House Budget Committee

Paul Ryan: Big Spender When Corporations Or Republican Party Wants It, But Not Under Democrats Or Barack Obama!

Conservatives and delusional people believe Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate, is the solution to BIG government and high spending levels.

The truth is that is ONLY true when Barack Obama is President, or the Democrats had control of Congress, beginning in 2007!.

Paul Ryan backed the Wall Street bailout when the economic collapse was occurring in the Fall of 2008.

Paul Ryan voted for all spending on the Iraq War, having no doubts.

Paul Ryan voted for all spending on the Afghanistan War, having no doubts.

Paul Ryan voted for the Bush Prescription Drug Plan in 2003, without making an issue of adding to the national debt, by refusal to pay for the plan with taxes.

Paul Ryan has become a deficit “hawk” only when Barack Obama became President, and when Ryan became head of the House Budget Committee in 2011.

Paul Ryan has a career of being a big spender, except when it was politically convenient to make an issue of every funding bill under President Obama.

Paul Ryan is, therefore, not what his supporters think he is, and already, there is “buyer’s remorse”, a fear among Congressional Republicans that they will have trouble being reelected with the burden of the Ryan Plan on their backs.

Some see a major disaster in the making, a nearly total wipe out of GOP gains in Congress in 2010, after only two years in the majority!

Ryan may turn out to be worse for the party’s fortunes than Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin! Who would have thought that?

Wisconsin: The Home Of Progressivism, Now A Center Of Right Wing Conservatism

Wisconsin was the birthplace of modern progressivism, with the Governorship of Robert La Follette, Sr. from 1900-1906.

Regarded by scholars as the greatest Governor in the history of all states throughout American history, La Follette promoted regulation of corporations, labor protections, environmental conservation, the direct primary, and the role of women and intellectuals in government policy making.

A Republican, when many believed government was good, he would go on to the US Senate, and be regarded as one of the top five US Senators of all time, and his son Philip would promote progressive reform as Governor in the 1930s.

Others would be in state government and in Congress promoting what La Follette believed in, including Democrats such as William Proxmire, Gaylord Nelson, Russ Feingold, and Herbert Kohl.

But two years ago, Wisconsin took a sharp turn to the right, defeating Russ Feingold for reelection to the Senate, and putting into office a Tea Party activist, Ron Johnson.

At the same time, Scott Walker was elected Governor, and declared war on labor rights, women, and education, and was able to win a recall election through the power of the funding of the Koch Brothers and other right wing interests.

Reince Preibus, the Republican state chairman, succeeded Michael Steele as Republican National Chairman.

And Paul Ryan, in the House of Representatives since 1998, became head of the Budget Committee, and promoted the Ryan Plan, which wishes to destroy Medicare as we know it, and calls for major cuts in Pell Grants, the end of ObamaCare, privatization of Social Security over time, the gutting of Medicaid, and massive cuts in Food Stamps, among other aspects of the plan.

And now, Ryan could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency next January 20, were Mitt Romney to win the Presidency on November 6.

The battle between progressivism and conservatism is in full heat, and Wisconsin is the center of the battle, and one wonders what Robert La Follette, Sr. is thinking in the afterlife, as he realizes what has happened in his beloved state!

Paul Ryan Vice Presidential Pick Creates Most Ideological Election Since 1964!

The decision of Mitt Romney to select Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, as his Vice Presidential running mate, throws down the gauntlet clearly for all voters!

This election will be the most ideological election since the Lyndon B. Johnson-Barry Goldwater race of 1964!

It is a clear cut attempt of the right wing—-the Tea Party Movement, the social conservatives, and the economic conservatism of Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and The Weekly Standard—to destroy the New Deal and Great Society!

It is a war on senior citizens, minorities, women, the poor, the middle class, in favor of the elite wealthy two percent, the corporations, the privileged, who want to destroy the social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!

It is the triumph of Ayn Rand, who promoted selfishness, greed, and lack of concern for our fellow citizens, in the mad dash to only promote one’s own interests!

It is an attempt to bring back the Gospel of Wealth of industrialist Andrew Carnegie in the Gilded Age!

It is the promotion of arrogance, selfishness, greed, a mean spirited nature, and false claims of promoting the so called message of Jesus Christ as not caring about the sick, the poor, the disadvantaged! Catholic nuns and open minded Protestant groups have condemned Ryan’s call for ending food stamps and other assistance to poor children, and his push to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while wishing to give more tax cuts to the elite wealthy!

So the battle is on, and the election, which seemed to have no focus, has become very focused, and it is a battle for the middle and lower classes, and it is a battle that cannot afford to be lost, because if President Barack Obama loses, the “American Dream” will be destroyed, as we allow an oligarchy, which already has too much power and concentration of wealth, to seize control of all wealth and property, and make us closer to Fascism than at any time since the defeat of Fascism in World War II!

The Right Wing Push For Congressman Paul Ryan As Vice Presidential Nominee

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan is being pushed by right wing forces, including the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, as Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate, as the time nears for the announcement of who will be the former Massachusetts Governor’s Number Two!

Ryan is very young (42), handsome, articulate, and willing to get into the fray, as he is an ideologist, out to privatize Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, therefore dramatically changing American economic and social policy. His budget plan, drawn up as House Budget Committee Chairman, is highly controversial.

But for a man like Romney who emphasizes the private sector, Ryan is just the opposite, as his entire career has been in government, a contradiction of what Romney thinks is his own advantage over other politicians.

If Ryan is picked, he would be the fourth Vice Presidential nominee of the GOP who would be extremely young, as compared to the Presidential candidate, an interesting scenario, as Richard Nixon was 40, more than 22 years younger than Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and Dan Quayle was 41, more than 22 years younger than George H. W. Bush in 1988. Ryan at 42 is also more than 22 years younger than Mitt Romney. Of course, Sarah Palin was 28 years younger than John McCain in 2008 at age 44, the all time difference in age.

Of course Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida are almost a year and a half younger than Ryan, at age 41, so would be actually 24 years younger than Romney, were they to be chosen.

The question that also arises is whether Romney really wants a strong willed, outspoken man to be his running mate, since he loves to be in charge of everything he runs, without question. Who would he be most comfortable with is certainly a factor in who he chooses.

The gut feeling is that either he goes with Ryan as a bold pick, an ideological pick, hoping to benefit from the clear cut alternative to what Barack Obama represents, or surprises everyone by selecting a woman, such as Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a swing state and a pitch to women, similar to what John McCain did with Sarah Palin in 2008. Ayotte, while certainly better than Palin, would still be a controversial pick, as her total experience in government is extremely limited.

Picking Senator Rob Portman of Ohio or former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty would make more sense long term, but would be boring, and would not please the ideological right!

We will learn a lot about Mitt Romney when he picks his running mate in the next few days, already a long time overdue!

Barack Obama On The Attack Against Republicans And Conservatives: Critical Of The Supreme Court And The Paul Ryan Budget Plan

Barack Obama has gone on the offensive against conservative and Republican philosophy, both on the Supreme Court and in Congress.

Already throwing down the gauntlet to the Supreme Court yesterday, Obama pointed out that the commerce clause and Supreme Court case history and two Circuit Court Judges (Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton) are a call for backing the Obama Health Care law, and it is clear that IF the Court declares it unconstitutional, the Court itself will be an issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign of 2012. And it is certain that the KEY issue of 2012, no matter what happens, is to realize that the future judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the lower courts matter more than ANYTHING economic or foreign policy related, because the judiciary is a lifetime appointment!

If we are upset over a 5-4 Court to the right, imagine a 7-2 Court under a Republican President when and if Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, both in their 70s, leave the Court over the next four to eight years!

But today, President Obama is also mounting a full scale assault on the Paul Ryan budget plan adopted by the House Republican majority for the second year in a row, which includes massive tax cuts to the rich beyond the Bush tax cuts, and major cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and all other domestic spending programs that benefit the poor and the struggling middle class, as well as the elderly.

Obama is calling it today’s “Social Darwinism”, the prevalent philosophy of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, a period being matched and surpassed with the growing concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population in the past ten years, and now threatening to be even more concentrated under the budget plan of the House Budget Committee Chairman.

And with the growing possibility that Ryan might be the Vice Presidential running mate of Mitt Romney, the future of the nation is at stake on the Supreme Court and lower courts, and also on the Presidential and Vice Presidential level, along with the Congressional actions in future years.

This is a battle for survival of the middle class, and the continuation of understanding the plight of the poor, as class division and the potential for class warfare grows!

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan As Mitt Romney’s Running Mate: The Reverse Robin Hood!

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin yesterday declared his interest in considering the opportunity, if asked, to be the Vice Presidential running mate of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

This author has earlier stated that Ryan would be one of the best choices that Romney could make, along with Ohio Senator Rob Portman, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, and South Dakota Senator John Thune, all from the Midwest, the battleground for the 2012 Presidential Election.

Ryan is handsome, well spoken, comes from a “swing state” in the Midwest, and certainly knows a lot about the budget, as the head of the House Budget Committee.

These positives, however, are negated by the fact that Ryan has now proposed two budget years in a row for the ending of Medicare as we know it, replacing it with a voucher system for senior citizens.

Also, Ryan wants to promote even bigger tax cuts for the top two percent, and despite his protestations to the contrary, actually would increase the national debt, while claiming to try to deal with the national budget in a responsible way.

Basically, Paul Ryan is an arrogant, cocky guy who wants to be a reverse Robin Hood, and can sleep at night cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, environmental protection, and many other government programs in his mad dash to enrich the Mitt Romneys of the world!

Why would Mitt Romney NOT embrace Paul Ryan, as he and his elite class would be enriched ever further by this Congressman who claims to be a budget hawk, but really just wishes to redistribute income from the poor and middle class to the wealthy?

The Vice Presidential Competition: Who Makes Sense For The GOP

Assuming that Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, is going to be the Republican Presidential nominee, the speculation about who might be his Vice Presidential running mate has begun.

Were Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania Senator, somehow able to pull out a miracle and become the nominee, the list would change, with some of the speculative candidates being eliminated, and others not now mentioned being added to the list.

The present list, as reported by NATIONAL JOURNAL is long, but with certain candidates ranked in order of likelihood of being the nominee.

The list is fascinating, but in the opinion of the author, flawed, with the assumption that Romney wants to have a real chance to win, and many of the choices are just too controversial even for him, in the mind of this author.

So we begin with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, both attractive looking candidates from battleground states, but both highly flawed by recent events, as reported by this author just a short period of time ago. These were the top two on this list provided by NATIONAL JOURNAL.

Their active movement against women and reproductive control of their bodies is a major negative, which did not exist in the same way just a few short weeks ago. Nominating anyone closely associated with this attack on women’s rights would NOT help Mitt Romney to win this crucial voting group!

But third place finisher, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, while applauded by many conservatives, is simply too headstrong and bossy to be anyone’s Vice Presidential nominee, and has a tendency to blow up and say things that are both arrogant and nasty, and would harm the Romney candidacy for President.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman, number four on the list, is far less controversial than McDonnell, Rubio, and Christie. Not as well known as the first three, Portman is a solid conservative who one can feel supplements Romney in a competent way, with his only negative being that he was the Budget Director under George W. Bush, as the budget went awry in the past decade. But, as much as that seems to be a negative, Portman still is far better as a nominee than the previous three combined. One does not want to forget that a nominee from Ohio, being the most crucial state for a Republican Presidential candidate, makes Portman even more important. Remember that EVERY GOP Presidential winner since Abraham Lincoln, the first, has won Ohio.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is fifth on the list, followed by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Jindal has become less exciting and impressive as time has gone on, with his main advantage, sadly, is that he is an Indian American, darker skinned than any other Republican, including Hispanic and Latinos possibilities, and might fool people into thinking that he is African American, but if that is the reason to select him, it only highlights the race problem the GOP faces. His home state is not important enough to be a consideration, as it will go Republican anyway, although if the people of one of the poorest states used their head, they would not vote Republican!

Ryan, on the other hand, is very good looking and well spoken, and as head of the House Budget Committee, he would seem a good match, and his home state of Wisconsin is seen as in play. But his plan to change Medicare as we know it, and his overall controversial budget plan, makes him not as good a choice as Rob Portman. Having said that, except for Portman, he seems a better fit of the top group of six possible nominees, ahead of McDonnell, Rubio, Christie, and Jindal.

Of the so called plausible alternatives, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, the next choice, would be an excellent candidate, even though he withdrew early from the Presidential race. A strong supporter of Romney, and a front runner for John McCain’s running mate in 2008, Pawlenty is not dynamic or exciting, but a competent choice with far less controversy than most.

The rest of the list is uninspiring: Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, South Dakota Senator John Thune, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, and Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno..

The mention of Rodgers, Martinez, Sandoval, and Fortuno really brings raised eyes, as simply pandering to women and Hispanics and Latinos, as they remind us too much of picking Sarah Palin for being a woman more than any true qualifying factor.

Only Thune brings any excitement, as he is handsome, dynamic, and comes from the Senate, but his state adds nothing to the electoral base of Romney.

In summary, it seems to the author that the best choices for Romney to consider for Vice President as reputable, qualified, competent, less controversial, and qualified to be President in case of an emergency (not to be ignored), would be Rob Portman, Paul Ryan, Tim Pawlenty, and John Thune.

NONE match Vice President Joe Biden as a competent, qualified person to be next in line to be President of the United States!

Should Congressman Paul Ryan Have Ultimate Control Of The National Budget? NO! :(

One of the earliest planned actions of the House Republicans, once they take control on Wednesday, is to propose that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin be given total control over the House budget as it will go through the House Ways and Means Committee.

If this happens, it will be an unprecedented move, giving one member of the House total control, without a vote on each part of the budget by the entire House of Representatives.

Ryan, while regarded by some as very bright and talented a legislator, has a very extreme view of budgetary matters, with the emphasis on cutting taxes endlessly on the wealthy, and ruthlessly cutting programs on education, health care, social security, the environment, and all other domestic programs.

It is an extreme right wing radical attack on the budgetary process, with the likely outcome being further polarization of the social classes and a direct attack on the whole concept of the New Deal and the Great Society!

It would represent an attempt to take us back to the years before Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. It would negate much of the 20th century reforms that have advanced this nation into the 21st century!

Fortunately, the Senate and the President would stand in the way, but it will mean total gridlock and stalemate, instead of cooperative progress to deal with the many social and economic issues the country faces in 2011!

It would be a tremendous tragedy of massive proportions, with the outcome for 2012 hard to predict! 🙁