In an op-ed written for the New York Times, Roger Cohen explains the problems with Mitt Romney choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate.
The president has a deficit reduction plan. It would, among other things, cut military spending, preserve Medicare, and seek cost-saving health care efficiency. It makes a lot of sense. But try naming one big idea. Anxious nations need big ideas.
Ryan has built his reputation on having big ideas to balance America’s books. He is a genial guy; the geniality masks the fact that, as Norman Ornstein, the co-author of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” a book on U.S. political dysfunction, put it: “His set of proposals are the most radical since Barry Goldwater.”
The poor, the needy, the old, college students seeking loans — all would be worse off under Ryan’s budget proposals, which would slash entitlements and turn Medicare into a voucher system. He wants a much simpler tax code: a 25 percent tax rate for higher incomes and 10 percent for lower incomes while closing the loopholes and eliminating deductions that see the very rich paying far less than 25 percent today.
FA, as fast as they can, Rmoney and every other Republican is running away from the “Ryan plan.”
I mean, when you have Rick Scott and Rick Perry bobbing and weaving on this, you know it’s a toxic policy. These aren’t exactly mushy moderates.
CAVUTO: Governor Scott, do you support what Paul Ryan wants to do? On this issue particularly in Florida, are you open to the switching to the private voucher system Paul Ryan wants for medicare recipients down the road?
SCOTT: Let’s all remember, it is going to be Governor Romney’s plan, he’ll decide what his plan is for Medicare. …. I am going to support a plan to make sure our Medicare recipients, we have 3.3 million of them in Florida, I’m going to make sure they continue to get care. They paid into the system, and we have to make sure we keep that system going. […]
CAVUTO: You mentioned, Governor Perry, that 26, 29 year-olds, they should be given an opportunity to have something down the road for them. Would that be the cutoff age, then, that if you are that young then you should be veering toward a different type of a system? Because Paul Ryan has his much older than that, in the 40s right now.
PERRY: We are going to have the conversation and the idea that we will draw up a piece of legislation in August of 2012 is not correct. We are not going to do that. Let’s have the conversation though and start a dialogue between the people of this country.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/14/republicans-across-the-board-pressured-over-ryan-budget/#
So you support turning Medicare into a coupon system that forces seniors to find their own health insurance coverage and then to pay the difference between the cost of that coverage and the coupon they got from Paul Ryan?
These people are not dumb. You always ask for more than you get. They give upon voucher’s for Medicare and get vouchers and charter schools for public education. They get Medicare next term. It’s all going according to plan. Here’s what Charles Pierce says:
Paul Ryan: Murderer of Opportunity, Political Coward, Candidate for Vice President of the United States By Charles P. Pierce
Leave it to Willard Romney, international man of principle, to get himself bullied into being bold and independent.
Make no mistake. In his decision to make Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, his running mate,[ALEC strategists] Romney finally surrendered the tattered remnants of his soul not only to the extreme base of his party, but also to extremist economic policies, and to an extremist view of the country he seeks to lead….