[QUOTE=schickel;308224]So maybe you owe Paul Ryan a bit of an apoplogy here, eh?[/QUOTE]About what, exactly, do I owe Paul Ryan an apology?

Am _I_ supposed to apologize for Ryan's repeated denials of what turned out to be true?

Am _I_ supposed to apologize for contrasting someone else's claim about Ryan's reining-in spending with examples of Ryan's past actions?

Exactly where did I say anything about Ryan for which I need to apologize? ... and if you can't answer that, will you apologize for saying I owe Ryan an apology?

Former Reagan budget director - since then turned Wall Street reformer and anti-crony-capitalist crusader - David Stockman has an Op-Ed on the Ryan plan in the NYT. I give the entitlement-related highlights here, and the Wall-Street-related ones in the neighboring MET2012 thread:

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rs"]www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rs[/URL][URL="http://s"]Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan[/URL]
[quote]Mr. Ryan showed his conservative mettle in 2008 when he folded like a lawn chair on the auto bailout and the Wall Street bailout. But the greater hypocrisy is his phony “plan” to solve the entitlements mess by deferring changes to social insurance by at least a decade.

A true agenda to reform the welfare state would require a sweeping, income-based eligibility test, which would reduce or eliminate social insurance benefits for millions of affluent retirees. Without it, there is no math that can avoid giant tax increases or vast new borrowing. Yet the supposedly courageous Ryan plan would not cut one dime over the next decade from the $1.3 trillion-per-year cost of Social Security and Medicare.

Instead, it shreds the measly means-tested safety net for the vulnerable: the roughly $100 billion per year for food stamps and cash assistance for needy families and the $300 billion budget for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. Shifting more Medicaid costs to the states will be mere make-believe if federal financing is drastically cut.

Likewise, hacking away at the roughly $400 billion domestic discretionary budget (what’s left of the federal budget after defense, Social Security, health and safety-net spending and interest on the national debt) will yield only a rounding error’s worth of savings after popular programs (which Republicans heartily favor) like cancer research, national parks, veterans’ benefits, farm aid, highway subsidies, education grants and small-business loans are accommodated.

Like his new boss, Mr. Ryan has no serious plan to create jobs. America has some of the highest labor costs in the world, and saddles workers and businesses with $1 trillion per year in job-destroying payroll taxes. We need a national sales tax — a consumption tax, like the dreaded but efficient value-added tax — but Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan don’t have the gumption to support it.

The Ryan Plan boils down to a fetish for cutting the top marginal income-tax rate for “job creators” — i.e. the superwealthy — to 25 percent and paying for it with an as-yet-undisclosed plan to broaden the tax base. Of the $1 trillion in so-called tax expenditures that the plan would attack, the vast majority would come from slashing popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, 401(k) accounts, state and local taxes, charitable giving and the like, not to mention low rates on capital gains and dividends. The crony capitalists of K Street already own more than enough Republican votes to stop that train before it leaves the station.

In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.

[I]David A. Stockman, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy.”[/I][/quote]The one part of Stockman's recipe with which I disagree is the alleged need for a national VAT - what we need is a drastic shrinking of federal government, beginning with the massively bloated defense and entitlement programs, the latter starting with the least-vulnerable, such as well-off senioirs who can easily afford to buy their own !$%^# medications, and who, by doing forced to do so, would actually put much-needed downward pressure on the medical-cost curve. In other words, we need to eliminate the (alleged) need for a VAT. I suspect Stockman is simply (and correctly) weighing the chances of that kind of genuine reform as near-nil, though, and proposing the most-progressive form of revenue-raising needed to fill holes in existing spending. A VAT certainly looks better in that respect than more tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, I grant him that.

ewmayer,

As with many of the things I've seen recently, I don't think the NYT article you linked gives information in the correct context. Both the Republican and the Democrat plans have major flaws in them. Both can be framed as hypocritical. The question isn't what the flaws are, as such. The question is, what should a voter do? The article you linked gives us no information about what a voter should do, because it only presents information against Ryan (a VP candidate at that). What we really need is info on the Romney plan and the Obama plan. At least some of the info on these plans is out there. (That, and I don't find op-eds at the NYT all that unbiased.)

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;308485]As with many of the things I've seen recently, I don't think the NYT article you linked gives information in the correct context.[/QUOTE]Can you show us an article that does give information in the correct context?

[quote]The question isn't what the flaws are, as such.[/quote]It isn't? Why shouldn't the flaws be explained or featured?

[quote]The question is, what should a voter do?[/quote]Pressure Congresscritters and other politicians to fix the flaws -- using information from articles that explain the flaws, perhaps. Or, base ones vote on the contrasting merits of the budget plans, plus other issues.

Are you saying you want an article that tells the voter what to do about the budget plans without presenting the flaws? If not, what kind of article are you asking for that answers the question, "what should a voter do?"

[quote]The article you linked gives us no information about what a voter should do, because it only presents information against Ryan (a VP candidate at that).[/quote]Ryan has quite prominently been the spokesperson for Republican budget alternatives earlier this year. (And he was acting in his capacity as Congressman doing that, so what's your "a VP candidate at that" supposed to mean?)

The article's title says it's about "Paul Ryan's ... Budget Plan" -- and it is. No false advertising.

Are you claiming that voters should ignore Ryan's budget plan? If not, then the article gives information that many voters would consider when deciding how to vote. Why are you trying to persuade us otherwise?

Oh -- Which other Republican has presented a major budget alternative this year?

[quote]What we really need is info on the Romney plan[/quote]Has Romney presented a plan that significantly differs from the Ryan plan?

[quote]and the Obama plan[/quote]Do you want an article that compares all three of those plans?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;308457]About what, exactly, do I owe Paul Ryan an apology?

Am _I_ supposed to apologize for Ryan's repeated denials of what turned out to be true?

Am _I_ supposed to apologize for contrasting someone else's claim about Ryan's reining-in spending with examples of Ryan's past actions?

Exactly where did I say anything about Ryan for which I need to apologize? ... and if you can't answer that, will you apologize for saying I owe Ryan an apology?[/QUOTE]Sorry, too much sarcasm [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=308300&postcount=7"]again[/URL]. You don't owe an apology; you don't have to apologize for Ryan repeatedly denying anything; you don't have to apologize for comparing and contrasting Ryan's actions and words.

I apologize for implying that Paul Ryan deserved an apology from you.

I think it's funny when Republicans get caught this way; I also think it's too bad that the Democrat's haven't been using these times against the Republicans more.....

[QUOTE=cheesehead;308506]Can you show us an article that does give information in the correct context?[/quote]A news article? No, I cannot. I believe that news articles in general, and partisan op-ed's in particular, are unsuited to present a clear and full picture.

That isn't to say there are not other sources, but I am currently unaware of any in-depth reviews of Romney's and Obama's plans.

[quote]Ryan has quite prominently been the spokesperson for Republican budget alternatives earlier this year. (And he was acting in his capacity as Congressman doing that, so what's your "a VP candidate at that" supposed to mean?)[/quote]In the context of this thread, which is the 2012 US election, Ryan's plan (and especially, earlier versions that have been changed since then) is irrelevant. Romney's and Obama's plans are relevant.

[quote]Has Romney presented a plan that significantly differs from the Ryan plan?[/quote]It depends on what you mean by [i]significantly[/i], but yes their plans differ.

[quote]Do you want an article that compares all three of those plans?[/QUOTE]I might personally find such a piece interesting, but in the context of this thread I would appreciate an article which is balanced (considers the Republican and Democrat positions), relevant (considers the positions of Obama and Romney specifically), and modestly unbiased (in particular, not an op-ed from a left-slanting paper).

Random ranting here:

We follow the election news casually and spend maybe 10-15 minutes a day reading the headlines, so we are probably not very well informed. And our "issue" with each candidate is probably not the most important one, it is just the one that bothers us the most.

Obama - [URL="http://news.yahoo.com/insight-guantanamo-tribunals-dont-mention-t-word-050844950.html"]Guantanamo[/URL]. How wrong can you get? WTF?
Romney - [URL="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57492649-503544/mccain-reid-is-wrong-about-romneys-tax-returns/"]Tax returns[/URL]. 23 years? WTF?

:omg:

Amazon.com has put together an [URL="http://www.amazon.com/gp/election-heatmap"]Amazon Election Heat Map 2012[/URL][QUOTE]What are Americans Reading? Updated daily
44% of Purchases Are "Blue" Books
56% of Purchases Are "Red" Books[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Click on a state to see the percentage of "red" and "blue" book sales over the last 30 days.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Top 100 Political Books in the United States Updated hourly[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Why did Amazon create the 2012 Election Heat Map?

Amazon customers, as we know, read widely and often buy books that don't necessarily fit their own views. Books aren't votes, and a map of book purchases can reflect curiosity as much as commitment, but we hope our 2012 Election Heat Map will provide one way to follow the changing political conversation across the country during this election season.

How do we calculate the red and blue percentages on our Heat Map?

Our 2012 Election Heat Map colors each state according to the percentage of red and blue book purchases, based on shipping address, that have been made on Amazon.com during the past 30 days. We take the top-selling political books on Amazon.com and categorize them as "red," "blue," or neutral. We classify books as red or blue if they have a political leaning made evident in book promotion material and/or customer classification, such as tags. We compute percentages, updated daily, for each state and the US by comparing the 250 best-selling blue books during the time period against the 250 best-selling red books during the same time period, including new book launches. If the same book title has multiple formats (paperback, Kindle books and Audible Audio), each format has a separate sales calculation. The list only includes paid, not free Kindle books. All orders during the period are given equal weighting in the calculation. States with higher percentages of red or blue purchases are colored more darkly, and states with an even 50-50 split are colored neutral.[/QUOTE]

I've given Romney VP pick Ryan grief here for getting way more credit for budgetary reformism than is warranted, but I do admit that Ryan was a clever pick by Romney, for several reasons:

1. The "reformist" meme will stick with many voters (especially the all-important independent voters), even if the actual numbers don't add up;

2. Playing devil's advocate here and taking the POV of a "typical" GOP voter, Ryan is a nice-appearing, well-spoken man with a midwest middle-class (even if upperly so) background, an "All-American melting-pot mutt" Anglo/Irish/German ancestry, and is reassuringly Christian (catholic).

3. Ryan is wildly more qualified for the position of VP (which implies president as well) than recent VP nominees and wannabes like Sarah Palin;

4. Ryan is hands-down a more credible running mate than Obama's clown-sidekick, Joe Biden. Check out this [url=www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/21/biden-compares-republicans-to-quealing-pigs/]latest outlandish claim by Biden[/url]:
[quote]"Over the objections where they sound like squealing pigs, over the objections of (Mitt) Romney and all his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history," Biden said, claiming Democrats ensured Wall Street is no longer a "casino."[/quote]
Yeah, the source is Fox, and I deliberately kept their tendentious article title out of the above - the mere quoted words are outrageous lies irrespective of who reproduces them, and need no partisan hyperbole to render them so.

If I were an Obama supporter, I'd be worried.

[url]http://news.yahoo.com/romney-tithing-makes-reluctant-reveal-taxes-011454899.html[/url]

Xyzzy,

While I respect Romney, and will likely vote for him, and also agree with the principle that we should give in secret, I don't find that specific reason for not releasing tax returns a very good one (at least all by itself). Could he not easily blank out that line on the tax forms? (Or would it be easy to figure it out from later lines, which couldn't be blanked out?)