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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoe Klein: Ryan's Grand Vision - a "libertarian Disneyland" & "puerile vision" whose time has gone
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2122234,00.htmlAnd so we seem to be headed for a campaign of ideas--Ryan's ideas--and that may or may not be a good thing. Yes, it's important to have a ground-zero discussion about the sort and size of government we want to have. The trouble with Ryan's deep thinking on so many of these issues, though, is that it's not very deep at all. He lives in a libertarian Disneyland where freedom is never abused, where the government is an alien entity whose only function is to flummox the creative intelligence of bermensches like Ayn Rand's hero, the architect Howard Roark. It is remarkable and, frankly, a bit terrifying that this puerile vision has become the operating philosophy of the Republican Party.
Worse, some of Ryan's most important ideas have been tried and proved failures. Ryan has produced various plans, proposals and two actual federal budgets, and they all have one thing in common: they cut taxes drastically. In his 2011 budget, which he sent to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring, he estimated that despite the drastic cut in rates, the revenue would remain the same as a percentage of gross domestic product. This is supply-side economics, the utterly uncorroborated theory that the less people pay in taxes, the more they'll produce. Ryan's mentor Jack Kemp sold Ronald Reagan on it in 1980. The result was such a huge hole in the federal deficit that in 1982, Reagan was forced to come back with one of the largest proportional tax increases in American history. Supply-side tax cuts didn't work for George W. Bush either. By contrast, Clinton raised taxes and the economy boomed. Who knew?
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In Ryan's 2010 budget, all taxes on capital gains were lifted. By this standard, according to the Atlantic, Romney would have paid a tax rate of less than 1% in 2010, the only year for which we have his returns. In some of his proposals, Ryan has replaced the capital gains tax with a sales tax, or VAT, which would have the perverse effect of raising taxes on the middle class and poor while lowering them for the rich. In Ryan's world--in Rand's fantasy--average folks are taxed because they haven't had the good sense to become wealthy.
Because of the hilariously inappropriate tax cuts, Ryan's budget doesn't reduce the deficit very quickly, but it is imbalanced on the backs of the poor and elderly. I believe that poverty is often the result of inappropriate behavior--out-of-wedlock births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs--which should not be rewarded. But often it isn't, and common decency requires that we take care of the least of these. Ryan's Medicare proposal is Exhibit A when it comes to his casual inhumanity: he would force the elderly, many of whom are addled and decrepit, to make market choices in one of the most complicated, opaque markets around. Ryan's Medicaid proposal would eviscerate long-term care for the elderly poor. Republicans whine about class warfare, but what is this? It is a reversion to a more brutal, less humane state of nature. It is an "idea" whose time has gone.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)"I believe that poverty is often the result of inappropriate behavior--out-of-wedlock births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs--which should not be rewarded. But often it isn't, and common decency requires that we take care of the least of these."
Disgusting but at the same time I do appreciate the fact that such an elitist truly understands and discredits Ryan's values and ideas.
Indykatie
(3,697 posts)Unmarried girls having babies in their teens is a fact of life but we should not pretend that it's not inappropriate behavior. Same for dropping out of school etc. I believe Democrats care about these issues and work to legislate policies to address these problems whereas republicans simply don't give a damn.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Like getting sick losing your job and having to go on disability???
Moral judgements on the conditions of people's lives is what is inappropriate. Not only are they assumptions based on very little evidence, they naturally extend to people like me and my lawyer friend who can't afford to join a practice because he would lose necessary services. It indeed is elitist and extremely demeaning.
Indykatie
(3,697 posts)Nor is he making a judgement on why folks in those situations have those behaviors. He is not making a moral judgement in my opinion. Teenage pregnancy, dropping out of school lead to poverty in most cases. Why can't we accept that as a fact without feeling it is moralizing to state the obvious truth. Other folks fall into poverty for reasons that they can't control and I certainly understand that. At any rate, I thought Klein's article was excellent.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I am just defending "my people." As I noted below, we ride the same buses, go to the same food banks, shop at the same thrift stores, and life in the same neighborhoods. How anyone got here is irrelevant. We all deal with discrimination and people assuming and judging us based on where we live, what we wear, and what we can afford to eat.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)and things that no one has any control over.
When one makes the conscious decision to pursue a path of self-injurious behavior is one thing, the vagaries dealt to individuals by life is another.
Getting ill, injured, or having a disability (unless brought upon oneself by self-destructive behavior) is something no on can control, or decide not to do.
We should still help those that have made bad choices in their lives to do better, through education and assistance, just as we need to help those to whom life has dealt a setback.
No one should be judged for where they find themselves in life, bad things can happen to anyone, at any time, and those that lack empathy need to be made aware of that fact.
All citizens have value in this society, or we fail as one.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)But the fact is that regardless of how we get there, poor people live in the same neighborhoods. Use the same food banks and food stamp cards, regularly deal with DFS...
We may stand out because of our lack of nice clothing, professional haircuts, etc. A reference to "poverty" is a reference to a demographic that is only divided into subsets when one delves further into the topic.
When Joe Klien said "poverty" he did not make such distinctions and thus referenced a demographic.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)I know some people of very modest means who through no fault of their own live in poverty, and I also know some shiftless do-nothings that could earn their own living, but live as they do so by choice.
There is a huge difference between those two demographics.
The sad part is that the do-nothings are stealing resoursedc from those who actually need the help.
ananda
(28,876 posts)For example, unwed births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs
are results not causes.
That's why I still appreciate the Dems of old led by LBJ who really
wanted to end poverty and made a good stab at it until Nixon, Reagan
and the Reeps were able to exploit southern racism to end it.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)There is always a perfect word for the situation and "puerile" certainly suits Paul Ryan's ideas.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)like Klein would take Lyin' Ryan so sternly to task. Most of the Very Serious People (tm Paul Krugman) can't seem to stop falling all over themselves about Eddie Munster. Perhaps the worm is turning.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Seems that there is more than a little friction between those that actually earned what they have through their own sweat, and those that got it handed to them.