One of the fascinating things that has happened in the wake of Romney’s decision to put Paul Ryan on the ticket is the attempt by so many Republican candidates for the House and Senate to distance themselves from his controversial tax and medicare plans. Politico reports that Republican operatives are very concerned about the damage Ryan could do to Romney’s campaign and to the downticket races as well.
In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives — old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike — the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election.
It is not that the public professions of excitement about the Ryan selection are totally insincere. It is that many of the most optimistic Republican operatives will privately acknowledge that their views are being shaped more by fingers-crossed hope than by a hard-headed appraisal of what’s most likely to happen.
And the more pessimistic strategists don’t even feign good cheer: They think the Ryan pick is a disaster for the GOP. Many of these people don’t care that much about Romney — they always felt he faced an improbable path to victory — but are worried that Ryan’s vocal views about overhauling Medicare will be a millstone for other GOP candidates in critical House and Senate races…
They’re worried about inviting Medicare — usually death for Republicans — into the campaign. They’re worried it sidetracks the jobs issue. They’re worried he’ll expose the fact that Romney doesn’t have a budget plan. Most of all, they’re worried that Romney was on track to lose anyway — and now that feels all but certain.
I’ve been saying all along that this is going to be a very close election, but I think putting Ryan on the ticket boosts Obama’s prospects considerably. If I had to place a bet right now on the election, I’d bet on Obama.
47 comments
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democommie
August 20, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
From “coattail” to “tarred rail”, there’s always room for one more on the ride.
Kevin
August 20, 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, Muffy and Biff down at the country club are tres excited about Ryan. I don’t see why everyone else isn’t.
jamessweet
August 20, 2012 at 12:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So I’m getting a little concerned at this point that we are all getting too giddy about the Ryan pick. It sure seems like an error to me… I’m a little interested to hear the other side. Are there any liberals who think that the Ryan pick is actually good news for Team Romney, so I could read their opinion? I know there was that nonsense from Saletan… anything else?
Reginald Selkirk
August 20, 2012 at 12:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Intrade favours Obama with 57.3% to Romney’s 41.5%. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are still listed at 0.4% each, perhaps indicating nothing more than the cluelessness of their fans.
magistramarla
August 20, 2012 at 12:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I hope that you’re right, Ed.
I was watching part of the Romney/Ryan speech this morning.
The rubes in the audience were actually cheering for the voucherizing of Medicare and the privatization of SS.
I cringed and had to turn the TV off.
I’ve experienced the bad part of privatization of a retirement program. I used to teach in a Texas school district that “opted out” of SS. Instead, the teachers were required to pay into the Texas Teachers’ Retirement System.
A third of the money that I had paid into the system was lost in the 2008 downturn. I left the job in 2009, since my husband had orders to another state. I was able to put my money into a private account, minus the third that was lost.
As a military spouse, I had worked in other states and had paid into SS. I’m now physically disabled, but when I checked into getting SSD, I found that I had not paid in enough “quarters” to qualify.
I would have benefited so much more if my school district had paid my money into SS!
dingojack
August 20, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Intrade today (weekly update)
winner of the 2012 Presidential Election
By party
Democratic: 57.974% (up by 0.1474% over the last week) [lead by 16.249%]
Republicans: 41.725% (down by -0.1492% over the last week)
other: 0.301% (up by 0.0018% over the last week)
Head to head
Obama: 57.996% (down by 0.430% over the last week) [lead by 15.992%]
Romney: 42.004% (up ” ” ” ” ” “).
It seems that the ‘Ryan Factor’ isn’t setting the markets on fire, at least.
Dingo
—–
Only seventy-seven sleeps to go! Are you getting excited America?
David C Brayton
August 20, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m still scratching my head about the Ryan pick. I at least saw the logic behind the Palin pick–youthful, vibrant and marketable (at least until it became painfully obvious she didn’t have any intellect).
But Ryan doesn’t have anything to complement Romney. And the huge negatives (dismantle Medicare). Really, what was Mitt thinking?
Doug Little
August 20, 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m horrified and exhausted at the same time. Horrified that the election is going to be too close to call and exhausted of all the damn lies in all the political adds that are airing at the moment on TV.
slc1
August 20, 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re David C. Brayton @ #7
There is considerable speculation that the pick of Ryan was dictated by the Koch Brothers, for whom he has been shilling since he entered Congress.
typecaster
August 20, 2012 at 1:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He was thinking that he needed to do something big to keep the Tea Party chuckleheads voting Republican rather than third party.
And this is the response, from his own party, that he was looking for. It was never about trying to win over independents – he’d rather lose to a Democrat than be repudiated by the Republicans. That would just be too humiliating to allow to get into the history books.
Paul Neubauer
August 20, 2012 at 1:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ magistramarla #5:
I have often opined that the Republicans see the private pensions and private health care as a feature. It discourages employees from job-hopping because the pensions are basically not portable, so you lose if you leave before being vested, and the health care has not been very portable either, especially if you or a family member has any kind of chronic problem since “pre-existing conditions” have tended to either disqualify you from getting new insurance at a new job or at least make it much more expensive. The result is that leaving their employ for a better job can become far more difficult.
Reginald Selkirk
August 20, 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Uh, what? I thought they were promoting something like a 401k, which is portable, and which contains the money you put into it, so that “vested” in not a relevant phrase.
Michael Heath
August 20, 2012 at 1:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
More Republican hypocrisy given House Republicans have repeatedly passed Rep. Ryan’s entitlement and budgetary legislation only to get stalled-out in the Democratic-majority Senate. Now some want to flee from what they just recently voted to pass? Sounds like the George W. Bush years all over again.
I see how easy it is for President Obama’s campaign to advantageously compare and contrast their positions to Rep. Ryan’s, where Mr. Romney has earned carrying Ryan’s baggage given the lack of specifics he’s revealed. However this is a somewhat nuanced argument which I’m skeptical will gain cognizance with most swing voters, who are predominately ill-informed or misinformed. Or gain traction with many liberals who are intent on not voting for the president given their apparent inability to create a compelling set of voting factor priorities.
When it comes how Rep. Ryan conveys himself in public, I think he’s an asset to Team Romney. Especially after the Republicans put an obvious ignoramus idiot up the last time; where Rep. Ryan in no way comes across this way in spite of his actual dishonesty, ignorance, and delusions about critical topics like the principles of economics and the state of climate science. Especially given our he-said/she-said media which doesn’t have an appetite to analyze the veracity of what politicians claim in venues where most people still consume news media content.
Whether Rep. Ryan’s personal appeal is enough to outweigh the baggage he carries given his failure of character and his positions is not easy to weigh at this time. I think it’s a big task for the Obama team and therefore I do see the appeal of having Ryan on the ticket if you’re Mitt Romney and your odds are less than 40% you’ll win.
Kaoru Negisa
August 20, 2012 at 1:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hold on a minute. I thought President Obama was an evil socialist who raised taxes? How is it possible that Romney has never paid less than he did in 2010, the height of the first Obama term? Shouldn’t that be the most he’s ever paid, not the least?
lofgren
August 20, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Here’s my take:
Since last summer, I have been hearing that it doesn’t really matter who the republican nominee is, policy-wise, because Ryan’s popularity in the conservative movement meant that whoever got the nod would be totally behoven to him. Ryan is either an ideologue or a skilled conman, and either way he could and would tank the Republican candidate’s chances in November if he felt it was in his interest to do so. He could do this with little more than a change in inflection, or even just not stating his support or not stating it with sufficient enthusiasm. Or his staff or organization could leak it to the internet that Ryan does not care for the pick.
He or the Koch brothers or some other proxy could easily have subtly threatened the Romney campaign with exactly this possibility, or the Romney campaign may have realized the possibility themselves – they can’t all be complete morons.
There are a couple of scenarios where a Republican loss in November would be beneficial to Ryan, but the most obvious is if he thinks he has a shot at the presidency in 2016. A Republican candidate running after 8 years of a Democrat in office has a much better shot than trying to follow 4 or 8 years of a Republican in office. Ryan would much rather against an ersatz Obama than find himself saddled with Romney’s legacy.
The Ryan pick therefore satisfies both camps’ needs. Romney gets to reign in Ryan by binding him to the campaign and buys himself automatic cred with the base so that he no longer has to pander to them as blatantly. He also removed a potentially powerful adversary in Congress. (While I don’t doubt that Ryan would be as faithful as possible to the party if a Republican took the house, it would only go as far as it served his own agenda, and Ryan’s schtick works only as long as he is the lonely rebel speaking out against the corrupt powers-that-be.) Meanwhile Ryan’s position as a possible presidential candidate is improved whether or not Romney is successful. Even a failed campaign would serve Ryan’s purposes. He gets a huge boost in credibility and name recognition as a candidate. In fact a failed campaign would be more beneficial since I still maintain Ryan is better off opposing a Democrat whom he can tar as Obama’s proxy.
In addition, if there are powerful forces within the GoP who believe that Ryan is their best shot for 2016 (and it appears that there are, even though there is also obviously some strong opposition to that prospect), they would also have an investment in pressuring Romney to make this pick. This way, win or lose, the Romney campaign will serve its purpose by helping to position them for the next election cycle when they will not be handicapped by opposing an incumbent.
This might sound like conspiracy mongering, but note that it actually does not require a large and secretive conspiracy at all. All it requires is that the notion exist within Romney’s circle that Ryan has enough power to damage the campaign. This notion clearly exists, at least it exists in the popular press. If it has penetrated the Romney campaign’s inner circle, they can do the rest of the calculations without any additional pressure from outsiders.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 1:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ryan wants to privatize social security.
We’ve already done that with 401(k) plans and Keogh self directed retirement accounts for the self employed.
It’s been a failure. Not a complete failure but they haven’t worked very well. The stock market hasn’t done much in the last 12 years, 11700 to 13,250 with some crashes along the way, and bond interest rates are close to zero. Those are the two main options for “investing” your 401(K) plan money.
The average 401(K) plan at retirement has less than $100K. The interest on this right now would be a whole 1500 USD a year or you could roll the dice and hope the stock market doesn’t have another crash. Better than nothing, I guess.
And if it crashes so what. Just buy my new book, “50 simple recipes using dog and cat food.”
Surveys show that 80% of people lose money in the stock market, 10% break even, 10% make money. The best and brightest in our society make fortunes on Wall Street taking advantage of that fact. It’s roughly a zero sum game, so for every loser, there is a winner aka “the 1%”.
Privatizing social security would almost certainly result in hordes of poverty stricken old people. That is why it was developed in the first place.
abb3w
August 20, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nate Silver over at FiveThrityEight.Blogs.NYTimes.com currently has the odds at about 7:3 of an electoral win for Obama. He also has an analysis of why he thinks InTrade is being too optimistic in their assessment of Ryan’s impact.
eric
August 20, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Interesting observation. Prior to the pick, GOP candidates were not worried about a “did you support a Ryan-type medicare bill.” But now they have to worry about a “will you support a Ryan-type medicare.” That’s a much more politically charged question.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What’s wrong with Ryan’s magical thinking plans would require pages and isn’t amenable to a blog comment box.
I’ll just add here that social security has problems but they aren’t that serious. It will run out of money in 2033.
We have 21 years to fix that. Some modest adjustments to payouts, ages, and inputs right now would do it. This isn’t brain surgery, it is actually pretty simple and any halfway competent economist could do it.
It isn’t going to be done by cutting taxes, increasing spending, and starting a war somewhere. We tried that with Bush and look what happened.
Paul Neubauer
August 20, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ Reginald Selkirk #12
I guess I was unclear. I meant private pensions like the teachers’ pension system that magistramarla had paid into for insufficient time. The effect is somewhat comparable, but mitigated, even if it does not entirely replace SS, but just “supplements” Social Security. Either way you wind up tied to your employer or else have to walk away from something in order to change jobs.
Yes, I am aware that 401(k) “pensions” are different. See raven’s post @16 for why the Republicans like that.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I forgot IRA’s and Roth IRA’s.
But the same principle holds. To a large extent social security has been privatized.
The average payout for social security is ca. $1,250 a month. You could live on that if you had to but you wouldn’t want to.
Pensions, 401(K) plans, and IRA’s added to that make a huge difference, hopefully anyway.
d cwilson
August 20, 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
FIFY
naturalcynic
August 20, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ raven 16:
Uhh, does not compute. Shouldn’t it be “for every eight losers, there is one winner”. And where did you get that 80% loser number? If the market slowly crawls up, anybody with an index fund would be a small-scale winner.
Eric Ressner
August 20, 2012 at 2:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
raven @ 16:
Do you have a cite for that?
No argument that the 1% win whatever the market does. But as for the average investor, it’s only a zero-sum game if stock prices are flat and no dividends are paid. Historically, over the medium- to long-term, that has never been the case.
What is true is that the average investor can’t do better than the stock market(s) as a whole (minus the cut for the 1%). So, though I wonder about your 80% losers stat, the best way to lose money in the stock market is to try to beat the stock market. Chasing yield, they call it, and it’s a losers’ game.
Passive investing is cheap (i.e., less for the 1%) and, properly diversified, should come very close to matching market returns, which, again, over time, have always been generously positive.
Apologies for potentially hijacking the thread to investment theory.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Naturalcynic @ and Eric:
This is basic information that everyone should know and few apparently do.
Just google it and read. I’m not in a position to give a full year course in investing and economics. Sorry, this would take days to fully explain.
To put this in perspective, most money managers don’t beat the market. These are highly paid pros. You can imagine what the average person does.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
1. With 401(K) fees they wouldn’t beat the market. Most people are apparently not indexers anyway.
2. The markets have been mostly flat in the last 12 years. The Dow went from 11700 at its peak in 2000 to 13,250 today. There were several huge crashes between this. It will crash again, guaranteed. No one knows when though, least of all me.
The NASDAQ peaked at ca. 5,000 in 2000, today it is 3,000 12 years later.
The common idea that long term the markets always go up is looking more and more like a myth. They did for most of the 20th century but that hasn’t been true for this century.
Individual participation in the market has been steadily falling for years. People can only get burned so often and lose so much money before they give up and do something else.
They also notice that while they are losing money, Wall Streeters like Romney are making trillions of dollars in aggregate and when they make mistakes, we bail them out with trillions of more dollars.
That’s it for economics 101. This subject is too complex for a thread and it’s a derail. The subject of the OP is Republicans Run From Ryan Pick Discuss that.
PS FWIW, we are in the 10% winners category. Being cynical and paranoid paid off. Right before the 2008 crash, we and millions of others dumped most of our stocks. It just looked too spooky and crazy and as it turns out, it was.
baal
August 20, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just went and read the Saletan piece. It’s weird.
I’ve heard it mentioned that the undecided (swing middle) is unusually small this year and that turn out will be the deciding factor (especially after all the voter suppression crap). Romney’s choice was then to find someone to up his appeal with a small middle or to mitigate the inherent bigotry (anti-mormonism) of the tea party wing. Ryan is a natural choice for that mitigation and, even with a Ryan loss, it sets Ryan up for the 2016 or 2020 race ((R) tend to anoint the guy’s whose turn it is).
Gregory in Seattle
August 20, 2012 at 3:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My personal theory is that Romney entered the presidential race pro forma, probably to satisfy demands from Salt Lake City. He expected to be surpassed by someone else and gracefully withdraw by the end of 2012. Much to his — and everyone else’s — surprise, he ended up as the sanest one in the bunch and became the nominee. Now he is trying desperately to withdraw without pissing off his corporate and theocratic masters.
He doesn’t want the White House and its scrutiny and its stress; he’s never wanted it. He just wants to return to his playboy lifestyle outside of the public eye.
d cwilson
August 20, 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gregory in Seattle:
I don’t think so. If he expected to have a graceful exit during the primary, he wouldn’t have spent so much time and effort pandering to the teabaggers.
My suspicion is that he wants the prestige and historical renown that comes with being president without having to endure the scrutiny from the peons that comes with running for the job. It’s why he doesn’t articulate a vision or plan about what he’d do once he became president. He doesn’t have one. He just promises to do whatever the people he thinks can win him the election want. If he could, I think he’d skip being president altogether so that he could enjoy the social status that comes with being a former president.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 3:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You are thinking like a normal person.
Romney is a Mormon. The whole goal of their Pre-existence, this life, and the next life is to become Perfect. God is perfect. You become a god by becoming perfect.
For Romeny, being president is just a step along the way to godhood. He really has no other focus or interests and why should he. Becoming a god is far greater than a mere president of the USA.
This is straight basic Mormon theology. Someone who is Mormon or exMormon could probably explain it better.
Doug Little
August 20, 2012 at 3:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought that the 80% failure was in day trading.
Doug Little
August 20, 2012 at 3:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ha Ha, Just like the championship belt in Pro Wrestling. Whomever is the most popular with fans wins the belt, skill has nothing to do with it, except showmanship and bluster.
Kinda like that analogy actually.
lofgren
August 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree with d cwilson. Romney is trying awful hard for somebody who doesn’t want to win.
I think Romney is basically of a class and mindset that simply goes around collecting titles, and “president” is the biggest prize to be won. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if there is also a little bitterness over the prize getting stolen from his daddy as well.
Eric Ressner
August 20, 2012 at 4:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
raven @25:
Did naturalcynic and I say something to upset you? I don’t think either of our posts called for the dismissive attitude. What we both did was ask you where the “80% losers” statistic came from. Thank you for the cites. I’ve read them. One of them offers no quantitative information at all. In the second, the 80% number is thrown out by a commenter, again without a cite. And in the third …
… again no supporting study, and in fact the rhetoric sounds like IPIOOMA (I pulled it out of my ass).
I don’t think either naturalcynic or I were challenging your basic premise, that “playing” the stock market is risky. My specific quarrel was with your “zero-sum game” evaluation, which I thought I made clear. Your blanket negativity about investing in equities is unfounded. Sure, there are ways to do it wrong. But there are also ways to do it right. Both naturalcynic and I referred to passive investing as the way to match market returns.
You say you got out just before the 2008 crash? Well, good for you. The Dow has returned 8.06% per year since, say Sep 1, 2008. NASDAQ: 4.28%. S&P 500: 3.37%. If you don’t own equities, where are you keeping your nestegg? And what has it earned for you lately?
Your point @26:
Since you could give a full-year course in investing and economics, you must surely be aware that those huge crashes in between were absolute gold to investors who are still in the accumulation phase. Those investors were able to buy low for several years running, and still even their older assets are worth more today than when they were purchased.
And also aware that the market index numbers do not include dividends paid, so the actual returns of a buy-and-hold strategy are greater, in many cases much greater, than the simple ratio of Dow now : Dow before.
Yes, the NASDAQ seems to be more troublesome from 2000 to today, but you really cherry-picked that time range. If you look at 1999 to today, it’s up 31%, and from 2001 to today, up 27%. So someone heavily into the tech sector — for the long-term again — would have done some buys during NASDAQ’s one-year long bubble whose value would still not have recovered. But every other share (of an index fund) would be worth a good deal more today.
raven
August 20, 2012 at 4:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No.
I work for a living. I’m busy.
magistramarla
August 20, 2012 at 6:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Reginald@ #12
I have a story for you:
I’ve experienced the bad part of privatization of a retirement program. I used to teach in a Texas school district that “opted out” of SS. Instead, the teachers were required to pay into the Texas Teachers’ Retirement System. We had to teach there for at least five years to be “vested”. I taught there for seven years.
A third of the money that I had paid into the system was lost in the 2008 downturn. I left the job in 2009, since my husband had orders to another state. I was able to put my money into a private account, minus the third that was lost.
As a military spouse, I had worked in other states and had paid into SS. I’m now physically disabled, but when I checked into getting SSD, I found that I had not paid in enough “quarters” to qualify.
I would have benefited so much more if my school district had paid my money into SS!
I’m one of the lucky ones – healthcare was not a problem, since I’m covered under my husband’s Federal plan. I knew several teachers who felt that they could never leave that district because they had a child with pre-existing conditions and the healthcare plan, while much more expensive than our Federal one, was fairly decent.
magistramarla
August 20, 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sorry, guys. I forgot that I had already posted that story.
I plead Lupus brain fog.
democommie
August 20, 2012 at 6:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Eric Ressner:
Everything you say is probably true, and probably of great value to people who make their living by trading. The information is worthless or, worse, dangerous, for those who don’t understand economics or the markets–most people with small nest eggs–and that would be the majority of people who have their money in 401K and other “investment” retirement accounts.
There are the smart ones in that group, they are not the majority, I think.
D. C. Sessions
August 20, 2012 at 7:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’re right: he doesn’t want it. The reason he’s working so hard for it and has spent so much money is that Ann wants to be First Lady.
Modusoperandi
August 21, 2012 at 8:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
D. C. Sessions, and their horse, Checkers.
sailor1031
August 21, 2012 at 10:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have great faith in the ability of the Democrats to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
Eric Ressner
August 21, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
democommie @38:
I submitted my long replies to raven specifically because I thought his information was worthless or, worse, dangerous. Actually, anyone who makes their living by trading will already be aware of all my points, and probably understand their ramifications better than I do. It’s the others who need to hear that investing in stocks is not only desirable but likely necessary if they are to meet their retirement objectives. There is really no other port in our current storm. Safe bonds are barely keeping up with inflation, and unsafe bonds are … unsafe.
celticlight
August 22, 2012 at 12:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ryan exposes one of Obama’s biggest vulnerabilities – he has no plan for entitlements and the growing deficit. Many do not like Ryan’s plan, but he has one. It is called leadership. Obama had a chance to lead and even set up the Bowles/Simpson bipartisan panel. He could have endorsed some or all of the suggestions and put big pressure on the Republicans. He could have gone to the American public using the bully pulpit, but he flinched. Time will tell whether there is a significant price to pay, for “leading from behind”, or in this case for abdicating leadership.
Modusoperandi
August 22, 2012 at 3:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
celticlight, besides the rejected Obama budget, Obamacare, creating Simpson-Bowles then declaring it a good “baseline” even when it failed, fiddling around with Social Security’s inflation modfifier, and trying to let some of the Bush-era “temporary” tax cuts cease, as well as anything else I’ve forgotten, no, Obama has no plan for entitlements or the deficit. Heck, as bad as the blind cuts of Sequestration would be if they happened (the ones for Defense won’t happen. Ever), it was partly his idea.
And he did put “pressure on the Republicans”. And they moved the football. Every time he took a step forward they took a step backward.
Obama’s too far to the Right (and too willing to cut “entitlements” in exchange for token tax increases and closing unnamed tax loopholes), most of the Dems are feckless (and most of the rest are corporate lackeys) and the GOP has no shame.
celticlight
August 24, 2012 at 12:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Modusoperandi – your first two examples of leadership on the deficit “the rejected Obama budget, Obamacare,…” are really weak. The Obama budget was rejected by both parties, and Obamacare will increase the deficit significantly as it adds another entitlement. Besides – it was the Democratic Congress that led the way on Obamacare. The President was just along for the signature, and Old Joe was there for the comedic relief – “this is a big ffffing deal”.
Michael Heath
August 24, 2012 at 8:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
celticlight:
Obamacare doesn’t add to the deficit because that same piece of legislation creates a tax revenue stream that unbiased credible sources, like the CBO, predict will reduce the deficit, rather than increasing it [PDF, analysis is post-Supreme Court ruling and adjusts accordingly].
In fact the CBO predicts, with some obvious uncertainty regarding the preciseness of the prediction, the repeal of Obamacare will increase the deficit. The CBO and the staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation:
celticlight
August 24, 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
While on paper the CBO is still projecting a modest reduction in the deficit, an honest appraisal of the law shows that it will not decrease the deficit. The CBO assessment is based on several gimmicks and double-counting of savings, and some very unrealistic assumptions.
One of the biggest changes since the bill was passed is that the Administration is not moving forward with CLASS Act, the voluntary long-term care program that was included in the bill. CBO said it would reduce the deficit by $70 billion over a decade, so there goes $70 billion of the 10-year deficit reduction of $123 billion from the original cost estimate.
The law also relied heavily on cuts to the Medicare program. But a large part of the Medicare cuts is also supposed to pay for future benefits out of the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund. So the savings from the cuts (and increased Medicare payroll taxes) is spent twice — on Obamacare’s entitlements and then again to fill a hole in the trust fund so that future Medicare claims can be met. The chief actuary of the Medicare program has also warned that the Medicare cuts that are double-counted are so indiscriminate that cannot be relied on. If they are implemented as written, they will cause severe access problems for seniors, as declining payment rates from Medicare will drive hospitals and other providers to stop taking elderly patients. This is one reason soon to be Medicare participants, are not falling for the standard Mediscare tactics. We know that the system is unsutainable as currently setup. We are looking closely at plans to change and maintain the system
The result is a large increase in deficit spending over the long term. This should not be a suprise to anyone who can recognize smoke and mirrors. Now you may say the increase in the deficit is worth it, and many seniors may not care about the deficit since it wall hurt future generations, but let’s not kid ourselves by saying it will reduce the deficit.