Paul Ryan "OMG"

[Wacca Pilatka]

I don't care what your politics are - this blog is hilarious.

http://heygirlitspaulryan.tumblr.com/

[Debbie Thompson]

Actually Debbie, the SS Trust Fund was placed exclusively in a special Treasury bill.  Those T-bills are just IOU's from the Federal Government, which will pay back those T-bills out of the general fund.  As that occurs, the general fund will become even more depleted causing more borrowing.  Eventually, the interest on the debt will force us into default.  All because we could not develop the courage to control our government spending.

Either way NotNow, they took the money out of Social Security.

[NotNow]

Yer right about that.

[finehoe]

We could continue to do nothing and watch the program eventually go away.....that is what we have been doing for many years, kicking the can down the road. At least with Ryan, and I don't agree 100% with him, he is putting some ideas on the table. People live longer than when the program was initially created. The 65 age was the median life expectancy at the time of creation, but with seniors now living past the century mark, that has hurt the program and here come the boomers.

We can stick our heads in the sand and all become ostriches or we can work on some solutions to keep the programs around for generations to come. I agree on the tax cuts, we've had them for 10 years, we need to end them, bite the bullet and restore some fiscal responsibility!

The truth is that the Ryan budget’s largest long-term savings don’t come from Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security, or even Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security put together. They come from everything else. Ryan says that under his budget, everything the federal government does that is not Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security will be cut to less than 3.75 percent of GDP by 2050. That means defense, infrastructure, education, food safety, energy research, national parks, civil service, the FBI â€" all of it. Right now, that category of spending is 12.5 percent of GDP.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-isnt-a-deficit-hawk-hes-a-conservative-reformer/

[Jameson]

Gotta love the fear-mongering from the Left. How soon we forget..... 

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/08/12/flashback-left-leaning-politifact-named-democrats-claim-paul-ryan-wants-to-end-medicare-the-2011-lie-of-the-year/

[finehoe]

Gotta love the fear-mongering from the Left. How soon we forget..... 

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/08/12/flashback-left-leaning-politifact-named-democrats-claim-paul-ryan-wants-to-end-medicare-the-2011-lie-of-the-year/

Gotta love the fact-free drivel from the Right:

"Politifact's assertion that it is a lie to say "Republicans voted to end Medicare" -- and that this is the most important lie of the year -- suffers from some basic flaws: Republicans did, in fact, vote to end Medicare; and Politifact overlooked actual lies that have had and continue to have a profound and debilitating effect on the nation's attempts to come out of lingering economic troubles.

Politifact's "Lie of the Year" announcement provides little in the way of actual evidence that the claim is a lie, instead referring readers to previous efforts for its substantive case, such as it is. The weakness of Politifact's ruling that the House GOP budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) did not "end Medicare" can be seen in its April 20, 2011, explanation:

One of the its major features is dramatically restructuring Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for those 65 and older. Right now, Medicare pays doctors and hospitals set fees for the care beneficiaries receive. [...] In 2022 [under the GOP plan] new beneficiaries would receive "premium support," which means they would buy plans from private insurance companies with financial assistance from the government. [...]the Republican plan would be a huge change to the current program, and seniors would have to pay more for their health plans if it becomes law. [...] Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan's plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don't agree with the ad's contention that the proposal ends Medicare.

So, according to Politifact, the House Republican plan constitutes a "dramatic restructuring" of Medicare, a "huge change to the current program," and a "dramatic change of course" by ending the direct payment of fees for service and replacing it with a voucher program. In its "Lie of the Year" write-up, Politifact again concedes the GOP plan "dramatically changed the program [for people currently under age 55] by privatizing it and providing government subsidies." That's ending Medicare, just as replacing the armed services with government vouchers for private bodyguards would be ending the U.S. military. As Igor Volsky wrote earlier this month, "closing the traditional fee-for-service program, and forcing seniors to enroll in new private coverage, ends Medicare by eliminating everything that has defined the program for the last 46 years."

But Politifact concluded in April that "we don't agree [...] that the proposal ends Medicare." That should set off some alarm bells: As fact-checks go, "we don't agree" is remarkably weak tea. As justification for naming something the "Lie of the Year," it's an embarrassment.

Paul Krugman and Dan Kennedy and Steve Benen and Jonathan Cohn and Jonathan Chait and Matthew Yglesias and David Weigel, among countless others, have debunked Politifact's ruling, which holds that as long as something called "Medicare" has something to do with health care for the elderly, it's a lie to say the program has ended, no matter how "dramatic" the "change of course" has been. Even Robert VerBruggen of the conservative National Review has written that Politifact "does not make a good case" and that the Democratic claim does not "rise to the level of 'lie,' much less 'Lie of the Year.'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/12/20/politifacts-flawed-lie-of-the-year-selection-on/185549

[Jameson]

Gotta love the fact-free drivel from the Right:

"Politifact's assertion that it is a lie to say "Republicans voted to end Medicare" -- and that this is the most important lie of the year -- suffers from some basic flaws: Republicans did, in fact, vote to end Medicare; and Politifact overlooked actual lies that have had and continue to have a profound and debilitating effect on the nation's attempts to come out of lingering economic troubles.

Politifact's "Lie of the Year" announcement provides little in the way of actual evidence that the claim is a lie, instead referring readers to previous efforts for its substantive case, such as it is. The weakness of Politifact's ruling that the House GOP budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) did not "end Medicare" can be seen in its April 20, 2011, explanation:

One of the its major features is dramatically restructuring Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for those 65 and older. Right now, Medicare pays doctors and hospitals set fees for the care beneficiaries receive. [...] In 2022 [under the GOP plan] new beneficiaries would receive "premium support," which means they would buy plans from private insurance companies with financial assistance from the government. [...]the Republican plan would be a huge change to the current program, and seniors would have to pay more for their health plans if it becomes law. [...] Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan's plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don't agree with the ad's contention that the proposal ends Medicare.

So, according to Politifact, the House Republican plan constitutes a "dramatic restructuring" of Medicare, a "huge change to the current program," and a "dramatic change of course" by ending the direct payment of fees for service and replacing it with a voucher program. In its "Lie of the Year" write-up, Politifact again concedes the GOP plan "dramatically changed the program [for people currently under age 55] by privatizing it and providing government subsidies." That's ending Medicare, just as replacing the armed services with government vouchers for private bodyguards would be ending the U.S. military. As Igor Volsky wrote earlier this month, "closing the traditional fee-for-service program, and forcing seniors to enroll in new private coverage, ends Medicare by eliminating everything that has defined the program for the last 46 years."

But Politifact concluded in April that "we don't agree [...] that the proposal ends Medicare." That should set off some alarm bells: As fact-checks go, "we don't agree" is remarkably weak tea. As justification for naming something the "Lie of the Year," it's an embarrassment.

Paul Krugman and Dan Kennedy and Steve Benen and Jonathan Cohn and Jonathan Chait and Matthew Yglesias and David Weigel, among countless others, have debunked Politifact's ruling, which holds that as long as something called "Medicare" has something to do with health care for the elderly, it's a lie to say the program has ended, no matter how "dramatic" the "change of course" has been. Even Robert VerBruggen of the conservative National Review has written that Politifact "does not make a good case" and that the Democratic claim does not "rise to the level of 'lie,' much less 'Lie of the Year.'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/12/20/politifacts-flawed-lie-of-the-year-selection-on/185549

Media Matters? Really?

See, the thing is that nowhere in Media Matters or Kennedy or Krugman's, etc., debunking of the Ryan plan do they offer the Democrats' alternative. Why? Because there is no Democrats' alternative. They have no plan to fix SS or Medicare. Along with that, the Democratic led Senate has not passed a budget in over 1,200 days. Their only "plan" to fix anything is to:

1. Shoot down any Republican plan with fear-mongering.
2. Blame the Republicans for the problem.
3. Offer no other option to fixing the system other than raising taxes as that is the Democrats' M.O. for everything.

At least Paul Ryan offers a plan and crunches the numbers instead of pointing the finger across the aisle and shouting that we should raise taxes on the rich*

(*at a time when 49.5% of Americans pay no income tax at all and we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world at 14% above the world average.)

[finehoe]

Media Matters? Really?

Yes really.

See, the thing is that nowhere in Media Matters or Kennedy or Krugman's, etc., debunking of the Ryan plan do they offer the Democrats' alternative.

Did you bother to read it?  It isn't about "debunking the Ryan plan" it's about debunking the ridiculous assumption that his plan doesn't end medicare as we currently know it.  See, there is a difference.

At least Paul Ryan offers a plan and crunches the numbers instead of pointing the finger across the aisle and shouting that we should raise taxes on the rich*

But Ryan’s budget doesn’t do that â€" it isn’t any kind of solution to budget deficits at all â€" unless it does what its own numbers inescapably say it will do and completely eliminates the entire federal government except for the military, Social Security, and health programs. If he really does, contrary to what his budget says, want to keep “infrastructure, interstate highways, and airports” along with veterans’ programs, the FBI, the border patrol, and all the other things that the federal government does now â€" well, then the deficits remain. And that’s not to mention that Ryan and Mitt Romney also support an entirely unrealistic tax “reform” plan that amounts to huge, specified tax rate cuts that would help the rich and vague, unspecified plans to end many tax credits and deductions, something that’s very unlikely to actually happen since those provisions are extremely popular.  Ryan’s budget leaves all the pain until after the election â€" pain that’s only necessary in order to achieve the low tax rates, especially on the rich, that Ryan and other Republicans deem essential. Either Ryan’s fiscal vision really would dramatically cut government, or his numbers don’t add up. In short, Ryan is a fraud

(*at a time when 49.5% of Americans pay no income tax at all and we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world at 14% above the world average.)

The fact that you would trot this tired and easily refuted wingnut talking point out shows you really haven't given much thought to the issue, you are only mindlessly repeating what your plutocratic puppet-masters want you to say.

Wanna know why half of Americans don't pay INCOME tax? 
Here:  http://rt.com/usa/news/half-poor-america-poverty-909/

[finehoe]

Paul Ryan Only Passed 2 Bills Into Law In More Than A Decade

He's been in Congress for nearly 13 years, but Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has only seen two of his bills pass into law during that time.

Ryan, who Mitt Romney has tapped as his running mate, passed a bill into law in July 2000 that renames a post office in his district. Thanks to Ryan, the post office on 1818 Milton Ave. in Janesville, Wis., is now known as "Les Aspin Post Office Building."

The other time Ryan saw one of his bills become law was in December 2008, with legislation to change the way arrows (as in bows and arrows) are hit with an excise tax. Specifically, his bill amended the Internal Revenue Code to impose a 39-cent tax per arrow shaft, instead of a 12.4 percent tax on the sales price. The bill also "includes points suitable for use with arrows in the 11 percent excise tax on arrow parts and accessories."

Kevin Seifert, Ryan's congressional spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/12/paul-ryan-bills_n_1769816.html

[Lunican]

Ryan scores lowest poll numbers since Quayle

WASHINGTON â€" Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan scores the lowest initial ratings from Americans of any vice presidential pick since the controversial choice of Dan Quayle nearly a quarter-century ago, a weekend USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-08-13/ryan-romney-poll/57038326/1

[BridgeTroll]

Gotta love the fear-mongering from the Left. How soon we forget..... 

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/08/12/flashback-left-leaning-politifact-named-democrats-claim-paul-ryan-wants-to-end-medicare-the-2011-lie-of-the-year/

Gotta love the fact-free drivel from the Right:

"Politifact's assertion that it is a lie to say "Republicans voted to end Medicare" -- and that this is the most important lie of the year -- suffers from some basic flaws: Republicans did, in fact, vote to end Medicare; and Politifact overlooked actual lies that have had and continue to have a profound and debilitating effect on the nation's attempts to come out of lingering economic troubles.

Politifact's "Lie of the Year" announcement provides little in the way of actual evidence that the claim is a lie, instead referring readers to previous efforts for its substantive case, such as it is. The weakness of Politifact's ruling that the House GOP budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) did not "end Medicare" can be seen in its April 20, 2011, explanation:

One of the its major features is dramatically restructuring Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for those 65 and older. Right now, Medicare pays doctors and hospitals set fees for the care beneficiaries receive. [...] In 2022 [under the GOP plan] new beneficiaries would receive "premium support," which means they would buy plans from private insurance companies with financial assistance from the government. [...]the Republican plan would be a huge change to the current program, and seniors would have to pay more for their health plans if it becomes law. [...] Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan's plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don't agree with the ad's contention that the proposal ends Medicare.

So, according to Politifact, the House Republican plan constitutes a "dramatic restructuring" of Medicare, a "huge change to the current program," and a "dramatic change of course" by ending the direct payment of fees for service and replacing it with a voucher program. In its "Lie of the Year" write-up, Politifact again concedes the GOP plan "dramatically changed the program [for people currently under age 55] by privatizing it and providing government subsidies." That's ending Medicare, just as replacing the armed services with government vouchers for private bodyguards would be ending the U.S. military. As Igor Volsky wrote earlier this month, "closing the traditional fee-for-service program, and forcing seniors to enroll in new private coverage, ends Medicare by eliminating everything that has defined the program for the last 46 years."

But Politifact concluded in April that "we don't agree [...] that the proposal ends Medicare." That should set off some alarm bells: As fact-checks go, "we don't agree" is remarkably weak tea. As justification for naming something the "Lie of the Year," it's an embarrassment.

Paul Krugman and Dan Kennedy and Steve Benen and Jonathan Cohn and Jonathan Chait and Matthew Yglesias and David Weigel, among countless others, have debunked Politifact's ruling, which holds that as long as something called "Medicare" has something to do with health care for the elderly, it's a lie to say the program has ended, no matter how "dramatic" the "change of course" has been. Even Robert VerBruggen of the conservative National Review has written that Politifact "does not make a good case" and that the Democratic claim does not "rise to the level of 'lie,' much less 'Lie of the Year.'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/12/20/politifacts-flawed-lie-of-the-year-selection-on/185549

Good.  Now we can stop using Politifact as an objective purveyor of truth.  Thanks Finehoe!

[BridgeTroll]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/would-roosevelt-recognize-todays-social-security/2012/04/08/gIQALChd4S_story.html

By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: April 8

Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal’s signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries. On average, retired workers and spouses receive $1,839 a month â€" money vital to the well-being of millions. Roosevelt would surely be proud of this, and yet he might also have reservations. Social Security has evolved into something he never intended and actively opposed.

It has become what was then called “the dole” and is now known as “welfare.” This forgotten history clarifies why America’s budget problems are so intractable.

When Roosevelt proposed Social Security in 1935, he envisioned a contributory pension plan. Workers’ payroll taxes (“contributions”) would be saved and used to pay their retirement benefits. Initially, before workers had time to pay into the system, there would be temporary subsidies. But Roosevelt rejected Social Security as a “pay-as-you-go” system that channeled the taxes of today’s workers to pay today’s retirees. That, he believed, would saddle future generations with huge debts â€" or higher taxes â€" as the number of retirees expanded.

Discovering that the original draft wasn’t a contributory pension, Roosevelt ordered it rewritten and complained to Frances Perkins, his labor secretary: “This is the same old dole under another name. It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress . . . to meet.”

But Roosevelt’s vision didn’t prevail. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Congress gradually switched Social Security to a pay-as-you-go system. Interestingly, a coalition of liberals and conservatives pushed the change. Liberals wanted higher benefits, which â€" with few retirees then â€" existing taxes could support. Conservatives disliked the huge surpluses the government would accumulate under a contributory plan.

All this is well-told in Sylvester Schieber’s “The Predictable Surprise: The Unraveling of the U.S. Retirement System.” Schieber probably knows more about American retirement programs than anyone. He has advised the Social Security system, consulted with private firms and written widely on the subject. His book shows how today’s “entitlement” psychology dates to Social Security’s muddled beginnings.

Millions of Americans believe (falsely) that their payroll taxes have been segregated to pay for their benefits and that, therefore, they “earned” these benefits. To reduce them would be to take something that is rightfully theirs. Indeed, Roosevelt â€" believing he had created a contributory program â€" said exactly that:

“We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions. . . . No damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”

What we have is a vast welfare program grafted onto the rhetoric and psychology of a contributory pension. The result is entitlement. Unsurprisingly, AARP’s advertising slogan is “You’ve earned a say” on Social Security. The trouble is that contributions weren’t saved. They went to past beneficiaries. The $2.6 trillion in the Social Security trust fund at year-end 2010 sounds like a lot but equals slightly more than three years of benefits.

With favorable demographics, contradictions were bearable. Early Social Security beneficiaries received huge windfalls. A one-earner couple with average wages retiring at 65 in 1960 received lifetime benefits equal to nearly 14 times their payroll taxes, even if those taxes had been saved and invested (which they weren’t), calculate Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute.

But now, demographics are unfriendly. In 1960, there were five workers per recipient; today, there are three, and by 2025 the ratio will approach two. Roosevelt’s fear has materialized. Paying all benefits requires higher taxes, cuts in other programs or large deficits. Indeed, the burden has increased, because it now includes Medicare, which is also viewed as an entitlement.

Although new recipients have paid payroll taxes higher and longer than their predecessors, their benefits still exceed taxes paid even assuming (again, fictitiously) that they had been invested. A two-earner couple with average wages retiring in 2010 would receive lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits worth $906,000 compared with taxes of $704,000, estimate Steuerle and Rennane.

By all rights, we should ask: Who among the elderly need benefits? How much? At what age? If Social Security and Medicare were considered “welfare” â€" something the nation does for its collective good â€" these questions would be easier. We would tailor programs to meet national needs. But entitlements are viewed as a higher-order moral claim, owed individuals based on past performance. So a huge part of government spending moves off-limits to intelligent discussion.

We can only imagine how Roosevelt would view this. He consistently advocated a fully funded Social Security and used his second veto on a 1942 tax bill that delayed higher payroll taxes. But Congress overrode the veto, and Roosevelt was preoccupied by World War II.

[finehoe]

Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security?

Would George Washington approve of today's global empire "defense" apparatus?

[JeffreyS]

[BridgeTroll]

Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security?

Would George Washington approve of today's global empire "defense" apparatus?

Did ya read the article?