One of the biggest ironies of this election cycle has been the painting of Obama as some radical socialist who is hellbent on turning the United States into some failed European socialist state. In reality the real revolutionaries are the Republicans. The GOP are the ones hellbent on changing the status quo to create a utopia for unrestrained capitalism eradicating every advance in meeting the needs of society since both Teddy, (a Republican), and Franklin, (a Democrat), Rooseveldt. The GOP approach has now been institutionalized by the appointment of Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate. (Up till now Romney has been ducking and diving as much as he could to try and appear to be in the "middle".) Paul Ryan is a Tea Party hero notwithstanding Sarah Palin's personal antipathy towards him.
RADICAL CHANGE FRONT AND CENTER
The Ryan plan, which is now front and center of the GOP platform, plans to change a century of legislation and is social engineering akin to Marx and all the others who have presumed to have all the economic answers. It assumes that trickle down economics is inherently infallible as is unbridled capitalism with no regulations and this approach will solve America's problems. Lower taxes for the rich will de facto create jobs. "Small government" is the mantra and society will help "deserving" poor and the lazy bums who won't get a job can starve to death. Slashed are all the welfare programs whether they be health or unemployment or spending on entitlements. (Ryan's Medicare proposals were labelled by no lesser personage then Newt Gingrich, as right wing social engineering).
One must realize that there are several Ryan plans including social issues on all most anything and everything. Ryan is first and foremost a policy wonk and everything is thought through and presented for all the world to see. He has drafted policies and Bills on a vast number of issues - most of which have not become law.
THE NEW FUTURE WITH RYAN
The upshot of the Ryan plan(s) and by far the biggest gift to the Obama and Democratic campaign is the election debate is now about the future of America and not Obama's economic past -The Republican viewpoint is now emanating from a livelong Congressman, a Washington insider, where the approval rate for that group is 10%. (Also to add to Romney's woes is the fact that a 7 term Congressman is bound to have, in the hurly burly of politics, have made several policy faux pas). The Democrats have been running against Ryan in abstentia and now they have got the real thing.
JAY H ELL'S prediction is that the decision to elect Ryan to the ticket is not only going to profoundly impact the Presidential debate but is going to effect Senate and Congress elections as well.
Ryan by the force of his personality and intellect has, understandably, created great excitement among the GOP faithful. Besides the usual "suspects", respectable Larry Kudlow of CNBC believes he is the savior. Kudlow argues that every State leaning towards Obama is in Romney's column as a result of Romney's pick. Larry forgets he sang exactly the same song when McCain picked Palin. He called her "Sarah America".
Ryan will inject even more money into the Romney campaign. He has already met with the Vegas tycoon, Sheldon Adelstein who has rumored to have offered to put a $100 million into the Republican effort. He will not talk about specifics but rather generalities and will ignite the landscape for the immediate future. In fact the Republican Congress is guaranteed to be a"lovefest" with the victorious right trumpeting their triumph.
THE NEW RADICAL GOP PHILOSOPHY
Just for the record the overall philosophy of the GOP ticket now is officially"Very Small Government".
Taxation:
Ryan is not subtle in his approach. He literally believes that those that obtain money from business, dividends and capitol gains should pay virtually no taxes. This group includes those are doing absolutely nothing but just collecting dividends for example. They are not being productive or creating jobs they are just hanging around. So for example Romney would pay less than 1% in taxes!
Just for the record Paul Ryan is a very wealthy individual, by anyone's standards, (not Romney's of course), and his main income comes from his family business. A family business that has made most of it's money from "big government" construction contracts. The dividend checks he gets each month are not creating any jobs or building roads by the way. The only people he employs in his daily work are paid for by other peoples taxes.
Women's Rights:
This is a hot button issue that has barely been touched. Ryan has drafted bills that would say that life starts as a one cell zygote. He is against against all forms of contraception. He is against Planned Parenthood which not only provides contraception and abortions but mammograms and other women preventative health programs. He is also on record as saying as that if a woman comes into a hospital and will die without an abortion she should not have that abortion. Needless to say rape and incest are not grounds for abortion or the morning after pill either. So Ryan's very small government will find money to monitor bedrooms, doctors' offices and hospital operating rooms.
Wellfare:
This will be one quarter of what it is today. Ryan believes that Welfare encourages sloth and prevents people from getting out and going to work. Lumped in all of this are disability pensions, foodstamps, unemployment payments and the like.
Medicaid and Medicare.
These two are to be denuded. Medicare for the elderly is to be cut by 716 billion dollars. Patients will be given vouchers that total up to less than 716 billion of current costs. Obviously this money has to be made up by the patients. Medicaid for the poor is to be even more hit by a 800 billion dollars reduction in payments for health care.
Hypocrisy - the way of all politics.
All this has not stopped Ryan, where it has been politically expedient, to vote and act against his own principles. He voted for Bush's open ended check to the Pharmaceutical companies for medicines for Medicare. Likewise he supported the fact that Pharmaceutical companies would not be asked for bids for drugs allowing them to charge the government what they liked. He voted for the TARP bailouts initiated by Bush and for the auto bailout by Obama. Cynics maintain that the former was the partyline and the latter because he is in the Midwest where the car industry provides jobs. He gave Romney several years of tax returns but will release only two years. He supports tax breaks for the oil companies but wants them removed from wind energy. Perhaps his most embarrassing gaffe is his very public opposition to the Obama stimulus money and the garnering of $10's of millions of that stimulus money for his constituency.
So he is far from being a purist other than where it suits him. He does however provide a stark choice of economic systems that elections are supposed to be about.
FUTURE
The fight for the heart and soul of the Republican party is now on in earnest and the "Tea Party" is winning. How the Republicans fare in this election will dictate to a large extent the immediate outcome. If the choices are clear cut and Ryan's radicalism is rejected then the painstaking process of rebuilding of the GOP will fall upon the Jedd Bushes of this world. Whatever happens this radicalism cannot survive forever as the changing demographics of the country will not allow it.
There is of course the possibility that Ryan will triumph in the election and then the fight will be on for America.
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