Behold, Paul Ryan's Non-Answers About Climate Change and Medicaid Expansion

[DonViejo]

By David Weigel

The reporters at Elizabeth Warren's West Virginia rally for Natalie Tennant noted that the Massachusetts senator did not stick around for questions, or submit to a scrum of reporters. (In the Senate, she generally does not stop and talk to the beat reporters who show up.) This saved her from having to answer, probably, questions about coal, where she would have had to stitch together several different versions of "we disagree." But almost simultaneously, Rep. Paul Ryan was in Charleston, a few hours down the highway, endorsing Tennant's opponent (who reminded everyone that "every county" in the state wanted the guy to be veep). He got questions; he dodged.

After the event, the Wisconsin congressman declined to say whether he thought carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming, something that is agreed upon by an overwhelming majority of experts.

“I’m not going to get into that whole debate,” Ryan said. “Let me just keep at this, which is I think these coal regs are obnoxious, I think they’re exceeding their authority and I think they kill jobs.”

Capito has repeatedly declined to respond to the Gazette when asked if she agrees with the scientific consensus on global warming.

... Ryan, whose home state of Wisconsin did not expand Medicaid, declined to say whether he thought West Virginia made the right decision in doing so.

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/15/behold_paul_ryan_s_non_answers_about_climate_change_and_medicaid_expansion.html

[CBHagman]

1. Maybe when the proctologist dislodges Ryan's head he can read a newspaper.

It fairly boggles the mind that this guy has been touted as the bright shining intellectual light of the Republican Party. It's appalling enough that he's reciting the GOP anti-regulation mantra in the state where recent industrial pollution caused one-sixth of the people to lose access to potable water, but then he starts in on rising college costs.

Ryan said that he worries that government programs funding higher education, like Pell Grants, have been fueling tuition hikes at colleges.

“When the government funds, pushes money in this side, it ends up just inflating tuition inflation,” he said.

Yeah, government involvement -- as in the GI Bill -- really put college out of reach for the average citizen.

Quite a bit has been said and written of late about why higher education costs so much, and some of it is the withdrawal of state government support, not the opposite.

[url]http://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/290868013/how-the-cost-of-college-went-from-affordable-to-sky-high[/url]

[DESchiller]

2. People Want Answers and Principles

Everyone knows that, when it comes to a showdown between hard scientific evidence and their pet ideology, the Republicans will go with ideology every time.

I think the American people know better, and they want clear, principled answers from the Democratic Party. The Democrats should tell people the truth: global warming is real, it's caused in large part by human activity, and it will get much, much worse if we don't act quickly to reduce carbon emissions. People aren't ostriches, and they don't want to bury their heads in the sand.

The Dems should also tell people the truth about poverty in this country, just as FDR, JFK, and LBJ did. Millions of Americans need help; and, in the nature of things, that help must come from government. We aren't doing the middle class, or even the rich, any favor if we allow people with contagious illnesses to go untreated for lack of public assistance.

[AzNick]

4. But can you present the scientific evidence yourself?

I mean, can you actually understand all of the raw data yourself and give a fair analysis and presentation of it, or at least understand low level analysis and come to the same conclusion?

Because if all you do is repeat conclusions and say "there's hard scientific evidence behind it", are you making a strong argument about the fact that man made climate change is happening?

Or are you just stating that some people, whom you have faith in, have made this strong argument for you?

[DESchiller]

6. Hard scientific evidence is a bit hard to define

I am not a mathematician, and many of the models of global warming, on which future projections are based, require a level of mathematical sophistication to fully understand that I frankly do not possess. But I can understand some of the scientific evidence. For example, satellites have determined that a smaller amount of solar energy is "re-radiating" back into space than was previously the case, meaning that more is being absorbed by the earth. This is the so-called "greenhouse effect", and has been well documented. See the Fourth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), to which over 2000 climate scientists worldwide contributed, and which expresses pretty much the same conclusions I stated in my original post.

I do not pretend to be able to understand "all of the raw data", and I doubt if very many people can. But as citizens we have to act on the basis of the best scientific evidence available to us, even though some of it is necessarily presented in simplified form.

[talkguy365]

3. Political pandering.

It's the norm for our elected officials to tell us constituents what we want to hear. If ever you receive an honest answer from a politician, look out. Something bad is about to go down.

[AzNick]

5. Is it about what you want to hear?

Or what they need to say to be reelected?