US “home” somehow. So let’s get our house in order.. the first step is to take out the trash & deep clean that house (& senate).

Olga-Maria Smock

I’d like to see the details of Congressman Ryan’s plan added to the online game, “Budget Hero,” so that we could all see how his ideas work out and stack up with our own.

michael

Paul Ryan

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004357&cycle=Career

Prosperity PAC
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00388793

michael

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201009140003

This morning, Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appeared on NBC’s The Today Show to promote their new book, Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. During the interview, host Meredith Viera asked the trio why Republicans are bent on giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, given that the Bush tax cuts failed to produce meaningful economic growth. Ryan, who did not contest Viera’s premise, responded by repeating the oft-told lie that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would affect 50 percent of small business income.

VIERA: [T]hese tax cuts have been in existence for quite a while, these Bush tax cuts. If they were designed to stimulate the economy and to create jobs, they didn’t succeed. So what’s so good about them?

RYAN: Well, first of all, remember, half of all small business income will have a huge tax increase in January. 70 percent of our jobs come from small businesses. So the last thing you want to do in an economy like this with 9.6 percent unemployment is have a big tax increase on small businesses, which is the engine of job creation in America

The reality — which House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) acknowledged this weekend — is that just 3 percent of small business owners would be affected by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the top two income brackets. Furthermore, many wealthy individuals who earn income from sources other than a regular job (speaking engagements, consulting, etc.) can report their earnings as “small business” income. Regardless, Ryan is distorting the facts: according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts would affect 50 percent of all business income, but that does “not imply that all of the income is from entities that might be considered ‘small.’

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201009130001#jbsmallbiz

michael

To answer Richard question Koch donates to the PAC that gives money to Paul Ryan.

jeffe

Grady Lee Howard you make a valid point. I’m 53 and I was thinking what all the money people under 55 have been paying into this SS for 30 plus years. Is Ryan’s idea to tell us folks sorry, it’s gone now, fend for yourselves.

The audacity of these people is beyond belief.

jeffe

The bottom line is the Bush tax cuts have done nothing.
Where is the growth? Rep. Ryan is white washing the 8 years of a presidency that took a surplus and turned it into a nightmare. He has the nerve to come on the air waves today and act as if this never happened.

Show me the jobs? Where are all the jobs all these tax cuts have created?

Mark S.

It is my sincerest hope that the low-information voters who allow themselves to be bamboozled by this crap and by hypocritical, career wingnuts like your guest have the privilege of spending their Golden Years eating cat food in cardboard boxes while their corporate masters dine on caviar in their penthouses. I find that the loathing I feel for the Repugnant Party is being eclipsed by the disgust I am beginning to feel for the intellectual acuity of my fellow Americans. If the growing percentage of fools and useful idiots swayed by the Becks, Hannitys and Limbaughs of the world follow the Tea Party’s retrograde, racist playbook, then may they all go straight to ****.

leftturnonly

My personal opinion of Paul Ryan is that his at least a demagogue and at most a liar. He keeps repeating this lie that American corporations pay the highest income tax rates in the world. And they do, on paper, but certainly not after their deductions. Especially since over 68% of American corporations don’t even pay income taxes.

Paul Ryan is concerned about the deficit, the burden we are placing upon the shoulders of our children, the economy we are not growing. Well, do say.

Where was Paul Ryan when Bush the Son was bankrupting the nation by adding to the immoral debt incurred by Bust the Father and Ronald Reagan?

And what is Paul Ryan most worried about when he speaks about this deficit? social Security, healthcare, and the other entitlements that cost far less than what is spent on arms, war and enhancing the police state.

51 cents of every tax dollar goes to war.

But he is not outraged over that and has no plans to curtail such immoral profligacy.

He is a typical amoral right wing corporate shill.

Louise Dery-Wells

The human mind’s capacity to distort under the influence of powerful drives like greed is unbounded. To suggest there is ANY motivation here to help the poor and elderly is laughable. The Republicans have squandered our social safety net on their own self interest.

What s being cooked up is a plan to euthanize the poor and elderly and destroy the power of the middle class. There is absolutely no evidence to support the validity of trickle down economics and no evidence that government has destroyed the economy.

In fact it is governance by corporate self interest and the unregulated free market that has destroyed potential capital, stifled innovation (energy policy), broken the social contract, and spent tax money on itself e.g a bloated military marketing for the armament industry, that have moved us a long way to disaster.

For shame gentlemen!

Jay

I heard Paul Ryan mention “security” once but in the same breath he could not bring himself to mention President Eisenhower’s warning to beware of the “military-industrial complex.” Only a myopic individual could ignore the $3 trillion dollar wars that have consumed us for the last decade. If he was honest he would sponsor legislation making us pay for the war through our taxes not through the deficits.

Terry

So it works like this, give up social security so we can fund wars and prop up banks? And that’s supposed to be good for America?

Richard Johnston

So many unsupported assertions and information taken out of context. As many have noted, Social Security is not going bankrupt, and can be easily repaired by some minor adjustments. Any projection, even by the CBO, is necessarily inaccurate and speculative at a time of financial collapse like this one. The biggest factor limiting our future growth is uncontrolled defense spending for needless weapons systems and boondoggle wars. The biggest problem with our political system is corporate involvement in public policy because of the corruption of the system of financing elections, which can be solved instantly by determined legislators. Almost 20% of our GDP goes to medical costs. If we spent as large a part of our GDP on defense and health care as Europeans do we would have almost $1½ trillion dollars a year to spend on valuable programs. None of thse bozos says any of this, and I am not even that smart, fer crissake.

Todd Harvey

What about cuts in military spending? I don’t remember these fiscal conversations when we went to war in Iraq.

Jay

Wow, I am glad that I heard the end of the program where Paul Ryan is described as being in Congress since 1998. I love to see “leaders” who do not have the courage to vote their convictions. Paul, part of the Bush Republican majority, voted to borrow the money for the wars, voted to give tax breaks at the same time, voted during the eight years of the Bush presidency for fiscal stupidity and like Ichabod Crane suddenly he wakes up. Now he wants what he calls prudence. You people in Wisconsin are fools for voting for hypocrites like Paul.

david

A quote from history…
“A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.”

You may disagree with the two guest, but what they say about our nation’s coming fiscal disaster is true.
It seems the only solution to this problem will only be palatable if it comes from one’s own side of the fense.

Reminds me of a poem about two old men in a leaking boat. They argued over whose method to plug the leak was better. The leak never got plugged, the two old men went down with the boat. Such may be our plight!!!

Margo Schlewitz

I just turned off my radio because I could not listen any longer to this idiot who has no idea how Medicare works and the terrible disadvantages to Medicare patients that the ADVANTAGE program provide. First of all, if Medicare insured healthy people it would not be loosing money. Second of all, the ADVANTAGE programs (privately provided Medicare) cost 18% more than traditional Medicare and they do not pay doctors properly and leave Medicare patients with bills, lack of choice and confusion.

Medicare is one of the best services we provide our elderly Americans. Social Security the next best thing. Stop bad mouthing these programs.

Why is NPR giving this person air time? Don’t they get enough on on the other channels?

Irene Moore

The snake oil salesmen never stop coming.

Stuart Decker

Yar you rock! I slid past every other entry to comment on your post. You have captured the essence of things. Boil it down: Are we in this (Society) together or, are we individually on our own? If alone, those who form wolf packs have/will eaten us. I found Mr. Ryan attractive in espousing a political world view that balances the individual w/ the community. My question for Mr.Ryan is: How will you defend against/evade having your intended Utopian balance subverted by big Corp money and power? For the young Guns this is the only relevant question. Another way of stating this in the terms of the day is: Why aren’t you like all the rest of the “Conservative” mouth pcs? I am hungry for an answer. If it passes muster, you have gained an advocate. Churchill’s musings on liberalism and coservatism are a yeasty meal in my life.

Ken Smith

I just finished reading through the comments here. To quote Mr. Spock, “fascinating.”

What intrigues me is that while about 95% of the comments thunder against Ryan and Brooks, our venerable host–whom I regard as the best of the best of radio hosts, regardless of political persuasion–appeared unable to lay a glove on either guest.

This must be very disappointing to those who posted here after actually listening to the program (I know a lot of you just let fly without even having heard Ryan and Brooks out). The devout center-left Tom Ashbrook, extremely intelligent, extraordinarly dextrous in verbal sparring, proved incapable of offering any kind of effective defense against what most of the posters here have described as the most transparent drivel.

Fascinating. Fascinating.

John

I only caught the last half hour or so of this conversation, but here’s my take as an instructor of poli. sci.:

The decision to make Medicare and Social Security the focal points of why spending is “out of control” is a political choice. From their perspective, it is a foregone conclusion that less government is almost always better when it comes to entitlements and social provisions. For all of the screaming about “Obama-care” (p.s. anyone who uses this phrase is demagoguing) being a “government takeover of health care” is clearly forgetting Medicare and Medicaid which, in all fairness, could be considered partial takeovers of health insurance (not health care). So, Ryan and Brooks go after these popular provisions and, surprise, the answer is to privatize them.

But if we’re talking about “third rail” issues,” like Medicare and Social Security, why not talk about the U.S. budget for the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security? Together they amount to over $700 Billion. Can we maybe think of ways to begin cutting down this budget? Do Ryan’s estimates treat these budgets as constants? If so, why? Why must social provisions be the first on the chopping block?

If Americans were able to vote on whether they want financial and health insurance support for when they get get older, or if they want to maintain a military budget that is literally TEN times the size of any other country so that we can launch endless wars with little budgetary consideration, I have a feeling I know which way we’d vote as a country.

Joshua Hendrickson

David writes,

“A quote from history…
“A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.””

Never heard that one before. Where in “history” did you get it? Can’t be too old, since the left and right divisions of liberal and conservative come from 18th century British parliamentary seating arrangements. Wherever it comes from, it sounds pretty vacuous to me, and lacks the punch of that equally vacuous old saying, “if you’re young and conservative you have no heart, and if you’re old and liberal you have no brain.”

Actually, your quote reminds me the most of that other old saying, “the fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’” To which the answer is and always has been, “the wise man says it aloud.”

http://www.facebook.com/david.zapen David Zapen in Miami FL (WLRN)

Congratulations; you interviewed two conservatives to show your relevance by covering Tea Party policies. Could you please do the opposite soon with liberals like ex-Secretary of Labor Robert Reich or Congressman Dennis Kucinich or talker Thom Hartmann? Call me a Social Democrat, but the solution is simple. Tax 90% on all money made over $10M, just like in 1951, on individuals but also on corporations now that they have the same rights as people; also nationalize healthcare (single-payer) to more efficiently heal people for 20% less and nationalize energy to cut out billionaires who earn their money by evading corporate taxes and by sidestepping safety rules like having emergency contact numbers for experts who are still breathing, as well as protecting coal miners instead of their corporate masters.

Joshua Hendrickson

David Zapen,

ditto.

ulTRAX

Presumably with a straight face, David wrote: Reminds me of a poem about two old men in a leaking boat. They argued over whose method to plug the leak was better. The leak never got plugged, the two old men went down with the boat. Such may be our plight!!!

The problem with your pitifully simplistic analogy is that since Reagan a radical faction in US politics has not cared about the health of the nation. They were willing to let it disintegrate if they thought it would kill off the New Deal and Great Society safety nets.

While the Democrats aren’t angels, and usually I have nothing but contempt for them, you expect us to ignore the REAL saboteurs of government on the far Right and compromise with them?

How does one compromise with lunatics without embracing some of their insanity?

TGM

Wow, who would have thought that this would be the anti Fox website. PBS is known for giving fair and balanced views, as long as they are the left views. Hate Congressman Ryan if you want, but give him credit for appearing on this show. he went into the lions den, I’m sure most of you will call him stupid for doing this. Like it or not our country is in serious trouble. It is easy to blame people, but that doesn’t fix the problem. As Congressman Ryan said repeatedly his solutions are only a beginning point to try to get the discussion rolling. Instead of calling him and others like him names that don’t have your viewpoint, why don’t you bring up your solutions and help fix our nation?

Mark

Social security is being used as a slush fund by certain people, that’s why it will run out of money!

Phil Stewart

Ryan is quite the rhetorician — in both the good and bad senses of applying persuasive speech.

So it pays to listen closely. You heard him decry straw-man arguments against his proposed restructuring of Social Security, etc. — so when he applied straw-man arguments instead of answering questions (twice at least), I’ve got to say my ears perked up.

When asked how he could balance the budget without raising revenues — only cutting costs — he countered that raising taxes alone would not balance the budget. He did not address the option of a mix of tax and spending adjustments.

So he answered a question that wasn’t asked, and ignored the question. He acted (implicitly) as if the only way to balance the budget was entirely by spending cuts or entirely by tax cuts.

That’s very good if you want to sound like a reformer while selling the same old story of unending tax cuts without ever a tax increase in the other direction, even as a corrective.

So: the same old thing we’ve been doing since 1980. (Hint: the military spending is Keynesian in its effect — remember how the economy improved in Reagan’s later years? — but who will admit it?)

As I say, it pays to listen. I personally mistrust rhetoricians who lean so heavily on a straw-man argument, and pull a diversionary ruse rather than directly answering journalists’ questions. In discussion, they will take you to places you may not necessarily want to go. If you are not careful, do not listen closely, they will leave you there.

It’s the same thing they will do with the country, with all of us.

Phil Stewart

Ron O

While I disagree with some of Mr Ryan’s premises and plans, he at least presents himself as a rational person willing to dialogue. I am surprised he has not been excommunicated from the Republican party for such heresy.

Phil Stewart

Wow.

Lion’s den, huh?
Grr!

What nonsense.

I didn’t hear a braying loudmouth yell at anyone to “shut up!” when he said something that didn’t prattle back to the announcer just what he wanted to hear.

Let’s be just a wee, tiny, eensie bit realistic here — or hey, why not fully realistic? I sometimes don’t like what I hear on NPR, but no one on NPR is asking me to drink any Kool-Aid when I tune in. No one is yelling at me to “shut up!” I don’t think you can say that of any other network in the United States at present.

There is a difference between truth and falsity, and between propaganda and reporting. As soon as you erase that distinction, you erase the basis upon which to govern rationally. If you want national failure, go with that.

A rat pressing a lever for pleasurable brain stimulation will keep pressing the lever until it dies of starvation, and never stop to eat. That is one way, after all, for the rat to exercise freedom of choice.

Phil Stewart

James Grosser

Tom:

Very disappointed in your interview with Congressman Ryan. You never pushed Ryan to explain how his roadmap would work. Mr. Ryan diagnoses the problem as health and retirement security programs that are going bankrupt, and he proposes to ensure health and retirement security by … cutting benefits? You never asked him to connect the dots between cutting benefits and enhancing health and retirement security. The best I can tell, Congressman Ryan proposes to enhance health and retirement security first by redefining the concept of security. You will get less, but it will constitute “security” because it meet’s our new definition of “security” (e.g., 70 year retirement age, assistance with obtaining health care in retirement, but no guaranty of actually receiving health care, etc.). Congressman Ryan also implies that his roadmap will enhance economic growth, thereby “lifting all boats.” Presumably, if people are richer, they will be better able to provide for their own health and retirement security. This is classic trickle down economics, and the problem with it, as we have seen, is that our economic system, having been rigged by those most adroit at wielding influence in federal, state, and local government, has become a spoils system rather than a “free market.” In the current system, the benefits of economic growth are captured mainly by a small segment of society. The net economic status of “average” people has been stagnant for decades, with virtually all gains being offset by increasing health care costs.

One step to a true roadmap to fiscal sanity is to tackle the health care monster by introducing true cost-benefit analysis into medical care decisions with the goal of significantly reducing the portion of national income spent on health care. I didn’t hear Mr. Ryan say anything about that.

Chris

“A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.””Ecclesiastes 10:2

They just can’t leave anything alone, but must skew it towards their political philosophy.

Here are some earlier versions, not quite the same intent are they?

Bible in Basic English
The heart of the wise man goes in the right direction; but the heart of a foolish man in the wrong.

King James Version
10:2 A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left.

Brett

Chris,
You must understand, david consults “The Living Bible.” It’s the Denny’s menu of bibles…

As to other remarks about not giving Paul Ryan a chance; I, for one, was very familiar with his propaganda before the show. And, in listening to the show, he proved as predictable as if he was reading from the same derivative script written using all manner of neocon cliches he has honed for the last couple of years.

I laughed when he called his version of neocon tax cuts for the wealthy “tax reform.” It was as if he was doing a parody of a neocon.

Bob

Given the opportunity to address Paul Ryan, I would simply pose this question, “what if you are wrong?” There doesn’t seem to be anyone asking this question. Also, if Mr. Ryan is SO concerned with the deficit how can he possibly defend the Republican position of not letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans expire? I also take issue with the implication that “progressives, liberals, leftists, whatever term you like,” are interested in Big Govenment. NOT TRUE!!! But we see a small government unbridled from the trillions of dollars spent on the Industrial-Military complex and instead paying down the debt with those saved dollars rather than eliminate or cutback on social programs. Let’s refocus on taking care of our own instead of playing the imperialists nation-building in countries who we only have interest in because they have something we want, mostly oil.

Joseph

This plan is just what I would expect from the brand of Republicans that Ryan represents. The deficits and national debt are a critical issue so sacrifices are necessary. Despite the fact that Social Security and Medicare have not contributed anything to the deficits or debt, in fact borrowing from these trust funds has helped conceal the true size of the deficits Republican taxing and spending policies have given us over the last 30 years, S.S. and Medicare recipients must accept cuts. Other government programs must be cut and income taxes must be raised on the lower 75% [income level] Americans while drastically cutting taxes for the upper 25%. In fact for the top 10% or so Ryan’s plan to eliminate taxes on capital gains, interest income, and dividend income would mean almost complete elimination of taxation. Elimination of the estate tax would assure that the wealthy would live free of taxation for generations. You know those hedge fund managers who have been making $1,000,000 a day (that’s right, 6 zeros)? That is all classed as capital gains so under Ryan’s plan their annual tax would be $0 (only a zero this time).

The claim is that this will lead to economic growth in the U.S., some magic of trickle down economics again. Look at the last 10 years with the lowest tax rates on high income, capital gains, and estate taxes since before the Depression. Economy is booming right? Everyone is so much better off right? The reality is Ryan’s plan is just the same policies that Republican administrations have pushed for the last 30 years. Policies that have really only resulted in two predictable outcomes. Big deficits every year and concentration of wealth at the top; approximately 66% of the nations wealth is now in the hands of the top 10%, and about 33% is in the hands of the top 1%. Imagine how much better off the country would be, how much more flexibility we would have had dealing with the current recession if the G.W. Bush tax cuts had not happened. We might have paid off some of the national debt (about $5.7 trillion when Bush took office) instead of almost doubling it (about $10.6 trillion when Bush left office).

Ryan’s plan is nothing new, just the same old Republican agenda that one cannot do too much for the wealthy and corporations. We all must make sacrifices because of deficits and debt, except for the high income and wealthy who should not be asked to give up anything, but instead should be given more. And except for military spending that is over 60% of the budget. Yeah, this new found Republican worry about deficits, found only after Obama’s election, is just the latest excuse to promote the same old agenda.

CG

I don’t understand the venom behind a lot of the criticisms to Paul Ryan.

He’s talking about means testing for Social Security and Medicare so that they will continue to protect those they were designed to protect: The poor and the elderly!

And he’s right about one thing…we have to do something! We’re bankrupting our country.

I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Perhaps lower taxes for corporations/higher for individuals combined with a decrease in spending.

Joshua Hendrickson

Capital gains income ought to be taxed at a much higher rate than ordinary income, since it is just a form of financial manipulation, requiring no labor or production to create the income.

Jeanne Sturim

Well finally I hear a Republican who says he is willing to open a dialogue about the enormous debt and the serious problems facing our country today. I felt encouraged after the program that someone in the GOP is thinking about solutions rather than playing the role as the obstructionists(the strategy of the GOP these past two years). Paul Ryan seems to have the interests of the American people at heart unlike his colleagues who have the interest of the Republican Party at heart.

Ishmael

OK, Clinton handed Dubya a budget surplus and what happened? Look at Reagan and the rest of the GOP and that political party clearly is uninterested in getting rid of government deficits. That is, therefore, a given.
They will do whatever it takes though, to keep the wealthy doing well.
Ryan seems stuck in “if you disagree you’re prima facia wrong” mode, which of course leads nowhere. He is indeed a fast talker though, and having himself been on the public dole continuously for so many years, is, understandably, out of touch with economic realities of working people. Hello? This isn’t the 1700′s anymore, and “free enterprise” isn’t the great solution it may have seemed at one time. Its panacea status has been rearranged somewhat, and we’ve just seen its Darwinian results.

An American worker

When are Republicans going to get it is their trickle down economics that are largely responsible for incre-asing the number of unemployed in this country and the 50 million or so Americans without health care cover-age –not to mention the more than almost 44 million below he poverty line today.

Their classic response to every problem is to give out vouchers which fill the pockets of capitialists instead of providing good solid programs and services for the middle Class and the needy…

Government isn’t the problem like they like to claim
but their predatory capitalist system that takes all
and leaves little for workers and shareholders .

I don’t know why Obama doesn’t propose nationalizing
more business and utilities, especially the oil com-
panies when securing oil resources and drilling can
lead to such national disasters and price hiking in
private hands.

Plus, why give venture capitalist tax incentives and write offs , plus let them walk away with huge pro-
fits when they could be used to pay down the decifits, build up social services and create job programs for
workers.

We have entered a new reality folowing the market crash and we should be looking at a new and different ways of doing business instead of turning our money & natural resources over to venture capitalists who line their own pockets first and throw the rest of us crumbs…

An American worker

D

Every generation of politicians finds a new way of peddling the same old BS. “Unfunded liabilities” for social security? BS (http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=496). Medicare going broke? Try health care costs out of control. And even so, the rise in Medicare spending is dwarfed by the rise in private insurance spending. Somehow, Medicare has managed to control costs better than private insurance providers. So, more BS (http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358).

Patricia Dillavou

Paul Ryan and his cohorts self-ascribe themselves as the “Young Guns” … that you fell over yourself repeating over and over and over and over again in the introduction. It was enough to make a person want to vomit.

Why push the idea of their self-appointed nickname? Why is Ryan a “young gun”? Because he says so. That’s not a reason.

I turned the program off – I didn’t think it boded well for the conversation that you oozed all over him from the very start.

Highly offensive.

Phil

In regard to some of the pro-Paul Ryan comments given above: I have to admit that I felt encouraged to hear *someone* willing to address the problems with entitlements spending.

However, as I have said in a previous comment above, I noted in Ryan’s comments a troubling failure to entertain the very possibility that taxes would have to be raised, in addition to savings found, to keep these programs (and our country) solvent.

Ryan managed to do this by dodging questions and addressing straw-man arguments instead, a kind of rhetorician’s jujitsu, but fallacious.

Keeping taxes low is attractive on its face. What I find interesting is how hotly the Republicans protect the high-end taxpayers, the rich. If they were serious about balancing the budget, and protecting mid-range earners and small businesses, they would propose a compromise, and let the very rich step up to the plate and pay a higher rate to help make this country solvent.

They haven’t. (Do correct me if I misspeak.) I have to conclude that the anti-tax mantra the Republicans incant is a way to pander to people who can afford to pay but do not want to.

So here’s a new idea: Let’s try to fix the nation’s finances without simultaneously issuing handouts to the rich. Those handouts go off into the global capital flow anyway, like so much exhaust into the jet stream, with no guarantee of benefit to this country in the bargain.

Ryan spoke well. Now let’s hear him improve on his proposal. As voters, let’s not punish him if he comes back and tells us something difficult to listen to, but honest about what we’ll pay.

In the service of that, however, let’s listen quite closely.

Phil

CG

Phil,

I read a lot of more conservative publications (The Economist, Forbes, etc.) Even conservatives aren’t full gung-ho behind Mr. Ryan — without tax increases his plan’s numbers do not add up.

However, conservatives are excited that Mr. Ryan is daring to voice his opinions — and we should be too! It is almost political suicide to talk about reforming Social Security.

The answer to the problem lies in the middle. If Mr. Ryan’s plan was too centrist, he wouldn’t have as much negotiation room, by going far to the “right”, he can back down a little.

Ethan

Wow, just listening to this now.

I find both guests to be somewhat condescending to Tom and the callers – going on about “straw men” and “adult discussions” as if their mere presence on this show is suddenly escalating the quality of it.

Nice attempt at bringing these issues to light, but I think in the future, having a guest with an intelligent counterpoint may help get some more concrete answers out of these two…

Erik

His words make a certain amount of sense. 60% maybe. And he may honestly believe in what he is saying.

But we’ve heard it all before – from Reagan, etc.

And we know that it doesn’t work in practice. The corporate forces are too powerful, and they take every opportunity to maximize their control and profits at the expense of the individual citizens of this country. In the real world, the only way to protect the individual is to have a government with vision and backbone. To think otherwise is to engage in dreamy idealism.

Ryan (maybe unwittingly?) implies this when he talks about how what we need is not domination by a corporate kleptocracy, but instead lively and active small businesses. How does he propose to protect the latter and avoid giving free rein to the former, and yet do without the protections for the citizenry that a strong and just government can offer?

Peter

People, people, people!

I recently read the “Roadmap” for myself and was pleasantly surprised!

Do you know that it addresses the unintended consequences of previous Republican AND Democratic administrations?

Do you know that it entails some of the economic principles first enacted under John F. Kennedy’s administration?

Do you know that it moves Social Security into the format that it was originally meant to be by the DEMOCRATIC President who first proposed it?

Do you know that it is the only plan out there that is based entirely on known and proven economic history and Congressional Budget Office numbers?

Do you know that it is the only plan out there that addresses the impending issues that will wreak America if not addressed in the near future?

While the “Roadmap” does not solve all of America’s problems, it does result in an America that is stronger, more productive, and more financially sound than it is now.

I challenge each and every one of you to actually read it for yourself.

I challenge each and every one of you to think about each and every issue it addresses.

I challenge each and every one of you to come up with an alternative plan which has a better chance of preserving the American way of life.

I challenge each and every one of you to stop griping and SHOW ME A BETTER WAY!

Dan Wood

Thanks for your thoughtful comments,Peter. Obviously, most of the foaming-at-the-mouth posts here are from crazed liberals that are willing to reject the plan sight-unseen, because Mr. Ryan happens to be a Republican.

No one on the left is coming up with a workable solution, and Obamacare will only put us deeper in the hole.

Living in SE Wisconsin, I am thankful to have Mr. Ryan represent me in the Congress. He is a realist, and is willing to work across party lines to clean up this mess, which both sides helped create.

Mark Richard

‘Hard right’? Public radio is still a captive of the frozen vocabulary of the left-leaning chattering classes. Is Nancy Pelosi ‘hard left’? Her party just took a ‘shellacking’ in House elections, in no small measure because Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, was seen as its far-left face.

http://html Shirley

I’m a retired senior, and i don’t want anyone to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Meidcaid, if you care about the Deficit so much you will give up your Bush Tax cut.
The Insurers are smart, they are increasing coast before 2014 when most of the Healthcare kick in.
American Citizens are asking the Republicans what are going to replace Healthcare with.

All the Republicans ideal’s come from Charles and David Koch, Paul Ryan is involved with the Tea Party Movement, i saw him on c-span with a panel of mens tell the group what and how to do inorder to support them self.
paul Ryan first plan was to trick the middle class into paying more taxes than the Rich before anyone could knew it. President Obama plan was better, but they plan to get the plan in before he knew it.