The GOP Road to Ruin

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

For thirty years this country bought into the faith based supply-side economics of the Republican Party. Our manufacturing base disappeared, shipped overseas in the name of free trade corporate globalism. It made China an economic powerhouse and our largest creditor. China owns U.S. Meanwhile, American towns boarded up their Main Streets and in some cases entire towns disappeared. There is a blight upon the land.

We deregulated the financial services industry that immediately turned our economy into casino capitalism based upon betting on exotic investment schemes too complex for even Wall Street bankers to comprehend. These exotic investment schemes were non-recourse and not backed by any hard assets, i.e., they have no real value. An "irrational exuberance" of greed unleashed a series of market bubbles including a housing bubble – the average American's principle investment – that collapsed and nearly destroyed the world's financial system and economy in 2008.

Between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009, not a single net new job was created in this country – nada, zip. Not since the Great Depression has there been an entire decade without net job growth.

George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus for which Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed concern in January 2001 “that continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically nonfederal) assets.” Greenspan green-lighted the Bush tax cuts, the most massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy in our country's history.

The Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy were not paid for. Neither were Americans asked to pay for two wars, one in Afghanistan and one an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq. Former deficit hawk Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed that "deficits don't matter." The Republican Congress went on a spending spree, including a corporate subsidy to Big Pharma for prescription drugs that was not paid for.

Like Ronald Reagan before him who tripled the national debt during his term of office with tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and military spending not paid for, George W. Bush doubled the national debt again during his term of office.

The take-away lesson from our recent history is that the faith based supply-side economics of the Republican Party is a fraud. It has been entirely disproved and discredited. Anyone still touting this fraud is unserious and unfit for public office.

Past is prelude to the future. Forewarned is forearmed. The Republican Party is plotting its political comeback on doubling down on this disproved and discredited faith based supply-side economic theory that destroyed the America we were. They now want to finish the job.

Returning to their 1994 campaign gimmick of the "Contract on America," the Republicans propose to complete the task of their unraveling of America that they failed to complete while in power.

Jon Perr writes at crooksandliars.com GOP Budget Proposes to Ration Medicare, Privatize Social Security:

Throughout the bitter debate over health care reform, talking points about "rationing" and "cuts to Medicare" have been the twin pillars of Republican fear mongering. For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in June warned of reform that "denies, delays, or rations health care," only to falsely charge weeks later that Democrats "are going to pay for this plan by cutting Medicare, that is cutting seniors." But with the publication of the Republican "shadow" budget by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP is now proposing exactly what just weeks ago it claimed to decry: rationing Medicare:

Last year, 137 House Republicans voted to convert the Medicare program that provides 46 million Americans with health insurance into a system of vouchers. (In September, Sarah Palin penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed which similarly called for "providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage.") Now, as Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias and TPM all noted, the GOP's Paul Ryan is making the privatization of Medicare the centerpiece of a new Republican deficit reduction gambit.

Of course, because the value of Ryan's vouchers fails to keep up with the out-of-control rise in premiums in the private health insurance market, America's elderly would be forced to pay more out of pocket or accept less coverage. The Washington Post's Klein described the inexorable Republican rationing of Medicare which would then ensue:

The proposal would shift risk from the federal government to seniors themselves. The money seniors would get to buy their own policies would grow more slowly than their health-care costs, and more slowly than their expected Medicare benefits, which means that they'd need to either cut back on how comprehensive their insurance is or how much health-care they purchase. Exacerbating the situation — and this is important — Medicare currently pays providers less and works more efficiently than private insurers, so seniors trying to purchase a plan equivalent to Medicare would pay more for it on the private market.

It's hard, given the constraints of our current debate, to call something "rationing" without being accused of slurring it. But this is rationing, and that's not a slur. This is the government capping its payments and moderating their growth in such a way that many seniors will not get the care they need.

On Tuesday, Ryan acknowledged as much.

Sadly for the Republican brain trust, he failed to follow the script that only Democratic reforms lead to "health care denied, delayed and rationed."

"Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?"

Of course, Ryan left out the real culprit – the private insurance market. But with 50 million uninsured, another 25 million underinsured, one in five American postponing needed care and medical costs driving over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Congressman Ryan is surely right that "rationing happens today."

But the Republican plan to "slash and privatize" hardly ends there. Despite insistence by the Republican leadership that the party is not officially advocating it, the Ryan alternative budget follows Rep. Jeb Hensarling's announced desire to privatize Medicare. As TPM documented:

Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-WI) the ranking Republican on the budget committee, recently detailed the Republican plan for Social Security that preserves the existing program for those 55 or older. For younger people the plan "offers the option of investing over one-third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan available to federal employees."

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should. After all, George W. Bush's disastrous drive to privatize Social Security helped undermine his presidency. Now, in the wake of a Wall Street meltdown that evaporated the retirement savings for countless thousands of Americans, the Republican wunderkind Ryan is calling for an encore.

In Paul Ryan's defense, his so-called "A Roadmap for America's Future" was scored by the Congressional Budget Office as erasing the long-term deficit entirely, and produce surpluses by 2080 (!). While the Post's Klein stated, "I wouldn't balance the budget in anything like the way Ryan proposes," he also admitted:

"The audacity is breathtaking. But it is also impressive."

Audacious, indeed. After months of scaring the American people into believing that President Obama and the Democrats would ration health care and gut Medicare, Paul Ryan's Republican Party now proposes to do both.

[For more, visit the American Road Map web site at http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/]

As John Amato noted at crooksandliars.com Paul Ryan's sick privatization scheme masked as a budget proposal:

Paul Ryan is trying to actually say he and the GOP have ideas. Soon, the media will pick up on this and also say that the GOP and Ryan have really cool ideas to take care of that nasty federal deficit and curb health care costs by 2080. Yes, I'm not kidding. 2080. I guess it is an idea even if it's batshit crazy.

The Economist lays it out for you.

Barack Obama's visit with the Republicans last week, some members of the opposition were deeply upset. They bristled at the idea that they have not proposed any serious ideas and are simply the "Party of No". In fact, the accusation is not true: Republicans have proposed some serious ideas recently. I'm going to post on two of them. The first, put forward by Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the budget committee, is the "Roadmap for America's Future" budget proposal and it credibly claims to put America's federal budget in surplus by 2080. The CBO agrees. How does it do that? Simple, it slashes Medicare…stop_paying_them">read on

He's shilling for Wall Street yet again as he usually does. He wants to privatize medicare and social security although he uses words like "vouchers" to mask what he's saying.

Crying John Boehner is running from it as fast as he can.

House Republicans are at pains to point out that a far-reaching budget roadmap unveiled by their top budget guy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), isn't their budget, but when asked today at a press conference what about Ryan's budget he disagreed with, Minority Leader John Boehner couldn't name anything.

"Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you," Boehner said.

And as Howie Klein points out, he reminds teabaggers why they aren't going to like him.

And Paul Ryan's is one of Wall Street's most devoted partisans on Capitol Hill, a veritable lobbyist inside Congress for all of their interests. Teabaggers don't like politicians who voted for the irresponsible Bush bank bailouts? Ryan didn't only vote for it– twice– as a high ranking member of Ways and Means and Banking Committee, the he persuaded dozens of reluctant GOP colleagues to vote for it and after it failed the first time, is said to have been the key figure in passing it the second time a week later!

Democrats have learned their lesson from 1994. Democratic strategist Paul Begala is telling Democrats to force Republicans to vote on their ideas now. Begala: Democrats Should Make The GOP Vote On Their Own Budget Proposals:

Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) "roadmap" budget plan — which calls for balancing the budget in 50 years by effectively privatizing Social Security and Medicare — could become an excellent political tool for the Democrats, says former Clinton adviser Paul Begala.

Begala, in an interview today with TPM, said Democrats should force the GOP to bring their ideas into the public eye.

"Why don't we put Mr. Ryan's budget up to a vote?" he said. "Make them vote on it."

Democrats, he argued, should stop calling Republicans the "party of no."

"They have ideas, and lots of them. And their ideas ruin the country," Begala said.

Congressional Dems have seized on the opportunity to call out the provisions that would privatize Social Security. Reps. Chris Larson and Linda Sanchez have introduced a resolution opposing such privatization, which would force Republican lawmakers to vote on the idea. House Democrats are going to force their Republican colleagues to vote on a resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security. Dems To Force GOP Vote On Anti-Social Security Privatization Resolution:

It's the sort of tough political vote that Democrats have rarely pushed Republicans on since winning back control of Congress in 2006, and similar to resolutions the GOP constantly forced the Democrats to take positions on when they were in power.

The resolution – which has not yet been scheduled for a House floor vote but has more than 20 original co-sponsors – is the latest salvo in the new fight over Social Security.

Democrats say Ryan's "roadmap" that we've been writing about proves the GOP is "dusting off their old playbook" and the majority party fully intends to make this a midterm election battle.

"Republicans are dusting off their old playbook and re-hashing old ideas like the privatization of Social Security that the American people have already rejected," Larson said in a statement. "Their ideas would end the program as we know it and put the retirement security of millions of America's seniors and workers at risk. My colleagues and I introduced this resolution to show the American people that we are standing with them and against these destructive ideas."

Read the resolution in full here.

h/t David Safier for the photoshop graphic.

UPDATE: The Arizona Daily Star today published the corporatist apologist George Will singing the praises of Paul Ryan's roadmap. Here's proof Republicans don't lack new ideas What a douchebag.

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