Greg Sargent asks why Mitt Romney is embracing the Paul Ryan Jump Off The Cliff economic plan so tightly.
Ryan fires up the base on both sides like nothing else, which is why Republicans like Romney want him in the role of hero, and Dems want him in the role of villain. But what about swing voters? Dems seem confident that the Ryan vision is absolutely toxic among them. And yet, as Jed Lewison notes, Republicans seem equally confident that Ryan’s radical vision — or “bold,” if you prefer — is a political winner this fall.
Nonpartisan observers say Ryan’s plans amount to a huge giveaway to the rich at the expense of exploding the deficit. Polls suggest that huge majorities favor preserving Medicare’s traditional function, and reject Ryan’s reforms. And yet the amount of influence Republicans have accorded to Ryan over the GOP’s fiscal policies, worldview, ideology, vision, priorities and direction is really kind of extraordinary. They’re going for it.
They’re going for it Greg because they’re counting on your employers at Kaplan, Inc. and the other Village media outlets to sell the Ryan Plan as not only morally desirable but absolutely necessary economically over the next several months and well beyond. It worked for the Bush tax cuts and Medicare drug benefit giveaway. It worked for Afghanistan and especially Iraq. Those cost us trillions but were sold as the right thing to do.
The Ryan/Romney Austerity Plan will be no different. It will be the reason why, should the GOP gain control of the Senate, that the filibuster will be done away with and the President will get a nice shiny austerity budget. Selling that Romney will sign such a budget into law will be the big talking point.
Meanwhile, austerity is destroying the EU and UK right now. All indications are they are back into a recession with no real hope of getting out. These guys want to make sure we’re next.
WereBear
Works for THEM.
JPL
Paul Ryan is a serious thinker and he’s the only person willing to discuss serious policies. Where’s the President’s budget btw?
Excuse me for awhile since I have to go to the store and buy some kool-aid.
the fugitive uterus
it is simply that republicans are not even trying to hide what they are about anymore. it doesn’t really take much analysis, it’s just out there for the whole country to see. they’re actually flaunting it. Romney embodies this. He is completely unapologetic about his riches, how he made his own money and is now just living off his investments.
everyone who thinks that some day they will be just like that guy will vote for him, regardless of their personal economic situation.
Redshift
Well, maybe. I think it was Steve Benen who noted being pleasantly surprised that Ryan Budget 2.0 actually didn’t get greeted with cheers from the Village in general; major news outlets actually highlighted the fact that it gave massive tax cuts to the rich and didn’t cut the deficit.
So perhaps, if they’re dumb enough to produce outrageously bad policies when they have no chance of passing and there’s actually a year or more to respond to the howls of outrage, the Village is sometimes capable of learning.
NotMax
Budget bills are moved in the Senate via reconciliation, and are not subject to filibuster under current rules.
Brachiator
Budgets originate inthe House. An austerity budget is a done deal.
The Congress has already passed, and the president has promised to sign, a bill supposedly helping small businesses that really just throws money down a rat hole.
If Obama wins re-election, he will likely end up in another crappy compromise that extends the Bush tax cuts two more years. If Romney wins, the only question will be whether the Democrats go back to capitulation and make the Bush tax cuts permanent, or hold off for a shorter extension. Lower tax rates for corporations are also a sure thing.
And to be blunt, what happens to Medicare is small potatoes compared to the massive redistribution of wealth to the One Percent that is about to go down if the GOP wins big in November.
BTW, great segment on Maddow the other other day, pointing out the $23 million that the oil industry threw at Congress, that all but guaranteed that oil industry tax breaks would be extended even though everyone in the universe, including Republicans, admit that they are not needed.
mellowjohn
@WereBear: absolutely right. it all boils down to “cui bono?”
Villago Delenda Est
@the fugitive uterus:
The parasites are celebrating their parasitism. That’s what it amounts to.
gmf
I’m sure one of the things the GOP thinks is has going for it, as far as independents go, is the cover politifact provided for them on Ryan’s plan.
ET
I don’t know if they are counting on Kaplan and the other “very serious people” to “sell the Ryan Plan” as you put it but they definitely count on them to not tell the bald truth about the plan in plain language.
And they would be right. No writer (not columnist) at the WaPo or any other news daily or on TV will say exactly who the plan benefit and what it actually means.
MattF
Every four years, everyone forgets and then eventually remembers a basic fact: Presidential elections are decided by people who can’t make up their minds. So, the relevant questions are 1) “Who are the people who can’t make up their minds about the Ryan plan?” and 2) “What will persuade them, one way or the other?” I’m not so sure, myself, about the answers to either of those questions.
BGinCHI
When you are out of ideas and talent, and all you have is the money you stole, you might as well go for the boldest con job you can think of.
The math demands it.
Elizabelle
Gail Collins selects Americans Elect as runner-up for “the worst new trend of the political season”. (SuperPacs win, “hands down.”)
And cuts to the chase.
She touches on Am Select’s nondisclosed funding structure; does note the potential to “buy your own ballot line”, which disturbs me.
dr. bloor
@MattF:
Yup. The return of Independent Ignoramicus is more reliable than the swallows of Capistrano.
And, as you suggest, their decision about the Ryan plan is not likely to be based on anything having to do with the Ryan plan.
Ben Franklin
The Perfect storm for the GOP is if the mandate gets struck down, Medicare will follow.
WINNING
Cassidy
CNN already started. They were reporting how the budget passed and has no chance in the Dem controlled Senate. And then they were lamenting how it’s been 1K plus days since we’ve had a budget and how upsetting that is. No mention of obstruction or what was actually in the budget.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
Kool-aide hell – the only cure for what that does to my brain is a trans-cranial Hypersonic plumbum injection but I’m not ready for that yet
Davis X. Machina
@Cassidy: Notice how the absence of a proper budget, and the use of a series of continuing resolutions instead, has hamstrung the recovery, tipped us back into recession, made US debt worthless, and tanked the stock market.
The pain their dream budget would cause is the reason for the budget. Not confidence, or lower inflation, or interest rates, or higher equity prices.
The pain. It’s its own justification. Pulling the wings off of flies, at the level of a nation-state.
Mark S.
Except for Iraq, all those things were pretty popular. VoucherCare isn’t popular at all. This is a monumental mistake by Romney, and if he goes all in and makes it his economic centerpiece, he’ll make 1964 seem like a nail biter.
It’s completely suicidal.
pluege
austerity is destroying the EU and UK right now.
“destroying” is in the eye of the beholder.
obviously the plutocrats in charge of the EU and UK are getting the results they want as they keep at it. So there is no “destroying” there from their perspective, only from the eyes of the recipients and those that see the manifest suffering the plutocrats are clearly intentionally causing.
The plutocrats running the US are only too eager to get the same results: the new Feudalism.
porter
Another day, another mental masturbation piece by Zandar the magnificent.
What if unlikely scenario a + even more unlikely scenario b = the scenario I dreamed up in my head before figuring out what scenarios would need to come together to make it happen.
Frankensteinbeck
@Davis X. Machina:
Was this snark? Because we didn’t tip back into a recession, the stock market is doing dandy, and US debt is still the most stable and popular investment in the world. It’s impossible to tell who’s being snarky and who’s ignoring reality these days.
John M. Burt
That’s good.
The Ryan-Romney Greece-style plan might be better.
Davis X. Machina
The following fundraising e-mail just received:
From: Barak Obama
To: Davis.X.Machina
Subject: Hey
Davis —
I need you with me on this one.
Tonight’s deadline is our biggest yet, and I need everyone pitching in.
Give $3 or whatever you can:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Today
Let’s go,
Barack
The ‘Hey’ just slays me.
I’m waiting till I get the one with “Dawg” in the subject line, then I’m going all-in.
dr. bloor
@porter: Which would make you the tube sock that cleans up his messes?
Keep up the good work
Corner Stone
@pluege:
It’s what happens when the plebes start to acquire more goods than they are allowed to have. The monarchs crash society, force the underclass to sell off or flat give up anything of value, then the only ones with money left buy everything up at the predetermined firesale prices.
Then we start all over again.
Corner Stone
@Frankensteinbeck: If there’s no Latin in the comment then DMX is attempting to provoke the ire of the less swift in the commentariat with center right snark.
RalfW
I realize that Marketplace on Public Radio doesn’t have the audience or ‘gravitas’ of the Village idiot media, but they were bluntly saying yesterday that Austerity is screwing the pooch in Spain.
(OK, not their exact term of art, but the thrust of their coverage).
JPL
@Schlemizel: Kroger’s doesn’t sell that.
the fugitive uterus
OT, but HLN is covering the rally on the police dept. in Sanford. also a rally in Atlanta of 6000-8000 people is taking place today.
GregB
Romney is a shallow and pathetic man.
He’s going to pick a Palin 2.0 who will campaign against Obama claiming he’s going to plot a Rwandan style genocide against white senior citizens.
That is the path they are on.
dww44
@Brachiator: Chris Hayes did that segment and it indeed was a thing of beauty in its sheer clarity and logic. It ought to get wider distribution, truly.
The Dangerman
This only makes sense if they are going to flat out steal the election. Then they will have their mandate to make this their plutocratic utopia.
Gary Fuckett and the Mindless Gap
See how the bully pullpit doesn’t work, unless of course, there is a bully in the pulpit.
RalfW
@Davis X. Machina:
The recovery is indeed tenuous. But the DJI is up 63% over the past three years and up over 8% just in calendar 2012.
So the betting class still thinks things are improving/will improve. Or are pulling in gullible money again. Take yer pick.
danielx
Hey, austerity is good for people. Just like shaming the sluts is a good thing because it will make them submissive to men and rid them of all these uppity ideas about making their own decisions about their bodies and health, voting, all that bad stuff. Just like tax cuts are the cure for all economic problems. Just like every foreign policy issue can be solved with more firepower. Just like global warming is a myth at best and at worst a commie plot. Just like…
Fuck it, this is one of those days when it all makes me tired.
jurassicpork
He’s clutching it like grim death because Romney’s not running for president as a politician but as a businessman. Once you look at him through that prism, you can understand him perfectly and why he’s so ruthlessly corporate. This guy would be the first Chief Executive to do his inaugural as a PowerPoint presentation.
Anyway, Mike Flannigan weighs in with a powerful and merciless piece on the latest firing of Keith Olbermann. A must-read.
Corner Stone
@danielx:
I swear to the FSM that someone simply has to make a Pirates of Penzance remake using modern Republican ideology as lyrics for all the musical numbers.
There’s really no other logical conclusion to it all.
Brachiator
@dww44:
Agreed.
Must see video clip. Chris Hayes lays out how Congress killed an attempt to end oil subsidies, in part to spite the Obama Administration, and because a key number of Congress people are on the take of the oil companies.
from the Rachel Maddow Show
The other side of this is Congress figures correctly that voters don’t care, even though polling shows that they want these subsidies to end. And Hayes also points out how the subidies increase the deficit even as dopes like Ryan keep harping about how there needs to be deep cuts.
As poster dww44 noted, nothing but clarity and logic here.
@Gary Fuckett and the Mindless Gap:
Good play on words, but another poster pointed out a while back that Teddy meant “bully” in the sense of “jolly good” not “kick sum ass” when he used this phrase.
Mike R.
Somewhere there is polling that’s telling republicans that the ryan budget is or can be sold as a winner. This isn’t for the primaries, this is a position for November. My guess is that Zandar is exactly right in that they’re very comfortable that the media will be full allies in selling this bullshit because on the face of it there would seem to be no upside for romney to embrace it at this stage of the game.
A couple of things I’ve learned are: never underestimate the power of republicans to lie to the American people, never underestimate the capacity of the American people to believe those lies and lastly, never underestimate the ability of Democrats to fail to make an effective counter argument.
JR in WV
It started back in the 1930s, when Republicans fought FDR’s New Deal legislation. FDR basically saved Democracy in America for his first big accomplishment via the New Deal.
People still benefit from the work done by people being paid to learn construction skills in the CCC, this is where the lodge at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park came from, for example. Much more in the Great Smokey Mountains Nat. Park, for another.
Then FDR slipped a real navy to the British in the late 1930s, which allowed them to survive as an unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of Nazi Europe.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt basically saved the human race from living in a totally hostile totalitarian universe for the rest of time; your only choice would have been (through luck of geographic birth) whether you worshiped the Emperor of Japan of the Reichsfurher
But now the Rs have convinced most Villagers that the New Deal didn’t even help the general American Public not starve, much less save our democratic form of government. This is how they manage, so far, to keep economic stimulus from being the main agenda of congress.
They have become the best users of the big lie since it’s so successful deployment in Europe not so long ago (if you read history, anyway) in the 1930s.
By repeating a lie over and over and over, it somehow becomes true to many people. If everyone believes the sun is a big coal furnace in the sky, why then so it is.
So, if putting people to work on important public work, like building hi-speed rail, like replacing old interstate bridges, like learning to be a plumber or electrician won’t help the economy, well then we might as well give the money to rich deserving Republians, right>?
Is there any way putting people to work when there are millions out of work, hard working people with no hope of a job this year, any way this won’t help the whole country? No, there is no way it won’t help the whole country.
I’m able to hire good workers to help me with this chore or that for 1o or 12 bucks an hour, guys who managed warehouses, worked construction, were union plumbers, guys who haven’t had a job in 2 years or more.
Guys who need a little money to keep their vehicles operational – in case they get a job offer and need to drive to work. Or in case they need a dry place to live in their best friend cousin sister can’t let them sleep on the couch anymore, because, well just because.
In what America is keeping your car running because you need to live in it a proper expectation? Not mine! Not ours on the progressive side! But with Willard, that’s fine if it frees up a little money for his friends.
The Republicans are anti-America in every way that matters, and pro-American in every way that doesn’t.
Hujo
Meanwhile, the Democrats are assuming the fetal position, in the hopes that the Repubs will stop kicking them–no organized or credible rebuttal to the Repug agenda.
If we’d had this sorry lot of Democrats during the Great Depression, there would have been no New Deal, no Social Security, no regulation of banks, the list goes on.
Baud
@Hujo: WTF are you talking about? It’s people like you that enable everything the GOP does.
TuiMel
@MattF: @MattF:
My anecdotal experience is that it is a point of stubborn pride to have one’s mind unmade-up about such matters. It is “eau de centrism” and evidence of an open mind. Me? I’ve made up my mind that I don’t buy what Republicans want to sell me. This makes me just a sad case who cannot be “reasoned” with.
eemom
I think you’re
concern trolling againmistaken. The WaPo editorial board sucks shit in infinite and many splendored ways, but economic irresponsibility is not one of them — and anyone with two brain cells to rub together understands that it’s the Ryan “plan” which is, in fact, irresponsible.Hiatt et al. have actually done a GOOD job calling out the smoke and mirrors shit that McDonnell and his brigade of drooling fuckwits in the Virginia state legislature keep trying to pull.
If you have evidence that they were cheerleaders for the Bush tax cuts and Part D I’d like to see it.
And don’t tell me to go Google to make your case for you.
Donut
@porter:
I will never understand why people like you spend their time doing things they hate, but have total control over, such as reading this blog. What a waste of your life. U r dum.
Emma
@Hujo: Oh bullshit. If you know where to look, you can see and hear democrats trying to get their message across. It’s not their fault if the MSM refuses to carry it. One reason why I don’t watch American news anymore.
And before you keep on shooting your mouth about the brave Democrats of the Depression era, go read the original laws and how they were passed. Hint: melanin-excessive people, vagina-people, and a host of others were not covered. In fact, nobody did anything until begging in the streets by WHITES became visible.
Sly
@the fugitive uterus:
Not entirely.
The primary purpose of austerity budgets when it comes to unemployment is to reduce the price of labor. Dump the public sector workforce, increase the supply of private sector labor, create further competition among wage seekers, create downward pressure on wages, and firms will hire more workers at lower rates of compensation. Basically, it asserts that wage earners are not quite desperate enough, and need to be made to feel more desperate in order to bring labor costs into equilibrium with consumption. More workers earning less money.
The reason why this is not discussed publicly and only in policy documents that the political press don’t bother to read is not because it’s disastrously wrong-headed (though it certainly is), but because this position is impossible to sell to people who actually earn wages. “Vote Republican and Take a Pay Cut!” is not something the GOP wants to put on a bumper sticker.
Suffern ACE
@the fugitive uterus: Yep. Wasn’t it Atlanta where a drunk driver with a suspended license hit and killed a child last year and walked while the child’s mother was arrested? I think there might be a whole list of grievances in that city about what laws are enforced against which people.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s funny how every front pager here has his or her own personal troll. It’s kind of like a familiar, though I bet the FPer would be willing to sacrifice that part of their soul.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Emma: Thanks. I’ve noticed a lot of DK diarists that like to forget that part of history as well.
Yutsano
@Donut: Because Derf feels pity upon us and must therefore grace us with his brilliance. Ask him what he’s doing to remove Harper from the PM spot. Since he can’t vote in the US.
Hujo
Baud,
I’m flattered that you think people like me are enabling Republicans, but I must disagree.
Congressional Democrats are moving to the right rather than standing up for long-held Democratic beliefs and principles. I hope Obama wins re-election, but I fear that he’ll see both a Republican House and Senate. With 21 Dem seats contested vs a dozen R’s, I see no real prospect of them holding on, unless they catch fire and really stick it to the Republicans, which seems out of character for the present crop.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Sly:
Maybe we should make that a bumper sticker.
Anya
I hope you’ll pardon me for going OT, but lately I’ve been discovering how destructive Bill Clinton’s policies were. Just watch this short video and see how you feel about him afterwards.
Keith G
This set of policy goals should/must be at the heart of what this election is all about. Not about general intolerance or puppehs on cars, this election needs to be about expanding economic oportunity and security throughout the general population under these new and troubling conditions.
MattF outlines what should be an important part of the Dems campaign:
Obama et al have the better message. I hope they can deliver.
porter
@Donut: I will never understand why people like you spend their time doing things they hate, but have total control over, such as responding to comments on the original post. What a waste of your life. U r dum.
Thanks for the luv anyways my pathetic little groupie.
Davis X. Machina
Needs to be, yes. What it will be about is getting That Awful Negro out of the White House. We’re still processing the outcome of a civil war whose sesquicentennial we are commemorating.
Keith G
@Davis X. Machina:
Not with the group of people who matter.
__
The “Awful Negro” crowd would never vote for a Democrat anyway, but a lot of others (including most of their kids) will.
Rafer Janders
@Davis X. Machina:
For me it’s “Yo Dawg” or nothing.
Though I may also accept “S’appenin’?”
catmandoodo
The Ryan Plan: Path to Prosperity for the Prosperous–no others need apply
feebog
@ Hujo:
Maybe you should get out more. Democrats currently have 51 seats and 2 independents caucusing with them fo a total of 53 seats. It will take a switch of 4 seats for Republicans to take over the Senate. There is a good chance of Dems winning up to 3 seats in MA, ME, and NV. In ME, King is an independent, but he almost certainly will caucus with the Dems. OTH, there are only two Dem seats that are clearly in danger, NE and ND. Tester (MT) and McCaskill (MO) are polling even in their races right now.
Recent polling in Florida and Ohio show Nelson and Brown with solid leads over their Democratic opponents. In order for the Republicans to take the Senate, they would have win in NE and ND (likely, but not alltogehter certain); retain all three seats in MA, ME and NV and beat both Tester and McCaskill in MT and MO. So, in a Presidential election year, where both MT and MO will be in play, I don’t see Republicans getting it done.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Hujo:
If the GOP gets both the House and Senate, but Obama stays, they can’t do much more damage than what they are doing now, except more loudly (and obviously). Two more years of that, and even the fuzziest of the fuzzy middle will get sick of it (as in 2006).
__
IMO, 2012 is about Holding the Line. The real Prize is 2014. Which we then fight like pitbulls to keep in 2016.
Brachiator
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
This makes a lot of sense. Ideally, more Democrats will be elected to Congress in 2012. But either way, the last best hope is in keeping the White House.
Otherwise, the worst case scenario would be a President Romney giving the GOP Congress everything they wanted, and doing nothing to slow down state assaults on women, nonwhites, unions and civil liberties at the state level.
Davis X. Machina
@Keith G: Their kids don’t vote, not in numbers that matter… and the ones that might vote have been exposed to four years of incessant reminders from the people they trust that it didn’t do any good last time, or that it can never do any good, because it’s all a shuck.
Why would even that small moiety vote again?
The GOP’s 50%+1 strategy is not only perfectly viable, it’s got a track record of success. All you have to do is destroy the faith in the process of the median-occasional-independent voter, and ruthlessly whip your true believers.
In this context, a completely, nakedly, transparently partisan Supreme Court is valuable even if it never renders a single opinion. You have to crush people’s faith in the process.
Brachiator
@Davis X. Machina:
Seems to me that some liberals are losing faith faster than are independents. You got to stop blaming them, and do more to convince them, and other liberals of what should be done.
Not sure what you really mean here. The Supreme Court can only signal its partisan stance by issuing opinions. And Justices like Scalia seem eager to play. It may be illuminating to see whether Justice Roberts might pull back at all, or go all in forever.
You have to crush people’s faith in the process.
David Koch
@eemom: not wapo, but the other villagers are selling the Ryan plan. Klein was on MSNBC Thursday pushing it, pathetically saying if it isn’t adopted then the world comes to an end. Last week, the Village Sunday shows were pushing it, as well.
But just because Hyatt is opposing it, doesn’t mean the rest of neo-con ghouls at WaPo won’t.
debbie
A couple of reports yesterday said the plan wouldn’t get rid of the deficit for 30 years. Where is the outrage from the Tea Party?
David Koch
@debbie: How can teh Villagers call the Ryan Plan “bold” and “serious” when it takes 30 years.