Most of the political pundits seem to think that the pick of Paul Ryan is an attempt by Romney to shore up his right flank, and there is validity to that. He’s pretty solidly conservative on most issues, whether the question is fiscal, military or social.
Ryan, like most Republicans in the House, got a failing grade from the Secular Coalition for America. And he has an almost perfect record of being anti-gay in every possible respect. He voted twice for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have banned same-sex marriage on a national level. He voted for a bill that would have prohibited gay people from adopting children in Washington, DC. And he voted against allowing LGBT soldiers to serve openly in the military.
The one vote in the other direction is that he did once vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but he’s also contradicted that stance many times. In 1994 he apparently even promised that he would sponsor ENDA if he were elected to the Senate, but in the last few years he has said that the law would open up a floodgate of lawsuits and said that he didn’t think the law was needed.
On questions of spending, he is viewed as perhaps the leading fiscal conservative in Congress. But even there, his record is hardly perfect. He seems to suddenly discover “fiscal responsibility” when a Democrat is in the White House. When Bush was in office, he voted for the Medicare Part D proposal, with hundreds of billions in unfunded mandates that increased the debt, and he also voted in favor of TARP, which is the law that sparked the entire Tea Party movement.
Bottom line: there’s a lot for the right to like, even with some diversions from orthodoxy. But there’s a lot for those of us who want a secular country that fosters equality to hate.
48 comments
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Modusoperandi
August 13, 2012 at 12:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bullpucky! They were so angered by TARP that they did nothing, nothing at all until Obama took office. TARP didn’t spark the Teabaggers, losing the election did.
And moving the goalposts to merely “DC chooses Wall Street over Main Street” still doesn’t even work, as it was Obama’s promotion of HAMP, which was supposed to help Main Street, that they first really got puffed up over.
So, to sum, they’re against propping up Wall Street (but not at the time) and they’re for helping Main Street (until someone tries to). Alternately phrased: Republican good, Democrat bad.
Lou Jost
August 13, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anybody know his attitude towards evolution? Is he an evolution-denier?
garnetstar
August 13, 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s a fierce fighter in the war on women.
beezlebubby
August 13, 2012 at 1:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I am fairly certain this is a bone being thrown to the teabaggers to dissuade them from staging a coup at the Convention and replacing Romney as the nominee with some non-Romney.
slc1
August 13, 2012 at 1:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Lou Jost @ #2
I don’t know what his position is on evolution but he is a two fisted global warming denier who has accused scientists to support the theory of being part of a conspiracy to abolish the capitalist system.
plutosdad
August 13, 2012 at 1:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not to mention he seems to really dislike poor people, seeking to cut back SNAP, TANF, WIC, and just about anything he can, especially since times are so tough right now, it’s a perfect opportunity to hurt the poor, just like Jesus taught us.
jamessweet
August 13, 2012 at 1:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, I think there is some confusion here between the Original Teabaggers (call it OT) and the present Teabagging Movement (call it TM). The OT’s were generally made up of honest-to-goodness libertarians/extreme-fiscal-conservatives, were generally neutral on a social issues, and had a relatively coherent philosophy (albeit a dangerously wrong-headed one). The TM is a bunch of idiot racist misogynist homophobic culture warriors.
Ed seems to be talking about the OT’s, you seem to be talking about the TM. I think…
mommiest
August 13, 2012 at 1:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The right will love him. One of Mitt’s problems is that he doesn’t come across as sincere; Paul Ryan does. He looks like a true believer. He can speak in complete sentences. The right will eat this up.
That doesn’t mean the left doesn’t have an opening. There is lots of room to draw a distinction between the tickets. But Mitt just drew the Republican base into his camp. It was a smart political move.
reverendrodney
August 13, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
One good thing: this assures Romney being nominated. My fear was that Jeb Bush would take the ball due to mayhem at the convention or Romney saying so many utterly stupid things that NO part of the GOP would want him. Usurping a ticket would prove more chaotic than throwing Romney alone under the bus. After the clown circus of Bachmann, Gingrich and Cain, etc. the GOP now wants to appear unified and stable.
naturalcynic
August 13, 2012 at 1:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Daniel Kolle
August 13, 2012 at 1:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For what it is worth, my father, who is a raging teabagger and who loved Sarah Palin, has yet to say anything about Paul Ryan. I have also noticed the talk radio vomit jockeys have yet to say much about him as well.
Regardless, it is safe to say that much of the conservative base will not want to fuck the VP pick this time around.
naturalcynic
August 13, 2012 at 1:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
blockquote fail. my comment:
Which the Conference of Catholic Bishops called him out and chastised him. Give them a +3, bringing their current score to -65.
Modusoperandi
August 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jamessweet “Ed seems to be talking about the OT’s, you seem to be talking about the TM. I think…”
The Paulist Tea Partiers pre-existed TARP, and protested the nefarious Big Government even when a Republican was in charge. TARP didn’t cause their rise (and, even it if had, at most it would’ve meant the Expanded Paulist Tea Partiers, or EPTP, would have to take two cars to the protest instead of just one*).
* Zing!
leftwingfox
August 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I admit, Ryan is the one republican who worries me.
His policies are just as radical as all the other Republican, but the press takes him more seriously than the others. Maybe it’s because he buries his lies in policy that the average reporter doesn’t bother to understand. The narrative places him as a serious policy guy, and I’m concerned that might help give him the edge with the mushy middle.
I doubt he can save Romney, but I wonder what the prospects of a President Ryan would be in 2016.
lordshipmayhem
August 13, 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ryan is no fiscal conservative. He wouldn’t know a fiscal conservative if one landed in his lunch.
He’s consistently voted to reduce government revenues while the country runs a deficit. His ideology refuses to acknowledge that there are things that a government has to pay for – instead, preferring to reduce taxes on the wealthiest to as close to zero as possible and to hell with the consequences. He’d rather the country go bankrupt than ensure that the revenue stream matches the expenditure stream.
He’s an old fashioned robber baron, in a position of political power.
Jordan Genso
August 13, 2012 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think if Romney/Ryan lose this year, it will mean that Ryan’s policies were exposed as the horrible ideas they are. His involvement will bring more attention to what the Republicans are actually proposing, rather than just what they are opposing, and their proposals are so unpopular that it’s going to turn off the general voters that don’t currently know who Paul Ryan is.
I think Ryan will now be worse off in 2016 than if he wasn’t in the national spotlight this campaign season and instead rose to the front-and-center in 2016 for the first time. He was already a rising star, so the VP slot doesn’t bring him from complete obscurity the way it did Palin, but insteads forces him in front of the public eye too quickly. He needs the four years of prep to find ways to change his policies into something more appealing to the “swing voters”, but now it’s too late for him to do that. With him as VP this time around, he’ll be remembered in 2016 as the one whose ideas were so radical that they lost Romney the state of Florida.
eric
August 13, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree it was fairly smart in that Ryan will not make the catastrophic PR blunders that Palin made.
But beyond just being able to handle himself behind a microphone, I don’t see much Romney benefit in this. Of course, I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of the far right would’ve griped all the way to the voting booth…then pulled the Romney lever anyway. So I don’t think he really needed much shoring up on the far right side of the spectrum. A lot of people will disagree with that, but that’s the way I see it.
IMO the key to this race is the same as it was in the last race. And the race before. And probably the race before that: the middle. And Ryan as VP doesn’t do much for Mitt in that department. Were I the Romney campaign, I’d make Ryan avoid talking policy altogether. After all, the far right knows what he’s about – they don’t need a reminder – and the undecideds don’t need reminding. I’d have him try and best Biden in a VP debate just using rhetorical skills (which Biden is notoriously lacking), and let Romney do all the policy talk.
tomh
August 13, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ 14
Nate Silever has a column today on just that subject, “What Are Paul Ryan’s Chances of Becoming President?”
KG
August 13, 2012 at 2:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not sure why you think that would have been either possible (surely a majority of the delegates are mandated to vote for Romney?), or a bad thing if it were possible (such a move would make the entire party the laughing stock it would be in a remotely rational country).
Dennis N
August 13, 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
However, Republicans will interpret it as Romney not being conservative enough, and will run a Ryan/Santorum ticket next year. Doubling-down is their go to play, because conservatism never fails, you only fail conservatism.
Michael Heath
August 13, 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dennis N writes:
Great point wonderfully put.
I was naive enough to believe the recession of 2007 coupled to Bush’s atrocious record on jobs during his entire tenure coupled to an explosion of the deficit due solely to his policies; all amplified by the 2008 financial recession . . . All that would be a sufficient wake-up that reform was necessary. Instead we saw the rise of the Tea Party along with 2008 GOP Convention delegates unanimously and enthusiastically approve of Sen. McCain’s VP pick, Sarah Palin. So I instead started reading the research on how nuts conservatives are becoming and why.
Area Man
August 13, 2012 at 3:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hardly perfect? Ryan is not a fiscal conservative at all unless fiscal conservatism means “whatever Republicans do”.
Fiscal conservatism is supposed to mean that you pay for the government you want. Let’s see, Ryan supported both Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare Part D, Social Security privatization (which would have required massive borrowing in the near-term), and the bailouts. All without any plan to pay for them. And his budget plan doesn’t end deficit spending until 2040 or thereabouts, and that’s taking his wildly unrealistic assumptions at face value. It adds $6 trillion in extra debt over the next decade alone.
Ryan, like the rest of the Republican party, does not give a flying fuck about being fiscally conservative. In fact, the Republicans may well be the only party in the history of democratic governance that has set out to deliberately ruin their own country’s finances. They’ve decided that the only way to eliminate government programs that benefit people who are not them is to make the federal government insolvent. They’re like arsonists in charge of a firework stand.
brocasbrian
August 13, 2012 at 4:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not as bad as Palin but this guy will scare centrists left I think.
Doug Little
August 13, 2012 at 4:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Area Man @22,
Yeah, and I would add that a fiscal conservative would seriously look at how much money the government is spending on big ticket items and try and reduce this. For example world wide average of military spending as a percentage of GDP is 2.5%. The US is at 4.7% as a percentage of GDP. Just dropping this by 1% of GDP would save the government 150 billion dollars a year.
davidml
August 13, 2012 at 6:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@20
or maybe we’ll see a Paul Ryan/Steve King ticket in 2016. The way things are going, by then Ryan will be seen as too moderate by his base and will need to pick someone even crazier than Santorum to keep them in line.
Mostly joking, but the way the Republicans have been going, who knows?
alwayscurious
August 13, 2012 at 7:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree with you eric. I think Mitt Romney’s pick of VP wallpapers over internal problems unnecessarily. Romney desperately needs to attract conservative Democrats, undecided voters, and independents. Picking Ryan ensures that some unhappy fraction of the party, which would have voted for Romney anyways, will be more enthusiastic in November. Shoring up the base makes everyone in the party feel better, but it’s about as helpful as a healthy appendix.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
August 13, 2012 at 8:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You should probably stop that.
laurentweppe
August 13, 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“fiscal conservatism” means “do everything you can to allow the hereditary de facto aristocracy to preserve their lavish and costly lifestyle without having to work for it”.
Trebuchet
August 13, 2012 at 10:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Beezlebubby:
Not the teabaggers, but the Ron Paulites, who wouldn’t be able to stage a coup but could make things look bad on national TV. Since Ryan and Ron both worship at the altar of St. Ayn (less the atheist part), they’ll be quiet now.
Donovan
August 14, 2012 at 1:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think Romney picked Ryan as a way to take heat off himself. Romney was trying to evade far too many practical concerns about his honesty and ability to lead. Ryan will be distraction with his pretend conservatism. The left’s attack on Ryan will seem exaggerated and help make Romney seem like a more mainstream kinda guy.
Basically, I think Romney chose to hide his skeletons by opening the closet and showing it crammed full of bones of every sort, challenging us to make clear which bones are indicative of serious issues.
StevoR
August 14, 2012 at 3:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Jim Wright writes this :
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/08/the-unsinkable-mitt-romney.html
on Mittens Ryan pick which sounds pretty durn spot on to me.
=8)-DX
August 14, 2012 at 7:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wouldn’t be so sure – among the most vocal are often those friendly neighbourhood raving closet-cases. And quite a few conservatives are probably salivating overy Ryan this very minute..
democommie
August 14, 2012 at 8:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I love this:
“I am a conservative businessman,” Romney will say in Texas today, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News. “I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”
From here (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/mitt-romney-vs-rick-perry-in-texas-career-politicians-got-us-into-this-mess/).
So, he was agin’ Paulie Wingnuts before he was for him!
democommie
August 14, 2012 at 9:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I, for one, am hoping that both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney (the “R&R” ticket, no not “Rest and Recreation” but “Robbery and Rape”) will see fit to contribute their entire salary (and make that move retroactive for their respective tenures in gummint paid positions. I mean, they’re both guys that could turn a profit selling steers’ buttholes to pepperoni producers*, so whyn’t they save the gummint the cost of their own salaries? AND reduce their staffs to, um. ZERO!
* Think about THAT the next time you order from Domino’s or Papa Gino’s.
shockna
August 14, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I somehow doubt that. He worships the right people, but I don’t think they’ll like his support for the wars and spending when his party was in power. Paulites are all about ideological purity, and just about nobody who isn’t specfically Ron Paul approved fails the purity test.
celticlight
August 17, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The right loves Ryan.
Note – the Tea Party was not sparked by TARP, it was sparked by the trillion dollar “stimulus” package. You remember – the one with all the “shovel ready” jobs. You know the one that was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%.
Michael Heath
August 17, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
celticlight writes:
Do you know why this misleading? If not, I suggest doing some research on why it is.
celticlight
August 17, 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have done my research. I am looking at a graph from the Obama administration from Feb 2009, that projects that with the stimulus the unemployment rate would not go over 8% and that by July 2012 it would be down to 5.6%. The only misleading thing here is the rosy projections used to pass the stimulus. And as admitted by the President himself – there were few if any shovel ready jobs “haha”. The “HaHa” is Obama now laughing at the idea that at the time he thought there was such a thing as shovel ready jobs. Very funny indeed.
Michael Heath
August 18, 2012 at 8:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
celticlight:
I responded:
celticlight responds:
I’m supremely confident you have not, otherwise you’d know why the original assertion you make in this thread is misleading.
celticlight responds:
Please provide a link to your graph. And even if this graph exists, it no way challenges why your original assertion is misleading, it only confirms your rebuttal using such validates you have no idea why your assertion is misleading.
celticlight responds:
Uh no. Another explanation exists which is what makes your original assertion misleading. The size of the stimulus predicted a certain change in employment numbers. A 2/11/2009 letter [1] from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf to Sen. Judd Gregg, the then-ranking member on the Committee on the Budget, predicted an increase of 1.2 million to 3.6 million jobs by the end of calendar 2010.
That marginal improvement came true as the CBO measured 1.4 million to 3.3 million increased jobs by August of 2010 where Zandi and Blinder’s research [PDF] confirmed an increase of about 2.7 million jobs as they reported in July-2010.
So here’s why your original claim was misleading, where your latest comment has you digging your hole even deeper: The reality is that the unemployment rates used in very-early 2009 for Q4’08 and Q1’09 as a basis to how a stimulus would impact future rates were not correct. Unemployment rates in those two quarters was significantly worse and revised after the predictions you’re referencing were made. That’s why your original assertion is misleading as I originally pointed out. Employment figures for those quarters which the White House and Congress were using to develop a stimulus package, and the CBO to score those proposals were significantly understated though the fault of neither since they don’t report employment figures. So the marginal change due in job numbers due to the stimulus came in as predicted, but the rates were wrong because their basis (starting point) was wrong, not because the stimulus failed.
However the stimulus wasn’t nearly large enough for three reasons:
1) Appallingly bad conservative policies passed at the state levels over the past couple of decades demanded states execute contractionary “austerity” measures when state revenues dropped. State revenues drop in a recession due to a drop in aggregate demand which decreases income and therefore decreases state tax liabilities of a state’s taxpayers. We also know that prudent fiscal policy requires governments to increase spending on components which are stimulative in a recession in order to defend GDP, that contraction is the worst possible fiscal policy measure in this type of recession (stagflation may require different prescriptions).
So federal stimulus measures weren’t able to immediately attack aggregate demand at the federal level, but instead had to buttress state-level GDP because of piss-poor policies enacted by conservatives. That’s why the stimulus’ first injection of spending went directly to states to protect state-level employee’s jobs, e.g., teachers, transportation workers, state cops, etc.
2) A paper-napkin approach, and subsequent more arduous analyses showed the federal stimulus needed to be about $1.3 trillion rather than the $787 billion package (later revised to $831 billion) that was presented and passed. The simple fact was that the White House knew what it would take and knew they’d never get a sufficient number of members of Congress to go along with the proper dosage. Instead they presented a plan they though they could pass.
3) In addition the individual stimulus components were not an optimal package. For example, economists knew in advance the temporary tax cut component was not all that stimulative, coming in just under 1.00. And yet 37% of the stimulus were these tax cuts rather than spending which had a higher stimulus factor. Post-stimulus, the tax relief factor was measured at .97 IIRC whereas food stamps and unemployment insurance have factors greater than 1.5 but less than 2.0 (I forget the exact factor). Temporary tax relief, as we learned from the failed Carter- and then Bush-2007/2008 attempts essentially fail relative to other options because the non-poor will tend to increase their savings rate rather than spend this marginal increase in their take-home pay. That’s because some prudently realize it’s temporary. Individuals acting rationally in a recession drives down GDP, which is why expansionary fiscal policy prescriptions are required.
celticlight:
This venue is not kind to people who pull stuff out of their asses and present it as true as you’ve done here. The fact is that the stimulus was operationally executed so well the Republicans haven’t even attempted to attack its execution. They have nibbled around the edges, but there is no general criticism nor is any warranted, only kudos and a feather in VP Biden’s cap since he managed the operational aspect of this project.
1] Ed has a two link maximum in a comment post if you want to avoid moderation. I’ve provided enough information regarding this letter so you can easily google it. Here’s the CBO prediction in context:
slc1
August 18, 2012 at 9:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath @ #39
One of the reasons why the stimulus package was not more effective then it was is that the amount given over to tax cuts was too large a fraction of the total amount. Tax cuts, contrary to Rethuglican ideology, are less stimulative then the same money being used in infrastructure projects.
As for the overall size of the package, Heath is entirely correct that it was too small. None other then Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan Administration and hardly a left wing pinko commie said at the time that it wasn’t large enough and that a second stimulus package would thus be needed. Of course, the Rethuglicans via filibusters in the Senate prevented any second package from being enacted under their rule or ruin strategy.
Michael Heath
August 18, 2012 at 11:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1 writes:
I can only assume you didn’t read my entire post given that was my factor #3 in regards to why this stimulus package wasn’t optimal. And you are wrong to assume tax cuts in general are less stimulative than infrastructure projects. Some tax cuts can be more stimulative than some infrastructure projects, but not temporary tax cuts to payroll withholding taxes which I point out in my #3.
celticlight
August 18, 2012 at 11:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael has provided a blizzard of information that may take awhile to wade through, but at least he does so in a respectful and serious manner. I will review and respond. Note – It is a fact that the President joked about there being far fewer “shovel ready” jobs then he originally thought. He did this in a public event when he was with his economic council. I don’t think it was funny. The original implication was there would be all these jobs produced quickly, as these projects were designed and ready to roll. It was very misleading to say the least. He should leave the comedy to late night talk show hosts.
Slc1 on the other hand uses terms like “rethuglican” which destroys any credibility with those serious about these issues, and deserves no further comment.
celticlight
August 18, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To Michael –
Here is a link to the Administration’s predictions, along with the actual unemployment numbers. You can also google “stimulus unemployment rate projections” or something similar for a multitude of references.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/08/obama-promised-unemployment-rate-at-5-6-after-stimulus-today-its-at-8-3-instead/
Even adjusting the numbers does not help the trajectory of the unemployment rate which is not positive for the President.
Note – I never said the stimulus was a failure. I said the stimulus is what was the final spark to launch the Tea Party. I also said the Administration’s projections were rosy, and that I did not like him laughing about “shovel ready” jobs.
Michael Heath
August 18, 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
celticlight,
Your linked graph still misleads readers on the core reason unemployment didn’t fall to the predicted range. It serves as an exemplary illustration on why I challenged your original assertion and is purposefully misleading. You keep doubling down on the very thing which is wrong, which is we can’t measure the results of the stimulus based on inaccurate rate reports.
I suggest wading through my cites’ summaries and then re-read my comments which are bolded, and then revisit your graph so you understand why your linked graph misinforms its readers rather than informs us.
The graph would have been informative if it considered the various options and then tracked results by the prediction and subsequent actual change in the number of jobs; rather than the unemployment rate given the unemployment rate was wrong in Q4’08-Q1’09. Again, that’s because the actual rate was higher than being reported at the time when the stimulus was being developed; that wrong rate was eventually adjusted, but only after these predictions were made. My cites and my previous point’s comments in bold explain why using rates is misleading and why using the change in job numbers is informative; the latter which allows us to grade the stimulus, the former which only misinforms the audience to the partisan benefit of conservatives. That’s exactly why I note above the prediction in the number of jobs gained and how that compares to what actually happened, because it’s accurate where we know the rate basis was inaccurate and therefore misleading.
celticlight
August 18, 2012 at 11:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“My cites and my previous point’s comments in bold explain why using rates is misleading …”
It was Team Obama that used the unemployment rate to sell the stimulus, not me. The average voter knows that the President did not deliver as promised. They are waiting to see if Team Romney has a better plan, before sending Team Obama packing back to Chicago.
Michael Heath
August 19, 2012 at 6:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So celticlight, your last post shows that even when someone engages with you in good faith, all you are is a partisan troll in no way interested in holding defensible positions. I won’t be responding to your posts anymore.
celticlight
August 19, 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael – I am evaluating your information in good faith. I am just pointing out the practical consequences of Team Obama using an unemployment rate projection to sell the stimulus to the American people. As you pointed out, it was probably not a good idea to do so.
celticlight
August 19, 2012 at 1:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael – I have carefully reread your message. I accept your information as provided, as I do not have the time to check it out for accuracy.
However, it does not address the original point I made. Note – I did not say the stimulus had no impact or was a total failure. The title of the thread is “Will the Right like Ryan Pick?” I answered the question – Yes the right loves Ryan. I also addressed an issue that was raised about the Tea Party being started in response to TARP. I said that the final spark for the Tea Party was the stimulus, “the one with all the “shovel ready” jobs. You know the one that was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%”.
I stand by my original statement. The Obama administration did use the unemployment rate promise to help sell this package. You have pointed out why that was a mistake – I agree.
They also did promise a lot of “shovel ready” jobs, which the President himself later admitted was a poor choice of words. I can provide a link to the President joking about “shovel ready jobs” with his Economic Advisers earlier this year (not sure about exact date) if you missed it.
You responded to the “shovel ready job” comment with –
“This venue is not kind to people who pull stuff out of their asses and present it as true as you’ve done here.” That was a partisan attack, not made in good faith. So please dispense with the pious protests.
Note – The Obama Team has a propensity for providing misleading claims to gain public support. Example – Affordable Care Act was promoted as being deficit neutral for the first decade. That has been shown to be false and misleading – they doubled counted the Medicare savings according to the CBO, and they counted in the CLASS provision, which was later dropped because it was shown there was no way to make it sustainable. Critics at the time pointed that it would not be sustainable. Besides even if it were sustainable, the Affordable Care Act collects taxes for several years before the significant corresponding benefit payouts begin. So promising deficit neutrality for a ten year period was at best misleading.
No need to respond.