I know I shouldn't, but....
Now to the budget. Paul Ryan went on Republican Party propaganda network Fox News and sat down for an interview with Brit Hume to talk -- what else -- budget (because let's face it, Ryan knows jack about anything else, like foreign policy). You would think he would have had an easy time. But I have to hand it to Hume, he didn't just throw softballs at the new VP nominee. He did try to get some actual answers out of him. Trouble is, Ryan couldn't answer anything concerning the budget of the man who chose him for his veep slot.
Hume: "The budget plan you're now supporting would get to balance when?"
Ryan: "Well, there are different -- the budget plan that Mitt Romney is supporting gets us down to 20% of GDP (gross domestic product) government spending by 2016. That means get the size of government back to where it historically has been. What President Obama has done is he brought the size of government to as high as it hasn't been since World War II. We want to reduce the size of government to have more economic freedom."
Hume: "I get that. What about balance?"
Ryan: "I don't know exactly what the balance is. I don't want to get wonky on you, but we haven't run the numbers on that specific plan. The plan we offer in the House balances the budget. I'd put a contrast. President Obama, never once, ever, has offered a plan to ever balance the budget. The United States Senate, they haven't even balanced, they haven't passed a budget in three years."
Hume: "I understand that. But your own budget, that you --
Ryan: "You are talking about the House budget?"
Hume: "I'm talking about the House budget. Your budget will be a political issue in this campaign."
Ryan: "The House budget doesn't balance until the 2030s under the current measurement of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) baseline."
Oh, oh! So they haven't "run the numbers" on Romney's plan? WHAAATT??? You just can't make this sh*t up. Seriously. They haven't "run the numbers." So neither he nor Romney has a clue what Romney's budget would cost or what it would do to the economy.
Now, Ryan already has his own budget, which has been run through the House a couple of times, so he knows it backwards and forwards. What did he say about it? That it wouldn't balance until the 2030's. Actually, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said it would take until at least the 2050's. The problem is it's hard to tell exactly what it would do, since it calls for huge tax cuts for the wealthy (Romney himself would pay almost nothing) and large corporations, but pays for it by taking money out of everything from Medicare to education to food stamps to transportation to PBS and Big Bird.
The Ryan plan would like people to choose independent insurance companies instead of Medicare. Why? Because large insurers donate a lot of money to Republicans. The Ryan plan would like to spend more for defense even though we don't need it. Why? Because large defense contractors donate a lot of money to Republicans. The Ryan plan wants to cut taxes for large corporations -- guess why. Ryan thinks renewable energy is a "fad," and wants to cut out all loans to green energy companies in favor of expanding natural gas and oil drilling. Why? Well, oil companies aren't sending a lot of big checks to Democrats. In short, it's corruption, pure and simple. Being bought by the very people who keep you in office, and to hell with what happens to the environment, the middle class and especially the poor. There is no better argument for public funding of political campaigns than that.
And by the way, his wife is a lawyer and former corporate lobbyist. Ryan is worth millions because he married money, so naturally he will do whatever he can to benefit those like himself.
Paul Ryan believes wholeheartedly in the Ayn Rand philosophy of economics, which essentially says that the wealthy are to be pampered while the middle class and the poor should be left to fend for themselves. According to her, it's not up to the government to help anyone other than the wealthy. (People do tend to forget that Social Security, Medicare and unemployment payouts are paid for with taxes taken out of your paychecks.) It used to be that Republicans were more surreptitious about their elitism, but now they've become very bald-faced about their "let 'em eat cake" philosophy. And why not? People still vote for them, even though they're voting against their own best interests. Should Romney and Ryan win this election, the people who voted for them will get the government they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us will have to live with it, too.
