Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

[Night Strike]

what he didn't realize is that much of what he posted is accepted by many people and is why they ARE voting for ryan.

That's actually what I was thinking as I read the post. Same kind of thing is happening in the US Senate race in Missouri.

So then why is it a problem? That's how a "presentation of facts" works.

None of my posts in this thread have been challenging anything presented in the first post of the thread.

Actually, it has occurred more than once. In fact, it's been the only thing coming from the campaign and surrogates for the past 2 weeks. From Harry Reid making up the claim to the campaign itself now running ads alleging the action.

I don't think it's fair to conflate one staffer's remarks with the entire campaign. Her "felon" accusation was out of line and I would greatly respect a statement from Obama putting it right, but excluding her remarks the motivation behind seeking the tax returns is seemingly to prove that Romney pays an unusually low tax rate. The Democrats really want to prove that the wealthy pay a smaller share of their larger amounts of money than the vast majority of Americans this election, and Mitt Romney's tax returns are a means to that end. It is perfectly justifiable to seek a candidate's economic information when said candidate is running on a largely economic platform.

The whole point of wanting to see all of Romney's tax returns is so they can comb through every legal action to reduce his tax rate. Every single person goes through their taxes to reduce the amount of money they owe, so why should Romney or any other rich person be vilified for doing that. The Obama campaign wants to make this election about Romney's success as a businessman instead of running on what Obama has done as president. They despise success and want to make sure it is vilified throughout the election.

Where is "predatory capitalism" ever even alluded to in the cancer ad? The guy is blaming Romney for firing him and killing his wife. The accusations are quite simple but the truth is far from what is shown in the ad.

"Predatory capitalism" is not mentioned in the ad, it's a term I cribbed from elsewhere regarding Romney's perceived corporate strategy of buying companies, "eating" them, and moving on. It wasn't meant insultingly, though I see that it's a somewhat loaded term.

That said, at no point in the ad does Soptic blame Romney for killing his wife. The point of the whole ad is that when Bain Capital closed down factories, real people suffered. It's more affecting than reams of statistics or graphs representing thousands of fired humans, and it should in no way be interpreted as an accusation of personal wrongdoing on Romney's part.

Except that even the factory closing didn't cause the real suffering in this case. The woman died of cancer 5 years after the factor had closed, and she had a job with insurance for at least one year after the factory closed. So why is he blaming the death on Bain Capital when, using his completely flawed logic, he should be blaming the woman's former employer.

[Symmetry]

The whole point of wanting to see all of Romney's tax returns is so they can comb through every legal action to reduce his tax rate. Every single person goes through their taxes to reduce the amount of money they owe, so why should Romney or any other rich person be vilified for doing that. The Obama campaign wants to make this election about Romney's success as a businessman instead of running on what Obama has done as president. They despise success and want to make sure it is vilified throughout the election.

What makes you think all of his taxes are legal?

Moreover, running for President, Romney's problem is not so much whether it's legal or illegal, but whether it was moral.

Tax avoidance schemes and loopholes may be nice for the super-rich, and even legal, but they don't play well when you're proposing a tax increase on most folks and a tax cut on Romney-likes who already dodge taxes.

He should release them no? Or have you become so partisan that you make this exception only for people who run against Obama?

[rockfist]

Given that most of what our government spends its money on is at best waste and in most cases immoral - it would be immoral to pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to. It is immoral to advocate higher taxes. If Romney paid only 14% the question isn't how do we get him to pay a higher percentage - its how do we limit everyone to that percentage at most? Any taxation beyond a minimal amount is just state sanctioned theft.

[Night Strike]

What makes you think all of his taxes are legal?

The fact that the IRS has not charged him with a crime in the last decade (as Harry Reid claims he has committed).

Moreover, running for President, Romney's problem is not so much whether it's legal or illegal, but whether it was moral.

I thought all you liberals hated morality being involved in the government. Or is it only Christian morality that you despise?

Besides, why isn't it moral to take the legal deductions that are written into the tax code and available to every single person in the country? If you think those deductions are "immoral", remove them from the tax code. But until then, of course it's moral to take them.

Tax avoidance schemes and loopholes may be nice for the super-rich, and even legal, but they don't play well when you're proposing a tax increase on most folks and a tax cut on Romney-likes who already dodge taxes.

Except he's not planning on raising taxes on anybody. Obama and his democrats are more than eager to have a ton of massive taxes bear down on every single person when January 1st comes around though.

He should release them no? Or have you become so partisan that you make this exception only for people who run against Obama?

I think they should have already been released, but at this point, they probably shouldn't be released. The only reason Obama wants them released is so they can run and hide from their completely failed policies and actions. Besides, we've already been taught by Obama that presidential politicians don't have to release anything about their past and will get a free pass on it from the lapdog media.

[Phatscotty]

Couldn't say it better...


inb4 edited clips of Ryan on Rand

[Symmetry]

Given that most of what our government spends its money on is at best waste and in most cases immoral - it would be immoral to pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to. It is immoral to advocate higher taxes. If Romney paid only 14% the question isn't how do we get him to pay a higher percentage - its how do we limit everyone to that percentage at most? Any taxation beyond a minimal amount is just state sanctioned theft.

I'm not sure I give your given on this one- looks like you're starting out from an ideological premise and ending up at your ideal outcome, then fitting in logical steps, which are kind of a stretch, to fit.

Where's the waste, if you had to look at a table of gov't spending?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending

Hint- just saying "most of it" ain't gonna do you well, unless you're Paul Ryan, where it gets you a nomination for VP, just like Sarah Palin.

And which parts are immoral?

[Neato Missile]

Apparently, you're easily convinced.

It seems that posted out-of-context quotes, and then supplying a list of ambiguous sources, which fail to show which allegations they support, is enough for you.

Is that accurate?

That is inaccurate. At no point did I indicate that everything I knew about Ryan came from Juan's OP. For my own use, nothing has proven more useful than the CBO's own report (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43023), although there's nothing wrong with falling back on analyses by credible sources. The Washington Post put out a writeup of it yesterday (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ryans-budget-becomes-a-focus-of-the-presidential-race/2012/08/11/2d4e0daa-e3ba-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html?hpid=z2), and Business Insider was quick to post a rebuttal (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ryan-budgets-savings-come-from-shutting-down-the-federal-government-2012-8). Both corroborate the thrust of Juan's post: Paul Ryan's budget will drastically alter America's social programs for uncertain gain. In fact, in the short term, the CBO expects Ryan's budget will increase debt, and won't achieve a balanced budget until 2040 (see Table 1 on Page 12 of the CBO report).

The whole point of wanting to see all of Romney's tax returns is so they can comb through every legal action to reduce his tax rate. Every single person goes through their taxes to reduce the amount of money they owe, so why should Romney or any other rich person be vilified for doing that.

Everyone takes legal actions to reduce their tax rates, and it's completely reasonable for Romney to do the same. However, many tax loopholes and rate-reducing tools are exclusively available to the wealthy, making it possible-- even likely-- for high earners to pay less than low earners.

The Obama campaign wants to make this election about Romney's success as a businessman instead of running on what Obama has done as president. They despise success and want to make sure it is vilified throughout the election.

It would be foolish for the Obama campaign to focus on Romney's success. What they are doing is showing that the current environment is structured to make it easier for already-wealthy individuals (or, as in Romney's case, members of an already-wealthy family) to increase their fortunes than individuals who have not yet achieved wealth.
Claiming that the Obama campaign despises success is an unhelpfully emotional representation of the situation, and only has a passing resemblance to the truth. They despise the bottleneck of success that exists at present, and hope to expand the opportunity to become successful to a greater part of the populace.

[Woodruff]

Moreover, running for President, Romney's problem is not so much whether it's legal or illegal, but whether it was moral.

I thought all you liberals hated morality being involved in the government. Or is it only Christian morality that you despise?

This really doesn't make any sense at all, Night Strike. The very fact of BEING for a government is moral in some respect. It is religious-based morality, rather than human morality, that is the problem.

Besides, why isn't it moral to take the legal deductions that are written into the tax code and available to every single person in the country? If you think those deductions are "immoral", remove them from the tax code. But until then, of course it's moral to take them.

I agree with this. I have no problem with Romney taking any tax deductions available to him.

He should release them no? Or have you become so partisan that you make this exception only for people who run against Obama?

I think they should have already been released, but at this point, they probably shouldn't be released. The only reason Obama wants them released is so they can run and hide from their completely failed policies and actions. Besides, we've already been taught by Obama that presidential politicians don't have to release anything about their past and will get a free pass on it from the lapdog media.

If Obama is successful in "running and hiding from their completely failed policies and actions", then there is nobody to blame but Romney himself. You act as if Romney has no control at all in the direction that his campaign takes. If Obama's policies are the problem, then he should talk about nothing else but specifically what is wrong and specifically how he'll fix it. But he's not, really.

[Symmetry]

What makes you think all of his taxes are legal?

The fact that the IRS has not charged him with a crime in the last decade (as Harry Reid claims he has committed).

Moreover, running for President, Romney's problem is not so much whether it's legal or illegal, but whether it was moral.

I thought all you liberals hated morality being involved in the government. Or is it only Christian morality that you despise?

Besides, why isn't it moral to take the legal deductions that are written into the tax code and available to every single person in the country? If you think those deductions are "immoral", remove them from the tax code. But until then, of course it's moral to take them.

Tax avoidance schemes and loopholes may be nice for the super-rich, and even legal, but they don't play well when you're proposing a tax increase on most folks and a tax cut on Romney-likes who already dodge taxes.

Except he's not planning on raising taxes on anybody. Obama and his democrats are more than eager to have a ton of massive taxes bear down on every single person when January 1st comes around though.

He should release them no? Or have you become so partisan that you make this exception only for people who run against Obama?

I think they should have already been released, but at this point, they probably shouldn't be released. The only reason Obama wants them released is so they can run and hide from their completely failed policies and actions. Besides, we've already been taught by Obama that presidential politicians don't have to release anything about their past and will get a free pass on it from the lapdog media.

A deeply sad post, you've seen the evidence that Romney will raise taxes, and is lying about it. Too many posters have ended your contributions in other threads by pointing it out for you to not have acknowledged it.

You don't think he should be open because he might be criticised?

What a limp Willy you're putting forward into the arena. Willard can't say what he's done because he might be criticised?

How impotent is he going to be when it comes to dealing with China, or another decade of Putin?

Welcome to America's decline- a candidate too afraid to tell the American public what he paid in taxes.

[Night Strike]

If Obama is successful in "running and hiding from their completely failed policies and actions", then there is nobody to blame but Romney himself. You act as if Romney has no control at all in the direction that his campaign takes. If Obama's policies are the problem, then he should talk about nothing else but specifically what is wrong and specifically how he'll fix it. But he's not, really.

Which is really why he has been failing as a viable alternative thus far. However, choosing Paul Ryan as his VP candidate should drastically change that as it provides a person who has actually put forth budget proposals and done actual work to improve on the problems of governmental spending. Paul Ryan has not been perfect on taking a conservative stance on every single fiscal issue, but he has done actual work in Congress on addressing spending problems when no one else has even attempted to do so. Romney needs to focus on the failures by Obama on the economy while Ryan needs to focus on the failures of all of Washington when it comes to fiscal policies. Doing that will win them the election.

[patches70]

Couple of facts about Ryan.
Ryan voted for TARP, Medicare D and No Child Left Behind.
It seems the Republicans only fight for fiscal sanity when they are in the minority. When they get in the majority they go right on with expanding government just about as well as Democrats.

TARP was a massive shakedown and rewarded bad behavior. These banks, financial institutions and investors made extremely risky moves, profited massively for years and when the party ended had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. A completely wrong line to take (IMO).

Medicare D, along with the entire medicare/medicaid system, distorts the insurance market and drives up costs for every single individual. Medicaid was supposed to be nothing more than taking care of solely the downtrodden and unfortunate. Obamacare turns Medicare into healthcare for all.

NCLB is a horrible and ends up making all students equally mediocre. Under NCLB, funding for gifted students dried up, in some cases certain States had the funding for such students reduced by up to 90%. NCLB makes no provisions for providing those few exceptional and gifted students the proper courses they need to realize their potential.
NCLB has been criticized for having unrealistic goals that have forced quite a few school systems to manipulate test scores to remain in compliance with the Act.
NCLB has lofty goals, but it has failed completely.

Then there is Ryan's much vaulted economic plan, which is all actually smoke a mirrors. For those fiscal conservatives who believe Ryan's plan is some sort of actual attempt at getting the debt under control, let us look at a few facts and compare to Obama (who is not even trying to have any fiscal sanity at all).

Let's start with Medicaid. Ryan in Red, Obama in Blue.


It's really just a spending freeze, no cuts. It's a start, some would argue and that's fair enough I suppose, considering how much harm the system does to everyone in terms of rising medical costs.
Right now, Medicaid alone accounts for 25% of any given State's budget and is draining the Treasury at an alarming rate. Obama plans to speed up the bleeding, Ryan's plan just leaves the bleeding the same.

Now there is Medicare, you know, Ryan is going to throw Grandma off the cliff rhetoric? That's the current lib/democrat line in regards to Ryan's budget on Medicare. Let's see if the facts actually support that line.....



Ooppps. It seems that it's not Ryan throwing Grandma off the cliff, it's Obama! Ryan's plan actually intends to spend more on Medicare than Obama. The Democrat rhetoric would be ironic if it weren't just all politics. However, for fiscal conservatives, this should leave a lump in your throat about the myth that Ryan is some courageous fiscal conservative trying to restore fiscal sanity to the nation.

Let's look at social security.


That's not a typo. The Ryan plan does absolutely nothing about social security at all. Not a thing.



Let's get down to brass tax and look at the projected national debt under Obama and Ryan.


Hmmmm. I guess $21 trillion in debt is better than $22 trillion in debt. However, I'm still not seeing the "fiscal conservative" in Ryan's plans. They don't seem much different from Obama's plans to financially ruin the nation and plunder the wealth our children have yet to earn.

For a complete interactive analysis of Obama and Ryan economic plans, visit this site-

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/g ... -not-spend

and see all the other areas of government spending.

Ryan is just more of the same. Obama, Romney, Biden, Ryan, all a bunch of corpratists. America gets the government she deserves I suppose. And the world gets to taste the ashes of our failures in due time.
Collectivism will be the end of us all in time. All it does is makes us all suffer equally. How's that for fair?

[BigBallinStalin]

Apparently, you're easily convinced.

It seems that posted out-of-context quotes, and then supplying a list of ambiguous sources, which fail to show which allegations they support, is enough for you.

Is that accurate?

That is inaccurate. At no point did I indicate that everything I knew about Ryan came from Juan's OP. For my own use, nothing has proven more useful than the CBO's own report (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43023), although there's nothing wrong with falling back on analyses by credible sources. The Washington Post put out a writeup of it yesterday (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ryans-budget-becomes-a-focus-of-the-presidential-race/2012/08/11/2d4e0daa-e3ba-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html?hpid=z2), and Business Insider was quick to post a rebuttal (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ryan-budgets-savings-come-from-shutting-down-the-federal-government-2012-8). Both corroborate the thrust of Juan's post: Paul Ryan's budget will drastically alter America's social programs for uncertain gain. In fact, in the short term, the CBO expects Ryan's budget will increase debt, and won't achieve a balanced budget until 2040 (see Table 1 on Page 12 of the CBO report).

That makes more sense. What I didn't get is that JB's stance isn't clear--except for the implied "Paul Ryan sucks!," so when you agreed with him, I assumed you agreed with his OP.

Let's talk about the budget proposal and the conclusion, to which you seem to agree: "Paul Ryan's budget will drastically alter America's social programs for uncertain gain. "

Anything projected into the future is uncertain, so all gains in the future are ultimately uncertain. Anyone could say this about any budget proposal. So...

(1) why do you think the costs of Paul Ryan's budget plan are not offset by the benefits?

(2) what alternative budget plan seems best to you? Obama's, or whose?




(I was reading the CBO Highlights section, and apparently the "CBO has not considered whether the specified paths are consistent with the policy proposals or budget figures released today by Chairman Ryan as part of his proposed budget resolution." So, whatever they're predicting may not even be what Paul Ryan is proposing... um wut?

Source:

show

That, and the CBO is predicting future GDP growth 20 and 30 years from now. You're not fooled by the econ. magic here, are you?

Then the CBO concludes that "it depends."

show

(3) So, I fail to see how the CBO, based on the Highlights section, supports your conclusion. All you can conclude is that "Paul Ryan's budget will drastically alter America's social programs." You could assert that the gain is uncertain, but so are the gains of any budget proposal projected into the future. What matters is the (a) degree of uncertainty (if that could even be determined) and (b) the arguments which supports the logic of one's projections. Would you care to expand on (a) and (b) in order to support your conclusion?

[Woodruff]

Ryan is just more of the same. Obama, Romney, Biden, Ryan, all a bunch of corpratists.

Excellent, very fair post all around. Good work (I'm willing to presume it's accurate, because there doesn't appear to be an bias in it).

[Juan_Bottom]

It's really just a spending freeze, no cuts. It's a start, some would argue and that's fair enough I suppose, considering how much harm the system does to everyone in terms of rising medical costs.
Right now, Medicaid alone accounts for 25% of any given State's budget and is draining the Treasury at an alarming rate. Obama plans to speed up the bleeding, Ryan's plan just leaves the bleeding the same.

Now there is Medicare, you know, Ryan is going to throw Grandma off the cliff rhetoric? That's the current lib/democrat line in regards to Ryan's budget on Medicare. Let's see if the facts actually support that line.....

I don't understand the chart.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that Ryan's plan would not only raise the cost of Medicare, it would also reduce the amount of Federal government spending on Medicare. They would simply push that cost onto the states. Ryan would raise the age of eligibility for medicare to 67, but the mandatory retirement age will remain at 65. So essentially, that means that there will be 2 years at least where grandma has to pay for her own health insurance. If she gets fired at 62 she probably wont be able to find a job and will therefor need to pay for it for even longer. And a repeal of Obamacare which today helps regulate how much a person can be charged for healthcare and how much a person can be charged for insurance - means that insurance costs will also rise. And also, Ryan's "voucher program" seems to favor the government's pocketbook and not the elderly's. And isn't "freezing spending" irresponsible if the actual costs are rising?


Q: What if Chairman Ryan’s Medicaid Block Grant Had Taken Effect in 2001?
A:Federal Medicaid Funds Would Have Fallen by 35 Percent or More in Most States, by Half in Some, by 2010

Ryan Medicaid Block Grant Would Cut Medicaid by One-Third by 2022 and More After That

At this point I'm wondering if the GOP didn't ok the Ryan pick because Obama is more than likely going to win the election. Now they may have a scapegoat to blame in Ryan.

[Juan_Bottom]

Does anyone have the sauce on this chart?