Why do we have seemingly around-the-clock media coverage of a not-very-bright, former part-term governor from Alaska who resigned to pursue a full-time career of being on television?
And why did CNN give prime time to a response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech from one not-very-bright, extremist congresswoman from Minnesota who couldn’t even read a teleprompter and look at the camera at the same time?
Before anyone starts yelling “Sexist!” at anyone daring to question the intellectual heft of the aforementioned, this column actually is about another pretty face—Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.
Ryan was the rising Republican star selected to present the real Republican response to the president’s State of the Union.
Ryan, young, good-looking, described as “Kennedyesque” by a fawning local media, is making his move on the national stage. From an aesthetic point of view alone, Ryan is far more presentable than all those sour, old Republican leaders with faces like clenched fists.
But last week, as America looked into Ryan’s big, puppy-dog eyes and heard his earnest-sounding, bit-lip response to the president, you had to hope voters wouldn’t be swooning too much to notice the vicious things he was saying
Ryan is one scary cupcake.
Ryan’s Tired Ideas
Few people make any strong intellectual claims for
Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. But the scary part about Ryan, who just became
chair of the House Budget Committee, is he’s held up as some kind of brilliant,
intellectual force in the Republican Party.
Anyone who really listened to his response would
have noticed Ryan’s alleged economic expertise is steeped in the mean-spirited,
hate-the-poor bigotry of an earlier era and the convenient Republican
pocket-lining philosophy that government’s primary role is to cut the taxes of
millionaires and billionaires.
Most Americans are aware this country’s social
safety net has been shredded in recent years by welfare reform (more accurately
described as “welfare slashing”) and a near-Depression, resulting in deep cuts
to government programs for the least powerful and most vulnerable among us.
But Ryan apparently still lives in that mythical
world that never existed where welfare queens drive their Cadillacs to the
relief office to load bags of money into their trunks.
Describing steps Obama and the Democrats took to
create jobs and support those out of work during the second greatest economic
disaster in American history, which resulted from Republican economic policies,
Ryan’s bizarre conclusion was:
“This is a future in which we will transform our
social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of
complacency and dependency.”
Hammocks!! Hammocks!? The idea of the poor lolling
around in hammocks eating bonbons should be offensive to anyone who knows
anything about real poverty, a daily struggle for survival in the most
miserable and dangerous living conditions in America.
While President Obama was appropriating Ronald
Reagan’s sunny optimism about America’s ability to accomplish big things as
(what is still) the strongest economy on Earth, Ryan did his best to scare the
bejesus out of the nation with apocalyptic doom and gloom.
"Speaking candidly, as one citizen to another:
We still have time... but not much time,” Ryan said ominously.
The political approach of Democrats to try to create
jobs and lower health care costs, he said, “threatens not only our livelihoods,
but our way of life.”
For someone laying out such a menacing vision of
America’s imminent destruction—just “around the corner,” he said—Ryan was
extremely vague about solutions. But, man, does he have some.
The sooner every American reads Ryan’s “Roadmap for
America’s Future,” the better. Talk about a terrifying scenario. Ryan has put
forward a very specific plan to end government support for pretty much everyone
in the country except the very wealthy.
Privatizing Social Security so our retirement funds
could evaporate like our 401(k)s is just the beginning.
Ryan also would eliminate Medicare and give our
oldest and sickest citizens limited vouchers to try to buy (unreformed) health
insurance on the private market. Good luck with that.
Those whom Ryan does care about—millionaires and
billionaires—would see all the top income tax brackets eliminated and pay
exactly the same rate as someone earning just over $50,000 a year.
All corporate taxes would be eliminated and replaced
with a consumption tax we consumers would have to pay on every single thing we
buy.
Somehow, the government showering billions of
dollars on millionaires and billionaires won’t turn them all into lazy bums
lolling about in hammocks.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist,
calls Ryan a charlatan with a sham plan that makes no useful contribution to
America’s future.
Ken is made of the same cheap plastic as the two
Barbies. Pretty is as pretty does.
*/?>
McNally's new standard for a politician- he/she can "read a teleprompter and look at the camera at the same time". That is a sad commentary. Ryan is a policy wonk and a numbers guy. He knows the material better than almost anyone in our government today. For a guy who just wrote a column about not disliking fans of a rival team, calling Ryan a lightweight is unbelievably silly. Ryan's Roadmap is a well-though-out plan to return America to solvency. It is more than any liberal politician has put forward. It will not be easy, but no is saying it will be easy. The problem for liberals is that it doesn't "feel good". Results are less important for liberals than doing what "feels good".
right on, and the wall street brokers will stop raping the rest of us and will become a real free market! and the streets will turn to gold and mannawill reign from heaven oh yes with ryan we will all go back to the good old days of 8 year olds slaving in sweatshops so all th rich will lead us into a slave state GO RYAN and all the rest of the t baggers who long for the good old days when only THE RIGHT PEOPLE CAN RUN THE GOOD OLD USOFA.
@alan maurer- Do you have anything of substance to contribute, or are you reading directly from the back of your union card? (Reading poorly, I might add...)
“The idea of the poor lolling around in hammocks eating bonbons should be offensive to anyone who knows anything about real poverty”
This statement make me think this author knows nothing about people the struggle everyday in poverty and believe that the only way they can live or get by is with the help of government programs. I’m blessed to work with the poor everyday, and I take my job very seriously, my clients struggles become mine, as we work together I find that people are truly dependent on the government for assistance in there life. This is a terrible feeling for the poor, which can even lead to mental health issues like depression. (people don’t talk about that)
I can’t tell you how many time I have heard clients say I don’t’ want to work those extra hours or work two jobs, because my quest card will get reduced, or I will lose my badercare, or I’ll lose my W-2. This happens so often, statements like this are statements of oppression. They system that is in place is puts people in bondage, and to ignore that is not dealing with reality. Government has taken away the natural things that people do when they lose a job, or fall on hard times. People naturally would go to family, friends, and then community supports for assistance, and government has totally screwed that up.
Its hard for me to explain this briefly but I don’t see the benefits of most of these programs, it breaks my heart to see people who have grown up dependent on these programs, and have no idea what life would be like without them; a life liberated from the dependence on these programs.
Wow, I feel really bad for the people who have to deal with someone like you who's supposed to be helping them.
It's not a BELIEF that these people need these programs, but rather a FACT OF LIFE. Your argument about poor people not wanting to work extra hours or 2 jobs so they don't lose there food stamps or health care speaks more about the sorry state of Corporate America than it does about the Federal Gov't. Somebody with kids shouldn't have to work more than 40 hours a week just to survive.
I have a friend who works full-time as a manager at a shoestore and volunteers for her daughter's Girl Scout troop. She receives gov't assistance for her daughter's childcare and BadgerCare for her and her daughter, who I should mention was born premature and suffers a lot of health complications as a result. The company she works for is a small business and does not offer health insurace, even if they did she could not afford to pay for childcare and health insurance at her current salary. I guess according to you she should quit volunteering for Girl Scouts and get a 2nd job delivering pizzas or something.
The gov't is supposed to provide a safety net for people who don't have any place else to turn. Not everybody has a friend or relative who can watch their kids while they're at work. What if you need an expensive medical procedure and don't belong to any organizations like a church that can hold a fundraiser? Sometimes you have no choice but to turn to society at large.
Here's some stats I have handy from a report I just did for Sociology.
As of 2009, 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck 36% of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings 33% of those surveyed reported that they don’t put any money aside each month 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement Workers who said they had less than $1,000 jumped to 27%, from 20% in 2009 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year The percentage of workers who said they have saved for retirement fell to 69%, from 75% in 2009 By 2008 over 30 million U.S. workers were earning less than $10 per hour (over 20% of the total workforce) More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011 According to one new study, approximately 21% of all children in the U.S. are living below the poverty line in 2010 For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the U.S. than all individual Americans put together One study found that as of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets The bottom 40% of income earners in the U.S. now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth 23 of the top investment banks, hedge funds and other Wall Street firms will pay bonuses to themselves of $140 billion of taxpayer money, a sum almost exactly equal to the estimated $142 billion in budget shortfalls for all 50 states in fiscal 2010 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans Only the top 5% of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975 An analysis of income tax data by the Congressional Budget Office found that the top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1 Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 and 500 to 1Jacob, first of all I don’t think you understand the point that I’m trying to make, people that rely on government programs are to often oppressed, in bondage, or limited and controlled by these government programs. To me it’s much worse to be controlled/limited by these programs than have to find a creative way to deal with problems that occur in life. I work with people every day that are creative, intelligent, and just as, or more capable that me to provide for themselves, without the assistance of government. I try to encourage my clients to realize this self worth, self sufficiency and the dignity and self respect that is gained though hard work and being able to provide for themselves and their family. I think of my clients as equal to me in there capabilities, and it’s frustrating to see that they often times do not think of themselves in the same way.
Family, Friends and community members that could and would care for people in time of need are no longer needed, and government takes away these natural responsibilities that are innate to family and friends. Clearly the U.S. government could not just stop providing these services or there would be chaos, but slowly putting more responsibility to these natural supports can and should be done. It frustrates me that policy maker are always trying to “help” people that are poor and make life easier for them to succeed. By creating more and more policy that does this only further makes people more dependent on government, and less dependent on themselves. Your statistics shows me that these policies are not successful and our country is in no better shape because of them. It also frustrates me that policy maker assume people that are poor are not capable of life without government help, and that way of thinking is wrong, dehumanizing and not correct. People continue to come to this county with only the clothes on there back and within no time are able to provide for themselves and their families without the assistance of government. Yes these people have to live in small houses with many different generations of family members that help make this possible, but that way of life is much more fulfilling and liberating, then being sucked into a life of dependency.
I hope this clarifies things a little.
It sounds like your idea of "liberating" the poor is to pile several generations of them under one roof, while simultaneously working them to death at whatever low wage jobs they can get. You sound really compassionate (rolls eyes).
Let's pretend I'm a welfare recipient who takes your advice and now I work 2 full-time jobs and no longer depend on the gov't to support my family. What good does it do if I'm never around anymore to see my family? I would rather rely on the gov't for assitance and be able to play an active role in my children's lives, than be a good provider who's never around emotionally. We saw this scenario play itself out in the late 90's. Welfare-2-Work forced a lot of single mothers out into the workforce, and the result was a bunch of unsupervised teenagers running amok, dropping out, getting pregnant, etc.
If your idea of compassion is giving people things, and in return only expecting them to stay poor and you will continue to be compassionate, then this back and forth is useless. Giving someone a fish is not compassion, teaching them how to fish is compassion. I know it’s hard to learn anything on an empty stomach but government does not need to step in and take over, a family member would suffice.
It frustrates me that policy makers continue to think that people that are poor can not be responsible with there lives. In a natural setting without government involvement people would be more responsible. So many of these government programs are counter intuitive, It would be intuitive to think that if I help a person by giving them something I’m using my rescores wisely and compassionately, but if I never expect this poor person to do anything in return it only controls them and keep them poor. Example would be that a person that is poor should wait till they have money before having children (this is what the majority of people do). If you are poor and live in America, you only qualify food stamps as a single person; you know if you have a child you can qualify for badgercare, W-2, section 8 housing, and other programs then you might not wait to have children, because it makes more sense to have a child then not. To think that poor people don’t know the consequences of having unprotected sex, or just can’t control themselves for a second and be responsible is silly, and degrading. This is one reason why these programs are counter intuitive, controlling, limiting, oppressive, and create a cycle of poverty.
Don’t get me wrong I understand that “kids happen” and they come unexpected, but that is when families come together and make it work.
Everything that @jacob clark writes deals with doing what "feels good" and what is good at that very moment- no thought to the long-term advancement of the poor into the middle- and then upper-class economic stratas. And the cut-and-paste stats from your term paper? Please- I can cut and paste you into a corner with stats any day, but that gets us nowhere, as we all know that stats are malleable.
"Somebody with kids shouldn't have to work more than 40 hours a week just to survive." (By whose standards, Jacob? Or did you just decide this all by yourself?)
"pile several generations of them under one roof, while simultaneously working them to death at whatever low wage jobs they can get" (the usual liberal scare tactics, nothing new here, no evidence to support the claim that this is the goal or would be the result of reforming entitlements.)
"bunch of unsupervised teenagers running amok, dropping out, getting pregnant, etc." (yeah, Jacob, that never happens anymore)
"I would rather rely on the gov't for assitance and be able to play an active role in my children's lives, than be a good provider who's never around emotionally." (First of all, this is not an either-or situation- you are stating that you are not willing to work hard and put 100% of the off-time into parenting. It can be done. Second: "around emotionally???" Really? You're going to have to do better than invented catch-phrases.)
@PoliticalPygmalion
We're the wealthiest nation on the planet. Why are we as Americans working longer hours for less money and substandard healthcare compared to our counterparts in Western Europe? Have you seen "Sicko" by Michael Moore? France provides daily nanny service to the parents of newborns. The cashiers' desk at the hospitals are for giving cab fare and spending money to patients who are checking out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country
@Jacob Clark: France (and much of Western Europe) is on the brink of bankruptcy. There are riots in the streets in France, despite the fact that they have their nannies paid for. Again, giving people things feels good, but sometimes it is simply not possible. I would agree that of all countries with socialized healthcare, France seems to do it the best. Unfortunately, the clowns who wrote our healthcare bill do not appear to have explored the French system at all.
As for Sicko, can you really take that trash seriously? Of course Cuba has decent healthcare- you can do anything in a communist dictatorship- especially when you keep a large portion of your population in government-enforced poverty. Unfortunately for Moore, even Cuba recently admitted that their system as a whole is a failure.
By the way, we're working longer hours for substandard wages because much of the rest of the world is moving into their industrial revolution. A large chunk of our employment opportunities are moving overseas, and there's simply nothing we can do about it. We can, however, tighten the belt and evolve to meet the challenge. Unless we continue to produce very healthy but stupid children, behind the rest of the world in math and science, in which case we're probably screwed.
@PoliticalPygmalion
FYI, the national debt of the U.S. is now equal to 97% of GDP. France is in much beter shape economically than we are. Our treasury bonds are about to be demoted to junk status just like Greece and Ireland. As for the protesting and rioting in the streets of France, I wish people in our country would get upset and stand up for themselves once in a while (and not those stupid tea parties). The people in France went nuts when the gov't raised the retirement age from 60 to 62. Contrast that with this stupid country, where talk of raising the retirement age from 65 to 69 barely registers in most people's minds. We've become complacent when it comes to giving our corporate overlords everything they want.
@Jacob Clark- I no longer have any idea where your're coming from or going with this. Do you know why France needs to raise the retirement age? Are you in favor of raising the retirement age here? And where do the "corporate overlords" come in? Do you realize that without business there are no income, sales, or property taxes; nothing at all to support the welfare state you wish to expand? Shoot business in the foot, and you shoot yourself in the foot- starting with the feet of the poor and those who live exclusively within the welfare state.
Do you really think that France is in better economic shape than the US? Have you heard the phrase "austerity measures"? That is where France is at. We are not there yet, and if we act quickly, we can avoid all but the most necessary austerity measures. You're not making a distinction between "debt" and "debt service". We can still pay our bills- but not for long. France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Greece- all of these countries are on the very brink of bankruptcy.
Well said by a "not-very-bright" columnist at the free paper. Joel act like poverty is some kind of oppression when in in a free enterprise capitalist society it is a personal life style choice.
"millionaires and billionaires" - whats his obsession with people who like to create wealth? Just about everyone is a millionaire these days.
Well, the welfare queens might not drive their Cadillacs to the relief offices anymore. Now they drive them to their phony daycare businesses.
Joel needs to get over his envy of Republicans. If Joel spent half the time he spends on bashing Republicans and instead spent it on wealth producing activities, he would become a Republican. The reason why us Republicans can't tolerate poor people is because we know how easy it is to make money and it really doesn't take a whole lot of sacrifice to accumulate wealth. But the Democrats think those sacrifices are too rigid - like getting a job, resist going in debt, not buying the big Cadillac, or not buying your kids every new gadget that comes along. Try stop smoking - that would be my advice to the poor to have more money. Ever notice that poor people like to smoke? Whats up with that?
People like you make me physically ill.
"Just about everyone is a millionaire these days" is quite possibly one of the most offensive, not to mention fictitious, statements I've ever read. Fewer than 2% of the population earns more than $250,000 a year.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_percentage_of_the_us_population_makes.html
First I doubt that less than 2% of the population earns more than $250,000. I would guess it to be 5% but I can't prove that. Second this has nothing to do with being a millionaire. You can earn $100,000 a year and easily become a millionaire with frugal living and proper investing and tax planning. I know people who have never made more than $50,000 a year in their life and are millionaires. And I know millionaires that have no income at all. They only have assets. Choosing to become a millionaire is a personal lifestyle choice just as being a cigaretete smoking tavern drunk liberal is a lifestyle choice.
Wow, THIS brought out the extremes! But, the points Joel brings out about Ryan's book are quite extreme. Other than the scare tactics, what I despise most is Ryan's promoting his book on national public time. Never mind that Ryan is from Wisconsin, where it is not financially prudent for "millionaires and billionaires" to live. If everyone buys his book, Ryan will get the "mailbox money" that his job in Washington doesn't pay him "enough" for. But, he did not pay for the infomercial like the other charlatans do.
And I'll bet Mr. McNally bought that book, helping Ryan out like other suckers help those TV get-rich-quick charlatans. He should have waited for Russ Feingold to write a book, so Russ could parlay his visible position into more than living in the same house he began his Washington career in. (Speaking of which, what is Ron Johnson doing these days?)
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I like the back and forth between "jacob clark" and "rightnow", points out the poverty problem that there is no good answer to. I remember a debate in a high school social studies class in the 70's, about a concept called "Guaranteed Annual Income". The debate brought out all of jacob's and rightnow's same issues. Poor need to feel poor, that stress is supposed to spur them to get out and get better. Point was to scale back the assistance in a way that doesn't lose a full assistance dollar for every takehome pay dollar gained. Look at your ownself, if you did not have to work to live comfortable, how many of you would quit working? 10% like the portion of workers unemployed? 25%? I reckon it's more like 80%!
Perhaps if we did have an effective, progressive healthcare reform, one that also forces healthcare costs to be reduced, instead of "tax and redistribute" at full price. It can be done by making people healthier, so they do not need to go to the doctor. Save that assistance for when the condition was not due to personal choice. Also make it a public option, served by civil servant payscales not private firms that pay executive salaries. With a strong public option available to more than the very poor, jobs will not need to worry about providing healthcare, and rightnow's clients wouldn't hold back from taking on the extra work.
More likely, we should take heed of the numbers jacob posted from his sociology paper, about the growing wealth disparity.
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Has any of you ever had a science project, where you tried to put together a self-sustaining ecosytem? Kind of like a high-school terrarium in biology class? Remember that oxygen and water needed to be in a balanced cycle? Can't bleed off anything and still expect it to survive while staying sealed.
The same holds true with money. It circulates, it never really gets created. Can't allow the wealthy to bleed off significant amounts and still expect the "money machine" to keep going indefinitely. Means there MUST be a redistribution back down to the bottom, or the cycle ends. Income tax and property tax on the rich, inheritance tax on the dead rich, all were part of that downward return that kept the cycle going.
I fought this idea since my 1978 Econ 101 class. They talked about the "creation of money" through the fractional reserve rules of the Federal Reserve system. Uncle Sam puts in a dollar (sold bonds to get it). Bank A loans out 80 cents of it to Jim. Jim spends that 80 cents in a store or pays it to a worker. The store or worker deposits that money in Bank B. Bank B then loans out 80% (64 cents) to Bob. Bob also spends or hires. By the time it works out, that $1 is circulating through the economy doing the work of $6-7. End of Lesson.
My complaint is that those banks are all sitting on loans that Jim, Bob and others need to eventually pay back. Once that is done, if it can be done, was there any wealth created? I couldn't see it.
To me it was like a damn pyramid scheme. Only keeps going by getting someone to put more real dollars into these banks, so they can loan more out. Uncle Sam had to sell more bonds to put more dollars in, bonds sold to China and others.
The world is a closed money system too, the proverbial global economy. Where are those extra-terrestrial investors when we need them?
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Reducing top income tax bracket to same level as the 50K earner. Just accelerates the skimming off by that top 1%. Faster "Redistribution" but upward only. You complained about Obama's "Redistribution of Wealth", what do you call the money flow in American for-profit business?
Eliminating corporate income tax, replacing it with a consumption (aka sales) tax paid by end customers only! Google it, it's erroneously named the "FairTax". Sounds great from a business owners point of view, eliminates the IRS, it's employees (and the need for business hiring white-collar tax accountants, tax lawyers, and your wife's clerical job), but screws the lower class customers the most. Google the downside, not just the upside, get the full story.
If I were Ebenezer Scrooge with counting house full of money, I would thoroughly enjoy this national sales tax! No income tax on RECEIVING money, no property tax on money I'm HOLDING, and forget sales tax on SPENDING money, not an issue with my tightwad miser ways.
Biggest point on the national sales tax... who collects this sales tax when I take my tax-free money and buy an overseas investment at a foreign bank? Anyone thought of that?
Mr. Rich has given up on America, he is looking for the easiest way to take his money out of the game. Easy if he also can lobby for new house rules.