Paul Ryan!!?? You're Shittin' Me??

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Has Paul Ryan ever had a private sector job? I know he was a Capitol Hill staffer for awhile before being elected to Congress at age 28. Does he know anything at all about the real world?

Hey, lay off Ryan about private sector jobs. He had one. Driving the Oscar
Mayer wienermobile was his last private sector job -- back when he was in college.

And kiss Florida goodbye!! Doing away with Medicare will go over like a lead balloon there!!

[Doove]

Originally Posted by LexusLover

I never expected the DNC, the Obaminable campaign strategists, and/or the Obaminable loyalist posters in any blog or thread on Eccie to endorse Romney's selection for VP.

So all this whining and trashing was, and is, expected.

You all didn't like Palin cuz you say she was dumb, so now someone brighter than you gets on the ticket and you start calling him a far-right, old-person-poor-person-hater, and rich-person-lover ....

the more you whine and trash Ryan ... the better he looks to me.

Pretty solid defense of the guy!

[Whirlaway]

Please, please, please make fiscal spending THe campgajn issue by attacking Romney/Ryan for the Deficit Reduction Plan (aka throwing granny off the cliff) ..........

[Munchmasterman]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

What you assert as "we all know" is funny....................Obama 's policies made the UE worse...even Obama's own analysts thought UE wouldn't get higher than 8%. That we all know!

We also all know that Obama claimed the Summer of Recovery in 2009, 2010, and 2011...which was it ?

We all know Obama has driven up our debt faster than any other sitting president

We all know Obama has broken more promises than any other president.

We all know Obama pissed away billions on phony green energy deals to his cronies.

We all know the real UE rate is close to 15% and higher in the black community.

We all know Obama can't run on his accomlishments so he has to go negative on Romney.

We all know Obama's approval rates are in the tank, at 43%.

We all know Obama gets a failed grade in managing the economy.

We all know Obama is hiding somthing from the electorate in his academic records.

We all know Obama is a Marxists - member of the New Party.

We all know Obama wants to transform America !

How did you "we all know" people feel about whirly being your un-elected, un-appointed and un-informed spokesperson?
It's likely whirly has over or under-stated statistics supplied by someone else but which he has not personally vetted but by still posting it he assumes the liability of it being incorrect.
Interesting the people that squeal the most about a lack of vetting by the other side perform little to none of their own.

[Whirlaway]

MunchMouth; you are free to post your own analysis of the facts; have at it boy.

[Texas Contrarian]

It seems to me that the Ryan pick is not one that would have been made by a candidate who thought he had a pretty good shot at winning the White House by doing a series of non-controversial things. Now Romney will have to either put his imprimatur on Ryan's previously proposed plans, or explain in detail how his proposals may differ -- and exactly how the numbers work. That's likely to be a tall order.

At least the choice has the advantage of drawing the ideological line and framing the debate, so it will be interesting. Maybe we will no longer see a "substance-free" campaign!

One big problem is that Romney and Ryan have not offered much of anything specific on exactly what they would cut from the budget and what tax expenditures they would eliminate in order to cut tax rates while not allowing total revenues to drop precipitously. ("Tax expenditures" are things like the mortgage interest deduction, the tax-exempt status of employer-paid health care, etc.)

This leads to a bit of a problem in the way of what I've seen referred to as "political sustainabilty." In other words, when people start getting specific, those who feel that they won't come out well say, "Hey, not me! Gore somebody else's ox."

We've had a multi-decade series of referenda on spending and entitlements. Nothing gets cut; everything always just gets ratified and expanded.

David Stockman was Reagan's budget director during his first term, and in many ways he was the Paul Ryan of his day. He came in full of fire and fury, ready to trim back the welfare state in a big way. Over the previous fourteen years it had expanded in a big way under presidents of both parties. Stockman got frustrated when congressional supporters of all sorts of constituencies continued to succeed in larding up the budget as usual, so he was out the door early in Reagan's second term. Later he wrote a book titled The Triumph of Politics: How the Reagan Revolution Failed. It's a pretty interesting read. He goes into detail about how deals are made in congress, circumventing any serious attempt to trim anything.

Since Stockman knows as much about the budget process as just about anyone, I think it's interesting to note what he said in an interview a year or two ago. In his view, if you locked all the congessional "leaders" in a room and told them that their lives depended on coming up with as much budget-cutting as they could possibly muster, they'd be very hard pressed to reach the $50 billion mark. That's only about 4% of the current budget deficit, so the scale of the problem is immense.

And that's just the spending side. The Romney/Ryan tax plan presents a target-rich environment, since it's so easily attackable as more tax cuts for the well off.

I think Ryan is earnest and feels that he has a bold plan for economic recovery and growth; it just seems to me that it's going to be a very hard sell. Tens of millions of voters don't really care about the risks of fiscal crises down the road; they just want to get through the short term.

For their part, those on Obama's side of the aisle need to realize that he has absolutely no plan for economic recovery and growth, and rejects even the most modest proposals to set the country on a glideslope involving less fiscal insanity (Simpson-Bowles, for example).

What, exactly, has been Obama's political...er, economic plan?

The answer is pretty simple, really:

Hope that you fail to notice that he has decided not to change the George W. Bush deficit-exploding economic plan in any meaningful way, other than by giving away even more tax cuts and calling for even more ineffective, wasteful, politically-motivated spending. Meanwhile, he has done nothing at all to reform or regulate the financial sector (please don't try to tell us that you think Dodd-Frank accomplished much of anything), and the TBTF banks are 50-60% larger than they were five years ago. The next crisis is sitting out there patiently waiting for the perfect time to occur. Anyone who doesn't realize that is sort of like the proverbial ostrich with its head stuck in the sand.

Barack Obama obviously has no intention of properly fixing anything or making anything remotely resembling a tough decsion. Is anyone surprised? When he faced controversial issues while serving as an Illinois State Senator, he voted "present." What a profile in courage!

No politician will dare tell voters what they really need to hear, but the debate will still be fun to follow.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Anyone who doesn't realize that is sort of like the proverbial ostrich with its head stuck in the sand.

.

One small point of contention, I think the proverbial ostrich has his head stuck up our collective arses.

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Don't look on it as a vote for Romney, et al. Look on it as a vote against another Sotomayor or another Kagan.

Yeah, Heaven forbid that we have a Supreme Court that is pro choice, believes in a right to privacy, wants an equal playing field in employment discrimination lawsuits, etc. All you have done is point out the single best reason for vote for Obama.

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

One big problem is that Romney and Ryan have not offered much of anything specific on exactly what they would cut from the budget and what tax expenditures they would eliminate in order to cut tax rates while not allowing total revenues to drop precipitously. ("Tax expenditures" are things like the mortgage interest deduction, the tax-exempt status of employer-paid health care, etc.)

Actually, you're wrong with regard to Ryan. He's pretty well told the truth about what will have to be cut in his budget. And its horrifying to the ordinary voter. All the cuts come at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society, at the expense of education, the environment, health care, etc. That's the problem with the pick. It's taken away Romney's vagueness and tied him to specifics.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Actually, you're wrong with regard to Ryan. He's pretty well told the truth about what will have to be cut in his budget. And its horrifying to the ordinary voter. All the cuts come at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society, at the expense of education, the environment, health care, etc. That's the problem with the pick. It's taken away Romney's vagueness and tied him to specifics.

If that's the case, I missed it. I thought he had maintained a certain aura of vagueness around what he might wish to cut. It appears to me that that's more or less what Romney has done.

In any event, I agree that the plan is likely to be a pretty hard sell if the Romney/Ryan team starts putting some "meat on the bones" concerning the totality of their tax and budget proposals.

With respect to the tax issue, I'm fairly sure that Ryan has not offered specifics regarding the loopholes and "tax expenditures" he would seek to eliminate. When he does, I suspect that he will experience quite a bit of pushback from constituencies that think they're getting the short end of the stick.

[MrGiz]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Yeah, Heaven forbid that we have a Supreme Court that is pro choice, believes in a right to privacy, .................etc, All you have done is point out the single best reason for vote for Obama. . . . .

I can go along with you on the pro choice point.... but if you're insinuating that Obama believes in my right to privacy. . . . You Must Be Shitting Me!!

[CuteOldGuy]

The only privacy Obama cares about is covering up his own corruption.

My main opposition to Ryan is he just one more in favor of the NDAA, the Patriot Act, enlarging defense, using the tax code to social engineer, etc.

In short, he's no different than what we have now in either party.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Yeah, Heaven forbid that we have a Supreme Court that is pro choice, believes in a right to privacy, wants an equal playing field in employment discrimination lawsuits, etc. All you have done is point out the single best reason for vote for Obama.

The corner drugstore still sells condoms, so fuck your "family planning" issues. TRUE family "planning" should occur before the would-be father unzips his fly.

This president has trampled on the civil liberties of the citizens, and the last thing this country needs is a Supreme 'Chorus' to validate Odumbo's transgressions.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

This president has trampled on the civil liberties of the citizens, and the last thing this country needs is a Supreme 'Chorus' to validate Odumbo's transgressions.

Many of our liberal friends dream of replacing a couple of our current justices with jurists in the mold of Sotomayor and Kagan. Then they could begin fantasizing about something that for many years has been at the very top of their wish list -- the conversion of the Second Amendment into a puff of smoke!

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Many of our liberal friends dream of replacing a couple of our current justices with jurists in the mold of Sotomayor and Kagan. Then they could begin fantasizing about something that for many years has been at the very top of their wish list -- the conversion of the Second Amendment into a puff of smoke!

+1

[JD Barleycorn]

Texas Tushie, we now have two court justices (maybe three) who decide cases not on the law but on the wishes of a party. Is this what you want with another Obama administration. That seems to be a VERY GOOD reason to vote against Obama.