Forget for a moment what the Ryan Budget Plan would do for our fiscal condition over the next few decades. Focus on what Rep. Paul Ryan’s voting record has already done to our fiscal condition. According to a study released by Think Progress, Rep. Ryan voted to add $6.8 trillion to our deficit during the presidency of George W. Bush.
A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that Ryan voted to add a grand total of $6.8 trillion to the federal debt during his time in Congress, voting for at least 65 bills that either reduced revenue or increased spending.
From 2001 to 2008, Congress passed legislation that increased the national deficit by a total of $4 trillion — the number grows to $6 trillion if you add in the how much those policies have cost through 2011. Ryan voted for 90 percent of these deficit increasing bills.
And, yet, as the front-page on the Washington Post Online shows, Rep. Ryan is “seen as a hawk on budget.” But, by whom is he seen as a budget hawk? Idiots? Morons? Dupes? People who watch Fox New? People who read the Washington Post?
The Post article does push back a little on Ryan’s undeserved reputation by pointing out some minor instances of hypocrisy. Namely, he argued that stimulus projects in his district would create jobs and requested money for those projects, while telling everyone else that the stimulus had not and would not create jobs. And then he lied about requesting the money.
But that is small ball. How did Rep. Ryan get the reputation for being a budget hawk in the first place? His solutions are not aimed at balancing the budget. They are aimed at drowning the federal government in the unpaid taxes of billionaires. Under Rep. Ryan’s original budget plan, Mitt Romney would legally pay almost no taxes at all. Meanwhile, everything the government does to help people, including keeping their promises to retirees who spent their lives paying into the system, gets butchered. And, even in theory, Ryan doesn’t balance the budget for decades.
At some point, the media has to stop playing this shameful game of saying someone has a reputation for something and pretending not to know why they have that reputation.
Your reporting was BAD!
That’s why people are misinformed.
Your reporting was bad.
(with all due respect – the apostrophe police)
I saw that too. Fixed.
By squawking about the budget from the moment Obama was inaugurated, of course.
There’s that, but there’s also the same way Newt Gingrich got the reputation for being an “ideas guy” – pure media horseshit.
Remember that Gingrich is a dumb person’s idea of what a smart person is. Then think of media people. It all fits.
I’m surprised this story hasn’t gotten more play from the blogosphere over the last few weeks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/business/striking-caterpillar-workers-ratify-contract-offer.html?_
r=1&hp
I guess maybe it harshes on the new Era of Good Feelings that this looming election win in November is supposed to be about?
After the first big Cat strike, Caterpillar built all new plants overseas. By the time the second major strike occurred, Cat locked out the US workers and their profit margins actually went up. Now, the union members know who has the whip hand. Cat can close them all down and make even bigger profits. They only keep the US plants so they can pretend to be a US company.
Facts are not opinions. Pundits would like us to believe facts are opinions simply because they perceive themselves as opinion masters and so would own every discussion.
The world does not turn on opinions. They may grease a wheel or two from time to time but reality is the only engine. And no opinion troll can change that.
In the immortal words of Han Solo, “Well that’s kind of the thing, isn’t it.” In fact, you kind of can, for awhile. But that’s all one needs, if they act in the space created by peoples’ misapprehension of facts. By shaping the context in which people act, it is possible to affect “objective” space of social reality.
Seen this way, propaganda is a kind of magic. All advertising and marketing has this aspect.
But the truth does not leave us alone. And like a vaudville side stage, the word of how it was done quickly moves through the crowd. But they’re paid by the princes and barons, or whatever we have now, and they get good sound and lighting.
The media is too lazy to look things up. They are usually behind the curve and then have to run to catch up. They are paid too much.
Kind of off topic, but Ryan has brought out the heavy artillery… yes he;s brought out his mommy to teach us all a lesson.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/paul-ryan-set-to-appear-with-mom-at-worlds-largest-reti
rement-community-defend-medicare-plan/
Can you imagine the headlines if Obama or Biden “ran to mommy becaseu people are saying mean things about him.
Also in a speech in his own district he blamed Obama for the closure of a local GM plant… that had closed when Bush was in office. Definitely a guy that’s on the pulse of local events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_CYS35IHeE
Mommy’s a snowbird. Do Floridians dislike snowbirds, or do they just tolerate them?