As Paul Krugman details, "Mr. Ryan has become the Republican Party’s poster child for new ideas thanks to his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a plan for a major overhaul of federal spending and taxes. News media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable; on Monday, The Washington Post put a glowing profile of Mr. Ryan on its front page, portraying him as the G.O.P.’s fiscal conscience. He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious." But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce."
As I wrote back in March 2011, "Paul talks about unsustainable health care and retirement. President Obama's health care reform is predicted to save $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years. Yet Republicans are against these reforms. The Republican-favored 401Ks have increased instability in retirement. Plus, the most stable and solvent program, Social Security, is one right-wingers want to privatize. Here again, the supposed seriousness of the Republicans regarding these issues is in question. Ryan even specifically states that whatever we do about anything, we cannot have policies that force citizens to reorganize their lives. Under no circumstances must American citizens be asked to change their behavior. We must not acknowledge the realities of: income inequality, the failure of deregulation and tax cuts, nor climate change. Consume all you can, drive whatever you like, and run-up your credits cards buying unneeded waste. Lead the disposable life because, now, you're the disposable American."
As the Citizens For Tax Justice discovered, "Rep. Paul Ryan's GOP Budget Plan would collect $2 trillion less over a decade and yet require the bottom 90 percent to pay higher taxes."
Krugman declares, "So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense. And last but not least, there’s deference to power — the G.O.P. is a resurgent political force, so one mustn’t point out that its intellectual heroes have no clothes. But they don’t. The Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America’s fiscal future."
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