Recently, we as Americans have been subjected to the idea that somehow the man pictured above is some kind of mathematical genius, policy wonk, straight-talking politician who’s not afraid to “get fiscal” (I have to suppress a groan even typing this). While this characterization is appealing (perhaps particularly to those who are more concerned with the other side of that semi-homophone), the positions of the real man Paul Ryan do not bear it out. To steal a phrase from Christopher Hitchens’ excellent essay “America the Banana Republic,” Paul Ryan is a financial wizard “in the literal sense.” As a matter of fact, it is Hitchens to whom I owe the inspiration for this post, his having once labeled Colin Powell “the most over-rated man in America.” However undeserved Mr. Powell’s reputation may have been, it is nothing compared to the kind of media travesty that could have produced this kind of misconception.
The main sources I’ll be drawing on are: An interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the 2012 Vice Presidential debate, and an interview with journalist Jim Heath.
If the budgetary differences between Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan are to be the focal point of this election, it behooves us to take a look at the latter plan in a serious, critical light. However, as many have noted, this has been quite impossible because of the sheer obscurantism of Ryan’s camp in dealing with this issue. When Chris Wallace puts to him the concern that the tax cuts within his budget amount to some $5 trillion on their own, Ryan pointedly refuses to give any figure on this issue, instead referring to the deductions he plans to add in later. Genius may be stretching it, but Paul Ryan is not a stupid man. He should be able to appreciate the difference between the cost of the cuts in his plan, and the revenue ramifications of the plan itself, but instead of giving a straight answer and then moving on to the rest of the plan, he chooses to throw out talking points instead. Where’s the math professor I’m to expect, who is so focused on facts and figures?
Disastrous though this avoidance may seem, it’s nothing compared to what he admitted during the Vice Presidential debate (around 47:14 for those who want to double check). The question, exactly, was “Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it and that’s why you won’t tell voters?” And the answer: “What we’re saying is, here’s our framework… we want to work with Congress on how best to achieve this…” Ergo, no. There are no specifics. And this is followed by the claim that “six studies” have verified the accuracy of the plan. Why don’t we look at the sources for these studies and see just how accurate they are?
Two of these studies are from Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, a former adviser to President Reagan (and a current adviser to the Romney Campaign!), another is from Harvey Rosen, a former adviser to the latter President Bush, two more are from Op-Ed pieces written in publications of the right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and the final is from Charles Dubay, of yet another right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Notice a pattern here? The one closest to independent is Rosen’s, and even that has clear faults and distortions inherent in it. If you want to check me on this, this comes from a PolitiFact entry about Ryan’s claim to being validated by six studies. These blatant misrepresentations indict Ryan as either a foolish man who has come to believe in his own talking points against his better judgment, or a cynical and exploitative one knowingly complicit in deceit. And this isn’t the only one!
Mr. Ryan, in the last link above, repeated the two-fold deception that President Obama “raided” $716 billion from Medicare to pay for “Obamacare.” One thing that is often ignored about these supposed “cuts” is that they do not affect Medicare benefits. A more clear breakdown of the savings can be found in this Washington Post article here, but I’ll hit the highlights: Medicare payments are now more tethered to performance and to patient satisfaction, lowers the rates paid to hospitals for certain services (a cut hospitals agree with), and payments for hospitals that take more uninsured patients, now outmoded by the Affordable Care Act, will be ceased. The reason this is a two-fold deception is that it mischaracterizes the very notion of a budget! Money was already appropriated to the Affordable Care Act, and saving money from Medicare does not entail “moving” that money anywhere, it is simply removed from the overall budget. The idea that President Obama had a massive pile of money for Medicare and took some of that away to pay for the Affordable Care Act is utterly asinine. Given these two out of many possible blunders, the claim to Ryan’s “wonkishness” and attention to detail on math and fiscal policy is decidedly inaccurate.
As Mark Twain once put it: “Get a man a reputation as an early riser, and he can sleep ’till noon.” Why do we trust this man? Because we’re told he’s very intelligent and focused on the numbers. In other words, his oft-repeated mantra of “credibility” (and how any man working under Mitt Romney could possibly claim credibility on anything is beyond me). Perhaps some of you reading this really do think that Mr. Ryan possesses some degree of credibility. But I must ask you, in all honesty: Given these blatant misrepresentations of vital issues, are you willing to trust that this man will get the job done with a tax plan that doesn’t effectively exist yet? Given his party’s history, do you trust that a 20% tax cut across the board will be anything but a blank check to the top 1%? If you do, please tell me, because I desperately want to know why, thanks.
