Let's talk about Paul Ryan
Mitt Romney finally announced his VP choice this weekend. Paul Ryan is a Republican Congressman from Wisconsin, and a very smart man. He's young, energetic, and I personally think he was the wrong choice for Mitt when it comes to winning the presidency.
Mitt's people have clearly clued into the fact that people are sick of having such a generic GOP candidate out there. Mitt has done everything he can thus far in his campaign to avoid taking a stand on almost anything. When he has taken a position on issues, it's almost always a reversal of a position he held previously. Someone actually created a site http://mittromneyflipflops.com/ to catalog cases where he's done this, and it's as funny as it is scary. My point is that we can't really say where Mitt Romney stands on anything, because neither can he.
Paul Ryan is another story. He's pro guns, anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights. He wants a fence on the Mexico border and he thinks we're spending too much on education in this country. He wants to overhaul Medicare and Social Security, and eliminate taxes on investments and capital gains. You can read the details on many of his positions here, a great site that tracks public statements politicians make, and how they vote in Congress.
Ryan's signature issue is the budget. He has more or less personally authored the last two budgets that the GOP has supported in the House of Representatives. Keep in mind that Congress hasn't actually PASSED a budget in over 3 years, Ryan just wrote one that his GOP colleagues widely support. So Romney is clearly saying "I want to make this election about reforming government finance." That's fine, I absolutely agree that our government finances are in terrible shape. Two problems here: 1) The things we need to do to fix our finances are not politically popular, and 2) Paul Ryan's "plan" will simply give future generations of Americans a different mess than what they'd see from our current path.
Not surprisingly, Ryan's plan is largely based on tax cuts, and those cuts (also not surprising) absolutely favor the wealthy. When is America going to clue in that tax cuts for the wealthy provide no net benefit for society? Reagan tried it, and the result was a deficit so bad that he had to raise taxes 11 times. We all remember how Bush senior lied about "no new taxes." Bush junior implemented tax cuts for top earners that we've held onto through the recession - where are all the jobs that these "job creators" we keep giving tax breaks to are creating? We can't yell at Obama for a slow recovery and in the same breath argue that the "W" tax breaks for top earners have been so awesome for the economy that we have to extend them again. Under Ryan's plan, Romney would pay just 0.82% in taxes, down from the 13% effective rate he pays today. Ryan would eliminate capital gains and investment taxes, and lower the top rate from 39% to 25%. Ask any economist you want, whatever their political leanings, and they'll tell you that eliminating capital gains tax would effectively create the largest tax loophole ever. The only reason millionaires like Romney pay a the paltry 13% they do is BECAUSE capital gains tax exists. Take that away and you've just given the richest people in the country a free ride that will drastically reduce government revenues, which has the net effect of amplifying our budget crisis, not fixing it.
Here are a few articles analyzing Ryan's budget proposals. In short he cuts taxes, pays for that by "closing loopholes" and slowly overhauls Medicare, medicaid and social security. Ryan's plan doesn't get us to a surplus until 30 YEARS DOWN THE ROAD, and he won't specify which loopholes he's going to close ("Paul Ryan’s budget plan: Dessert first, vegetables later"). Another one I like is "Paul Ryan's budget takes us back to 1950. That's not a metaphor. That's a statistic." Those last two links are really opinion pieces, but the numbers in them are accurate.
Entitlement reform has been a long time coming. We have to raise the retirement age and shift more of the retirement burden off the government and onto ourselves. One of the few things both parties agree on is that the current path is absolutely unsustainable. Social security, medicare and medicaid are crippling our ability to do the things we need to do in this country. The Ryan plan actually does a decent job with entitlements, but you can't win an election on it. His Medicare "plan" would increase the average burden on seniors by $6,400 a year. That'll kill grandma much faster than Obama's death panels, and in concert with his tax cuts for the rich it's political suicide.
Mitt's people have clearly clued into the fact that people are sick of having such a generic GOP candidate out there. Mitt has done everything he can thus far in his campaign to avoid taking a stand on almost anything. When he has taken a position on issues, it's almost always a reversal of a position he held previously. Someone actually created a site http://mittromneyflipflops.com/ to catalog cases where he's done this, and it's as funny as it is scary. My point is that we can't really say where Mitt Romney stands on anything, because neither can he.
Paul Ryan is another story. He's pro guns, anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights. He wants a fence on the Mexico border and he thinks we're spending too much on education in this country. He wants to overhaul Medicare and Social Security, and eliminate taxes on investments and capital gains. You can read the details on many of his positions here, a great site that tracks public statements politicians make, and how they vote in Congress.
Ryan's signature issue is the budget. He has more or less personally authored the last two budgets that the GOP has supported in the House of Representatives. Keep in mind that Congress hasn't actually PASSED a budget in over 3 years, Ryan just wrote one that his GOP colleagues widely support. So Romney is clearly saying "I want to make this election about reforming government finance." That's fine, I absolutely agree that our government finances are in terrible shape. Two problems here: 1) The things we need to do to fix our finances are not politically popular, and 2) Paul Ryan's "plan" will simply give future generations of Americans a different mess than what they'd see from our current path.
Not surprisingly, Ryan's plan is largely based on tax cuts, and those cuts (also not surprising) absolutely favor the wealthy. When is America going to clue in that tax cuts for the wealthy provide no net benefit for society? Reagan tried it, and the result was a deficit so bad that he had to raise taxes 11 times. We all remember how Bush senior lied about "no new taxes." Bush junior implemented tax cuts for top earners that we've held onto through the recession - where are all the jobs that these "job creators" we keep giving tax breaks to are creating? We can't yell at Obama for a slow recovery and in the same breath argue that the "W" tax breaks for top earners have been so awesome for the economy that we have to extend them again. Under Ryan's plan, Romney would pay just 0.82% in taxes, down from the 13% effective rate he pays today. Ryan would eliminate capital gains and investment taxes, and lower the top rate from 39% to 25%. Ask any economist you want, whatever their political leanings, and they'll tell you that eliminating capital gains tax would effectively create the largest tax loophole ever. The only reason millionaires like Romney pay a the paltry 13% they do is BECAUSE capital gains tax exists. Take that away and you've just given the richest people in the country a free ride that will drastically reduce government revenues, which has the net effect of amplifying our budget crisis, not fixing it.
Here are a few articles analyzing Ryan's budget proposals. In short he cuts taxes, pays for that by "closing loopholes" and slowly overhauls Medicare, medicaid and social security. Ryan's plan doesn't get us to a surplus until 30 YEARS DOWN THE ROAD, and he won't specify which loopholes he's going to close ("Paul Ryan’s budget plan: Dessert first, vegetables later"). Another one I like is "Paul Ryan's budget takes us back to 1950. That's not a metaphor. That's a statistic." Those last two links are really opinion pieces, but the numbers in them are accurate.
Entitlement reform has been a long time coming. We have to raise the retirement age and shift more of the retirement burden off the government and onto ourselves. One of the few things both parties agree on is that the current path is absolutely unsustainable. Social security, medicare and medicaid are crippling our ability to do the things we need to do in this country. The Ryan plan actually does a decent job with entitlements, but you can't win an election on it. His Medicare "plan" would increase the average burden on seniors by $6,400 a year. That'll kill grandma much faster than Obama's death panels, and in concert with his tax cuts for the rich it's political suicide.