CONNECT
Published: Tuesday 14 August 2012
“First, in spite of all the name-calling about President Obama being a Kenyan socialist, he has pushed an agenda that most Republicans would have been comfortable with 20 years ago.”
Representative Ryan’s Far-Right Agenda: The Media Can’t Take the Truth
In principle the country faces a choice this fall between a moderate conservative, President Obama, and Governor Romney, an extreme conservative who wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare and eliminate most of the services that the public expects from the federal government. The reason why this choice only exists in principle is that the media have worked hard to conceal Representative Ryan’s extreme positions from the public. Now that Governor Romney has implicitly embraced these positions by selecting Representative Ryan as his vice-presidential nominee, it remains to be seen whether the media will does it job.
First, in spite of all the name-calling about President Obama being a Kenyan socialist, he has pushed an agenda that most Republicans would have been comfortable with 20 years ago. His health care plan was put forward by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 1992, before Governor Romney put it in place in Massachusetts. His Wall Street reform leaves the too-big-to-fail banks bigger than ever, even after they helped to inflate a housing bubble, the collapse of which brought the economy to its knees.
And, running large deficits in a downturn was a practice that Obama could tie to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes. It would be difficult to find a policy pushed by our Kenyan socialist president that would make a Nixon Republican unhappy.
By contrast, Representative Ryan has an extreme right-wing agenda that predates both Great Society and the New Deal. He has put forward plans that would cut and privatize both Social Security and Medicare. He has also called for essentially zeroing out most categories of federal spending.
While Ryan supports current levels of military spending, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of his budget shows that there will be essentially nothing left for anything else by 2040. The CBO analysis of the Ryan budget (prepared under his direction) shows that spending on all items other than health care and Social Security would fall to 4.5 percent of GDP by 2040 and to 3.75 percent of GDP by 2050.
The military budget currently is more than 4.0 percent of GDP. In the post-World War II era it has never been less than 3.0 percent. This means that Ryan’s budget would leave nothing for running the State Department, the Park Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the National Institutes of Health and the other areas that comprise the federal government as it now exists.
However to imply that Ryan is some sort of stringent free market fundamentalist would be far too generous. Representative Ryan has never expressed any discomfort with the numerous forms of government intervention that redistribute income upward to those at the very top.
For example, Representative Ryan has never spoken up against the implicit insurance that the government provides to too-big-to-fail banks, a subsidy which has been estimated to exceed $60 billion a year. Representative Ryan has also never spoken up against government-provided patent monopolies for prescription drugs. Patent monopolies raise the price of drugs by close to $270 billion a year above the free market price. While there are more efficient mechanisms for financing drug research, Representative Ryan is apparently not bothered by a government-created monopoly that results in a massive upward redistribution of income.
He has also never spoken up against the professional and licensing restrictions that protect doctors in the United States from international competition. As a result of these protectionist barriers we pay our doctors more than twice as much as what doctors earn in Western Europe. If free trade lowered doctors pay to Western European levels it would be equivalent to a tax cut of $1,200 a year for an average family of four.
It possible to cite many other government interventions along similar lines that never seemed to bother Representative Ryan. In other words, Representative Ryan doesn’t have any principled objections to government interferences in the market, even when this interference leads to enormous inefficiency, as is the case with too-big-to-fail banks or patent protection for prescription drugs.
Representative Ryan only seems to object to government programs and policies that benefit lower- and middle-income people. In this sense he seems to have perfectly captured the philosophy of the modern Republican Party: “a dollar in the pocket of a middle class person is a dollar that could belong to a rich person.”
We will face quite a choice this November.
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ABOUT Dean Baker
Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. He is the author of several books, including Plunder & Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer and The United States Since 1980. He was the editor of Getting Prices Right: The Debate Over the Consumer Price Index, which was a winner of a Choice Book Award as one of the outstanding academic books of the year. He appears frequently on TV and radio programs, including CNN, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. His blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
17 comments on "Representative Ryan’s Far-Right Agenda: The Media Can’t Take the Truth"
August 15, 2012 9:54am
Struggling is a textbook example of the low-information voter, so brainwashed that she can be counted on to vote against her own interests and cheerlead for the very people and institutions responsible for her dismal economic condition. Rupert and Rush must be so proud.
She laments her lack of health care, and the impossibility of getting it, yet defends the health care industry while railing against Obamacare, which is her best chance of receiving the health care she needs.
She talks about the availability of contraception from PP while simultaneously defending those who would destroy PP.
She recounts a time when a person could maintain a decent standard of living with 3 part time jobs, yet defends the same laissez faire capitalism that has mutated the economy into something within which that is no longer possible.
She is the archetype of a victim of the class war that has been going on for the last 35 years, yet she defends the winning side, even as she struggles to survive. She hasn't a clue about the true meaning of socialism or Marxism, only knee-jerk reactions caused by 60 years of Cold-War propaganda.
The fact is, there are virtually no socialists or Marxists in any responsible positions within the U.S. government. The Socialist Party in America has fewer members than do the Mennonites. In Europe, there are Democratic Socialists in countries such as Denmark, Norway and France. Those countries have a far higher standard of living, and happier, longer lived citizens than the U.S.. They laugh out loud when they hear American Liberals described as being Socialists. In those prosperous countries, the most left wing liberal in America would be considered moderately conservative. Yet, even they are not the type of Socialists that Struggling has in mind, the kind of Socialist that evokes memories of the Soviet Union. Those were NATIONAL Socialists. There is a vast difference between a National Socialist and a Democratic Socialist. Unfortunately, the ignorant bumpkins on the right are entirely unaware of any such distinction. To them, a Danish Socialist and a Soviet Socialist are equal and equally evil.
Ironically, if Struggling lived in the same Europe she lambastes as being "socialist" she wouldn't be struggling. Her quality of life would be significantly improved. She would be living with some dignity. She would have virtually no chance of finding herself homeless or resorting to eating cat food. She would receive all the medical care she needs. She wouldn't be struggling so hard that she has to find scapegoats in the form of illegals and commies under the bed. She'd also likely live far longer than she will in this free-market shark tank known as the U.S.A.. It never occurs to her that the U.S. has among the lowest quality of life, and lowest longevity of any economically developed nation. She's drunk so deeply the KoolAid of American exceptionalism that she'll continue to drink it, even as it kills her.
The poor woman is so brainwashed and ignorant, she doesn't have a clue as to what is in her own best interest, let alone the best interests of millions of people who have, after a lifetime of work, found themselves in similar circumstances.
If it wasn't so pathetic, it would be funny, in a sickly ironic sort of way. Talk about a useful idiot....
August 14, 2012 9:42pm
Can't we just state the basics? Paul Ryan is considered a fiscal conservative by the media. That would be the same media that the GOP has railed against as "libral" for decades. Paul Ryan was born into wealth. He has no idea what it is like to start with nothing and try to build a middle class life. But look at his record in Congress. He voted for both Bush tax cuts. He voted for both Bush wars. He voted for the Medicare Perscription Drug plan and for the TARP bailout of the banks. All of these were not paid for, they went directly to the debt on the nations credit card, if you will. This is no conservative. And remember, Republicans are only concerned about the national debt when they are out of power. So when will the national media start to tell the truth? When pigs fly and corporate sponsers stop paying for their airtime.
August 14, 2012 7:37pm
STRUGGLING:
Where did you get all this anger? And why do you, and so many critics of the President, call him a Socialist and a Communist? You make many claims, but you offer nothing in proof of your wild assertions.
You speak of "Useful Idiots," but perhaps you are being the same for the Tea Party and its agenda. You attack everyone, make all kinds of charges, and then you say both parties are bad and we should throw them all out and start over. Well, wow, what a novel idea. No one else could have thought of that but you, I guess, since everyone else here is a an idiot if they disagree with you.
Just how do we throw them all out and start over? Details, details. Just how do we do it? Any angry person can say such things, and I have sometimes had such sentiments myself. But a sentiment doesn't make a practical plan, does it?
Just having strong emotions may be therapeutic for you, but it changes nothing, does it?
I have no proof that Obama is a Marxist, a Socialist, or a Communist. And you offer none. When Obama was trying to get his health care bill passed, angry
Fox News fans were shouting that Obama was a Nazi, another Adolf Hitler. And that was ridiculous, too.
Class war? The conservatives in government started it, by giving huge tax cuts to the super-rich, so that they pay taxes (when they pay them at all) at a far smaller tax rate than wage-earners do. There's your class war. And now, after a decade of lower tax rates, some conservatives want them to pay even less, and have working Americans pay more. There's your class war, but who started it?
There are real Socialists in Europe, and they have democratic governments, and they regard Obama as a "moderate," when people like you see some kind of evil conspiracy to turn America into a Communist state.
And I have to wonder: would people like you be slandering the President so much if he was a white guy?
Turn off Fox News and talk radio and take your BP medicines. You're going to have a stroke if you keep blindly hating like you do. Chill. It's better for you and for these dialogues.
August 15, 2012 10:06am
Unfortunately, Struggling can't even afford to see a doctor for BP medications, as she stated in another post. Of course, it's the fault of illegal immigrants, not the health care industry that she continues to defend.
Too bad she doesn't live somewhere with Socialized medicine. Seniors in Canada and Europe never find themselves unable to afford to see a doctor or get their medications. Maybe that's why you don't hear them engaged in tirades against imaginary boogeymen. Under their health care systems, they can avail themselves of free psychiatric care as well.
August 14, 2012 5:52pm
Dean Baker is right on with his analysis of Ryan excepting that Ryan is so far right his corporate sponsors have to rein him in so he doesn't apply his credo to them. The elites love their welfare so much there is not enough cash for the people to have theirs and fund a military security arm for use by the elites in their agenda.
Great to see Baker call a spade a spade...now if only the mainstream media would do it's job as Baker laments.
August 14, 2012 1:19pm
The Middle Class fought for years to get these benefits .
The Upper Class wants wipe them out-keep everyone hungry and in debt so they will work harder!
The Upper Class in all countries are wiping out pensions, jobs and homes of the Middle Class.
August 14, 2012 4:03pm
And that is BOTH sides of the aisle that are doing this.
But Mr Baker is doing what most narcissists do...projects!
He is taking what is being done by this administration, and placing the blame on the Republican party. Mind you ..I am fed up with the Republican party..but let's give it, it's due.
It amazes me how so many leftists have narcissistic tendencies.
Grow up and take responsibility for your deeds!
I am all for...cleaning out all 3 branches of this nation, and starting All Over from Scratch! Put term limits on the Judicial Branch and the Congress...just like you have for the Presidency. Do the same in the Presidents Executive branch. Term limits. Then there will be a lot less Waste, Fraud, and Abuse of the Constitution!
And if a President circumvents the Constitution, put him in jail for treason! THAT will keep him or her on their toes!
August 14, 2012 12:30pm
"This means that Ryan’s budget would leave nothing for running the State Department, the Park Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the National Institutes of Health"
Exactly. That's the kind of Randian, Dickensian world Ryan lusts for...
August 14, 2012 3:51pm
Have you actually read his latest budget proposal..or are you just repeating what you have heard elsewhere?
August 14, 2012 11:02am
Mitt Romney is a LIAR and a possible Income Tax evader. “We the People” want to see your 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 Income Tax Returns.
In picking Paul Ryan as his Vice President, Mitt Romney has doubled down on his own campaign promise to give big tax breaks to the wealthy, uniting himself with a candidate who goes even further to do so: While Romney would bring taxes for top incomes down to 28 percent, Ryan has proposed bringing the top rate down even lower, to 25 percent.
Meanwhile, Ryan's plan would actually increase the effective tax rate on the very poorest Americans by getting rid of tax breaks that benefit low earners.
In Paul Ryan’s views and policy judgments — we find his true ideologue. More than any other politician today, Paul Ryan exemplifies the social Darwinism at the core of today’s Republican Party: Reward the rich, penalize the poor and let everyone else fend for themselves. Dog eat dog.
If you know anything about Paul Ryan, you probably know him as a deficit hawk. But Ryan has voted to increase deficits and expand Federal Government spending too many times for that to be his true north star. Rather, the common thread throughout his career is his desire to remake the basic architecture of the Federal Government. Paul Ryan wrote the Budget proposal that will give the Ultra-Rich huge Tax cuts and raise Taxes on the Poor and Middle-Class.
Ryan sponsored a Social Security privatization scheme that went so far that the George W. Bush administration rejected it. The Social Security Administration concluded that the Ryan-Sununu plan would require huge increases in general budget revenue to make up the shortfall left in payroll tax revenue. Specifically, revenue would have to increase by 1.5 percent of GDP every year, an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found, or about $225 billion at current GDP. That’s a big honking tax hike.
Ryan has repeatedly sponsored proposals that would allow the president to veto specific line items in bills, especially budgets.
To me the single most ageist thing that Paul Ryan has consistently introduced are bills to reduce capital gains and dividend taxes, which only benefits the “Rich and Powerful.” He proposed a bill in 2004 making permanent Bush’s 2003 investment-tax cuts, twice proposed cutting the capital gains rate from 20 percent to 15 percent before Bush did just that, proposed allowing corporations to deduct the dividends they paid out and allowing individuals to pay lower capital gains tax rates on dividend income, and proposed making the 2001 Bush tax cuts permanent the same year they were passed.
August 14, 2012 3:50pm
I understand that Ryan has changed his mind..through the learning process...about his budgets.
Have you read his latest budget proposal?
We ALL and that means the elderly too..of which I am one...have to tighten our belts and reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security or they will be gone in less than 20 years! Then what will we all do?
Until we get this economy running properly, we are actually in danger. IF our economy is poor, our defense is poor. I do not believe in going over to other countries and trying to make them democracies. Especially without a declaration of war from the Congress....but we STILL must be able to defend ourselves here! Without the money to do so...we are setting ourselves up to being invaded by our enemies. Oh Yeah! I forgot...We are already being invaded from the North and the South by our foreign enemies from all over the world..and this administration does nothing to stop it!
August 15, 2012 4:24am
Struggling, I don't know where or even if you actually do any research. From your comments it is apparent that you just mimic others claims. You obviously haven't been paying any attention to the immigration numbers. During President Obama's administration, ICE had deported more illegal immigrants during the first eighteen months, than occurred during all of President G.W. Bush's eight years. And that number has only continued to grow. For all of Ws grandstanding about border security, he really didn't do anything to increase enforcement, or deportations. President Obama has been busy. He also was the commander on watch when we finally got public enemy number one, and two, and then the new two, and then the new two again. I feel much more secure now, than I did before.
August 14, 2012 4:10pm
You know what my retort is to what you stated (Romney to Obama)....I will show you mine, when you show me all of those records from childhood on up, that you are hiding, using over $2,000,000. Something stinks in the White House too!
But I am so over both parties. They both are so corrupt!
And I don't know why the left is so upset with Ryan. He voted and pushed the TARP. He voted for the government taking over GM and Chrysler...and many other bills that are hurting We the People! What happened to the Bankruptcy Laws? They would have still been open for business and would have restructured..and made agreements with the Labor Unions. All would have been OK. But NO...let's nationalize all manufacturing! That is what is up Obama's sleeve. Did you know that?
Do you know we are going to lose over $25 billion on the takeover of GM and Chrysler?
I do agree though...we need to take SS, Medicare, and Medicaid and re-work them.
And someone needs to be more diligent in finding Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, and getting rid of it. I don't care whose pockets lose money on the business front....it has to be done.
And we do not need Healthcare reform...We need insurance company and Hospital reform! And TORT reform! Our healthcare was the best in the world, before this new law.
This new health care law is all about controlling the people, and nothing to do with health care for us all. Have you actually read it? You would be appalled at what is in it! Things that have NOTHING to do with healthcare!
And it was Obama who stole $750 billion from Medicare, for his Obamacare. Not anyone else!
And before you make a stab at me about being covered by Health care. I am not...I have so many pre-existing conditions...NO insurance company will cover me. But because of my age...Obamacare will NOT help me.
He talks about FAIR. How fair is it for a person to be denied healthcare for conditions they had nothing to do with...by genetics...or on the job injuries? It is NOT fair. I take care of myself the best I can with natural medicine. I am not rich..and never will be. I am struggling to make it.
August 14, 2012 7:04pm
Wow, STRUGGLINGTOMAKEIT. More paranoid raving. Just what we need.
August 14, 2012 10:05am
Progressive pundits, writers, commentators and advocates need to stop playing into conservative hands by discussing Republican tactics as a war on this group or a war on that group. Everytime the words "War on Women", "Attacks on Immigrants", etc are used the divide and conquer tactics of politicians is furthered.
We need to understand that the Conservative agenda constitutes an effort to take away the promise of America for every individual who draws a paycheck based on his or her work. All of us who make a living by creating a product or performing a service are targets of the greed and avarice of the conservatives who earn their living by manipulating their and other peoples' money.
The pitting of one group of working Americans against another must be ended.
August 14, 2012 3:41pm
Richard, Where have you been living? In a dark hole somewhere?
It is Marxism that will do all the things you stated! And Obama is a Marxist and if nothing else...a Socialist who is hell bent on changing us into a socialist nation, like Europe has done! Capitalism is what made our country strong. It just got taken down the wrong road by greedy Wall Street, greedy owners, and greedy politicians! It is the greedy people you should be angry at....not the system! And YOU..yourself... are pitting one group against another, by stating what you did about Conservatives. Not all Conservatives are Republicans! Conservatives abide by the Constitution, not circumvent it.
Please read your terminology on what is a Conservative, what is a Progressive, what is a socialist and so on. You are wearing blindfolds and ear protectors...and not seeing or hearing the truth!
Tell you what...Go read "1984" or watch the movie...and you will see what is happening in the USA right now.
All of our rights under the Constitution are being taken away from us by BOTH parties.
And there is NO WAR on women. I am a woman and I can tell you the truth. Women have been getting free contraceptives for years. Just walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic. And if not free, they can go to Target and get a month's supply for no more than $9.00. Fluke LIED when she said it costs $3000 a year for contraceptives. It costs one tenth that! I needed it for cramps. I only had 3 part time jobs making $1.50 an hour and went to college two nights a week, and still maintained my own car, and apartment. And I still could afford the contraceptive pills. I had no help from the government or my family.
People do not realize when they are being used as "useful idiots." Read Saul Alinsky's book..."Rules for Radicals"....Obama is following it word for word. Alinsky was a Marxist. Do you know that Alinsky gave Personal Acknowledgement to LUCIFER, in the front of that book. ( I have it right here on my desk, for reference.) Obama uses it like a Bible..ever since he was a Community Organizer.
This is a political ploy....plain and simple...and the Class war...the same thing.. a political ploy.
How much have you studied politics and civics?
August 15, 2012 4:37am
You need to stop listening to Rush. Every one of your comments is right from his playbook. Now let me ask you, why would a marxist bail out such capitalistic strongholds as banking and Wall Street? I'd also like to point out to you, that at a time when you were getting paid $1.50 per hour, your mortgage and insurance costs were on average $70 dollars per month. A new car was $1,400, and gas was .09 cents a gallon. You could get by, and even save a little bit on $1.50 per hour. Now our minimum wage is less than $9.00 per hour, a comparable home mortgage and insurance will cost you around $1,400 per month, a cheap new car will put you out at least $14 grand, and gas is $4 per gallon. Lets see, our income only went up by a multiplier of 6, and our cost of living went up astronomically. Please realize the difference in time. Let's point out that back then, the president of a company generally made anywhere between 5 to 9 times what the average employee made. And there weren't large boards of CEO, CFO and a plethora of other titles, taking an average of 120 times what the average employee makes. How is that conservative. That is greed.