The Roundup: On Ryan Edition

 
How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.¹
 Paul Ryan, the man partly responsible for the GOP losses in 2006 and 2008, as well as the loss of popularity the GOP has also seen since the beginning of 2011, may be one of the most relevant figures in the GOP today. He is the man who has led the push for conservatives to switch from Friedman to Hayek. And if you are fimiliar with his history, you may begin to doubt the permanency of his recent decision to not try and dismantle traditional medicare.

David Frum: Why Ryan?

"This election—which Romney once intended to make a referendum on Obama's record—will now become a referendum on Paul Ryan's bold budget ideas. Why would Romney make such a choice and take such a risk?"

David Frum: Only Ryan Could Sell Ryan’s Budget ‎

"Paul Ryan, as documented with hair-pulling frustration by Krugman, Chait and others, has successfully managed to play down the radicalism of his proposals in the eyes of the media. He comes across as a serious, pragmatic, decent, wonkish type rather than the Randian class warrior he is, which demonstrates serious political skill. Obviously I'd like to believe that this charade would be unsustainable under the glare of a total war campaign, but if he can pull the same trick on America that he's pulled on the Beltway, this could end up being very smart."

David Frum: What’s Right and Wrong in the Ryan Plan
David Frum's thoughts on the Ryan plan in this article mirror my own:

"Paul Ryan is wrong, wrong, wrong to imagine that a society can deal with rising social-insurance costs while entirely exempting Republican-voting age cohorts and without asking for anything from its richest people—in fact while simultaneously delivering those people a huge tax cut.

Medicare reform will mean large sacrifices for younger and poorer Americans, exactly the people who have lost most in this recession and the slow-growth years before the recession.

A president cannot ask that generation to bear all the remaining burden of sacrifice alone. You can't lead the battle for deficit reduction from the rear. Yet that is exactly the proposition embedded in the Ryan plan. That's bad politics—and worse governance."

Michael Tomasky on Romney’s Stunning, Terrible Choice of Ryan for VP

"If the Democrats handle this situation properly, that's where this ticket will end up too, and then the rest of us—the people who don't want federal policy to be based on Atlas Shrugged—can finally and fully press the case to the right that America is not behind you, and please grow up."

Romney seeks distance from Ryan's budget plans
Don't be surprised if the Ryan pick doesn't quickly materialize in a downward spiral for Romney in the polls. People just don't know much about Ryan. But by the time this campaign is over, they will and it's not gunna look good.

"A recent CNN/ORC international poll showed a majority of voters had no opinion of the congressman. Nearly 40 percent had never heard of him and 16 percent weren't sure what they thought of him."

Paul Ryan plan unpopular, polls show
Granted this is based on Ryan's 2011 plan, not his 2012 plan. But then again, does anyone really believe this Ayn-Rand-loving right winger really plans on preserving traditional medicare as an option if he were to get elected?


Paul Krugman: The Ryan Role¹

"What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about. And apparently the trick still works."

FiveThirtyEight: A Risky Rationale Behind Romney’s Choice of Ryan¹

"Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900. He is also more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center."

...

"Mr. Ryan’s controversial budget, which polls poorly, will obviously get much more attention than it had previously. The fate of the presidential race and the fate of Congressional races may become more closely tied together. Mr. Obama will no longer have to stretch to evoke the specter of Congress and its 15 percent approval rating. With Mr. Ryan on the opposing ticket, he will be running against a flesh-and-blood embodiment of it.

Taking risks like these is not what you do if you think you have a winning hand already. But Mr. Romney, the turnaround artist, decided that he needed to turn around his own campaign." (emphasis mine)

Barack Obama's 'Life of Julia' says Mitt Romney would replace Medicare with ‘nothing but a voucher’¹

But the bipartisan plan Romney supports includes traditional Medicare among seniors’ options for purchase on a Medicare exchange. It also requires other plans to offer benefits of at least the same value. Finally, it includes a more generous cap on spending growth than the original Ryan plan. If all plans rose in cost, hitting a proposed spending cap, the bipartisan plan says the government would turn to providers and other sources of savings. (emphasis mine)

Mitt Romney's Astoundingly Cynical Medicare Strategy¹

"Yes, the Affordable Care Act includes substantial cuts to Medicare. But Ryan's own budget, which nearly every House Republican voted to pass and which Romney has said he would sign as president, leaves those cuts in place and uses them to finance other priorities. In other words, the Romney campaign is attacking a proposal that Romney and his allies endorse." (emphasis mine)

BTW, these "cuts" are just "an attempt to curtail future Medicare spending". Medicare spending will still increase, but slower than it would have.

Romney did Obama a huge favor¹

"This year, an incumbent even more embattled than George H.W. Bush has his own preferred election theme. He doesn't want to debate his own record, which is pretty dismal. He wants to debate the record of the congressional Republicans electe d in 2010, a bunch radically less popular even than the president himself.

You'd imagine that Romney's job was to refuse the Democratic invitation, to choose his own ground for the election, and to keep his distance from the congressional GOP. You'd imagine, but you'd be wrong.

Romney has instead chosen to bolt himself to the House Republicans."

David Frum also has a great description of why we are struggling so hard to get out of this recession. Spoiler: It's housing, stupid!

 Paul Ryan's V.P. Nomination Kills Off Moderate Republicanism For Good¹

"The only argument that the GOP establishment can muster against the Ryan budget is that if it were perchance to be implemented, and the American people suddenly realized what its cutbacks in government would mean for them personally, the b acklash against the Republicans would be so cataclysmic that the GOP’s 1964 election wipeout under Barry Goldwater would seem a mere hiccup. Such pragmatic calculations seem small-minded and contemptible to Tea Partiers, who have in effect adopted the 1960s left-wing radical slogan: “Dare to struggle, dare to win.”"

12 Things You Should Know About Paul Ryan

PolitiFact: Fact-checking Paul Ryan, vice presidential candidate²

"House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick, has been a regular on the Truth-O-Meter.

So have statements by others -- often criticism from Democrats -- about his budget plans and proposals to revamp Medicare and Social Security."

The AP provides a fairly comprehensive fact check of the many claims made by Romney and Ryan during Ryan's introduction as VP.²

Do Americans' concerns match up with Paul Ryan's?²
Gallup puts it well

"We now have a new high in those saying government's doing too much: 61 percent. And in general, government has a terrible image -- 10 percent job approval for Congress this week, that's the lowest tied for the lowest in history, a new number. So when you say government, people think 'bad,' negatively. However, when you get into a lot of the specifics, all of a sudden people pull back and say, 'Wait a minute, I don't want government to cut back on that or this,' and that's the dilemma that all these politicians face."

¹ Updated 8-13-12 
² Updated 8-15-12

Tea Party Debate Fact Fail

Politifact has rated a few of the comments on the CNN / Tea Party Express GOP debate from 9-12-11:

Mitt Romney led the attacks on the Republican frontrunner, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, by saying that Perry didn't support the retirement program. "In writing his book, Gov. Perry pointed out that … by any measure Social Security has been a failure," Romney said. We checked Perry's book and found Romney was right. We rated the claim True.

Romney found much of his ammunition from Fed Up!, the book Perry published last year. Romney said that Perry said in the book that Social Security "is unconstitutional." We found that while Perry never exactly used those words, he came pretty close. We rated Romney's claim Mostly True.

Perry, asked about his comment likening Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, replied, "It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people before me."

But when we asked experts about the structure of a Ponzi scheme and the funding of Social Security, the analogy does not hold up. So we rated Perry's claim False.

... 

When the conversation turned to jobs, Perry repeated a claim of many critics that the economic stimulus has created "zero jobs." We rated that Pants on Fire. The stimulus may not have created enough jobs to offset other losses, but most economists say it did add some jobs. (We even interviewed a man who attributed his new job to the stimulus.)
...

Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann took aim at the health care law passed last year, claiming it took $500 billion out of Medicare. Bachmann said that President Barack Obama "stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it to Obamacare." She has a point that cost-savings from Medicare were used to offset the cost of the rest of the law, but she misleads when she says the money was stolen. We rated her statement Mostly False.

Notice the return of a few doozies from their success in 2010:
They are still trying to pin Obama as a man who wants to rob Medicare of its funding. Of course nobody doubts this is a winning strategy. No truth needed.
Update 9-14-11: The Washington Post Fact Cheker pointed out something else about this claim:

In fact, in the House Republican budget this year, lawmakers repealed the Obama health-care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers. (emphasis mine)

Republicans have decided to skip any conversation about the details of the stimulus and its effects on the economy. Instead they just repeat the demonstrably false claim that it didn't create a single job. Republicans have gone beyond the point of just calling it a failure. Now they feel they must continue to lie. Only problem, these lies are gunna take the market down with them.
Update 9-14-11: In the Fact Checker article mentioned above, Glen Kessler noted "A recent review of nine different studies on the stimulus bill found that six studies concluded the stimulus had “a significant, positive effect on employment and growth,” and three said the effect was “either quite small or impossible to detect.” "(emphasis mine)

One great point of the night was that Mitt Romney seemed to be constructing Obama's campaign for him. When you attack a program loved by 75% of the population, you may just as well plan on keeping your job in Texas.


Update 9-14-11: Fackcheck also checked the debate:

• "Bachmann said an executive order signed by Perry would have "forced" young girls to take a "potentially dangerous drug." But federal government regulators declared the drug a "safe and effective vaccine" to prevent a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. Also, the order allowed parents to opt-out.
• Romney falsely accused Perry of misquoting him on Social Security. Perry correctly characterized a section of Romney's book in which Romney compared the federal government's management of Social Security to a banker who steals from his client's trust fund.
• Huntsman falsely claimed that Romney's book labeled Social Security "a fraud." Romney wrote that Americans have been "defrauded" because of the way the program has been managed, but he did not call it a "fraud."
• Santorum claimed Pennsylvania voters in 1994 rewarded his "courage to tell them the truth" about Social Security. But, as Santorum himself acknowledged at the time, he nearly lost that election after his opponent unearthed a video tape of the Republican discussing the need to raise the eligibility age for Social Security.
• Cain claimed county government retirees in Galveston, Texas, make "at least 50 percent more than they would ever get out of Social Security" because the county opted out of Social Security. But that's only for initial benefits, and those retirees do not get annual cost-of-living adjustments. Also, not all retirees get such a high initial benefit. 
• Perry cherry-picked job creation numbers when he boasted of creating 1 million jobs as governor "while the current resident of the White House is overseeing the loss of 2.5 million jobs." Texas has increased jobs by 1 million during Perry's tenure, but only 95,600 have come since Obama has been president."

Update 9-14-11: The GOP is becoming the party of the anti-corporate anti-vaxers.

Republican Delusions In Front of Holy Reagan

Political debates tend to be great forums for spreading misinformation. Of course, the September 7th, 2011 Republican debate at the Reagan Library was no exception. Three major fact checking sources have already taken aim at a few of the claims given during the Republican debates:

• Fact Checker: "Fact checking the GOP debate at the Reagan library"
• Politifact: "Fact-checking the Reagan Library debate"
• FactCheck: "FactChecking the Reagan Debate"

In addition to these, I thought I would share a bit more, as well as highlight a few major points.

Perry blew it

As conservative blogger David Frum put it "The revelation from the Republican presidential debate: Rick Perry and his team utterly failed to prepare answers to utterly predictable questions":

1. "Perry’s Social Security answer delivered President Obama the perfect clip for a 2012 negative ad"
2. “military adventurism”
3. Perry's performance was "Nervous, irritable, stuttering, floundering"
4. Perry failed to explain away the lousy statistic about health insurance coverage in his state.
5. "How could a Texas governor be unready to talk about immigration?"

Utterly unimpressive.... I can only hope it hurts is image solely with non-Republicans.
Of course the most memorable part of the night was when Rick Perry referred to Social Security as a "Ponzi Scheme". For a moment, let us set aside the fact that this may not sit well with the 75% of Americans who support Social Security. Politifact has already tackled this claim quite often in the past and found it to be incredibly misleading at best. This comment also motivated Glenn Kessler to write "A primer on Social Security"


Bachmann misses the market crash

Michelle Bachmann made an interesting comment during the debate:

Don't forget the day that President Obama took office, gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. It's entirely possible for us to get back to inexpensive energy.

Politifact rated the statement True. Of course they also pointed out how little the president can do about gas prices:

"Other than lip service, there is little any president or member of Congress can do about the price of gas, since 70 percent of the cost of a gallon is determined by the cost of crude oil," said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for the mid-Atlantic region of the American Automobile Association... (emphasis mine)

So, although the statement is technically true, the context in which it was given (that it was Obama's fault and she can fix the problem), is almost entirely false.
However, what seemed to be left out of the analysis is that the reason gasoline prices were at $1.79 when Obama took office is almost entirely due to the fact that much of the world was falling into a deep recession, significantly lowering the demand for gasoline. There is little evidence that increased drilling would have nearly the effect on gasoline prices that Bachmann predicts. The only realistic way to get gasoline prices THAT low during a Bachmann presidency would be another massive recession (which may not be all that unlikely during a Republican presidency). Does Bachmann want that?

Perry gets it spectacularly wrong on Galileo

During the debate, Rick Perry made an interesting remark about climate change and Galileo:

“The idea that we would put Americans’ economy in jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just — is nonsense. I mean, it — I mean, and I told somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said, here is the fact — Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”

Henry Fountain of the New York Times dove right onto this statement (with some help from historian Thomas Mayer):

Galileo, whose astronomical observations confirmed the Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun, was basing his assertions on empirical knowledge and faced opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which supported the Ptolemaic view of an Earth-centered universe.

Mr. Perry, by contrast, has said repeatedly that he does not believe the empirical evidence compiled by scientists in support of climate change, but that he does adhere to faith-based principles.(emphasis mine)

In other words, Perry got it spectacularly wrong. Galileo was not a "maverick" among scientists. Scientists often agreed with him. His real opposition was from the Church. And that was mostly due to disobedience, as well as his attempt to fit the Copernican model of the solar system to the bible.

Update 9-12-11: Chris Mooney brings up a few more points on the Perry/Galileo comment.

Job Spin

No political debate would be complete without a few politicians either taking credit or dishing out blame for job creation (or the lack thereof). Romney, Perry, and Huntsman each had a little share in this sort of fun. Of course, this tends to be an issue mostly with candidates who have previously held (or currently hold) executive positions (presidents/governors/mayors). In this case, all three of these candidates have had experience with such a position. FactCheck took on a few of these claims:

• Romney tried to take credit for reversing the job situation in his state when he assumed office. However, he left out the part where Massachusetts also ranked 47th in the nation in job growth.
• Perry once again attempted to spin his "success" with job creation as governor of Texas. However, he left out quite a few other statistics, ones that would not look so favorable. For instance, while actually being nothing special in regards to unemployment (27th in the nation at 8.4% in July 2011), Texas also has the highest percentage of hourly workers paid at or below minimum wage as well as the highest proportion of medically uninsured people in the nation.
• Huntsman used BLS survey data to support his claim that Utah was #1 in the nation in job growth from Jan 2005 to Aug 2009. However, using payroll data (a preference for most economists), Utah only ranked 4th (notably behind Texas).

Update 9-12-11: The Fact Checker takes a look at the claims of Perry, Romney, and Huntsman about eachother's jobs records.

Recently Republicans have had little trouble divorcing themselves from reality. These Republican debates provide no divergence from this trend.