Ryan’s just trying to ride this train to political success. If he was serious about fixing the government’s financial problems, he admit the truth - we’ve already spent a lot of money we didn’t have and we can’t go back in time to 1980 and unspend it. Thirty years of cutting taxes and not cutting spending is just putting us deeper in the hole.
If Ryan was telling us the truth, he’d be telling us we need to raise taxes and not lower them until the national debt is paid off.
He’s obviously a very fit guy, so there are probably lots of real accomplishments he could tout as opposed to mythical ones. Especially since his marathon was over 20 years ago.
I guess we just shouldn’t be amazed when politicians think they can just get away with this stuff. They never learn.
His one marathon. Didn’t he also imply that he’d run several, and couldn’t precisely remember his best time?
You have to go back further than 1980.
Social Security was created in 1935 and Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965.
Medicare and Social Security together have an unfunded liability of over $30 trillion.
On the current path we are headed, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the national debt will exceed federal revenue by 2030.
The only way to avoid going the way of Greece, Portugal and other failed welfare states is by cutting spending drastically.
And this still has what to do with Ryan’s propensity for untruths?
This assumes we don’t convert our medical system into one like the Europeans have where we get twice the results for half the cost. Social security has plenty of money and will continue to if the government doesn’t keep robbing it.
Well, nothing, but that subject was getting a bit stale.
It’s an illustration of how dishonesty means nothing to die-hard supporters. Read the comments following any news article that points out these lies.
I think these types of low stake “dumb” lies (ie., the marathon time) are deliberate, as a way of gauging just how much they can get a way with; it also provides a diversion from the more important issues, and gives them an opportunity to bash the “libtards” and point out how the “left-wing media” supports Obama’s “socialist agenda”.
European healthcare is currently unsustainable.
http://www.ehfcn.org/media/documents/The-future-of-healthcare-in-Europe---report.pdf
Social Security is in the hole. Running a deficit.
In American politics nowadays, there is positive incentive for politicians to spin glorious yarns that fit with what your core supporters want to believe. The other faction’s base are considered to be all deluded liars who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it bit them in the arse. If they call your man out on a supposed lie, well, that’s just more proof that he’s actually telling the truth. And if he should get caught in a misstep, well, the other side are even bigger liars than him, aren’t they? And if we don’t fight fire with fire and defeat those devils, the world will end, won’t it? So, “we won’t let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”
I’m not necessarily saying both sides are the same… yet. I think the Republicans are doing groundbreaking research in the race to the bottom, but if it succeeds, they won’t be alone there for very long.
That sounds probable, though I haven’t checked your facts. But you can drop off social security from your list- that’s fixable. It’s health care costs in general that are spiralling out of control.
I mean sure, you can say that our problem is medical spending, paper clips, major league baseball, rutabaga spending is out of control. But really only medicine is driving the problem. And the most serious attempt to address it was the ACA - health care reform received not a single vote from the obstructionist Republican congress.
You are confused. The analogy in inapt. Those states lack their own currency so they can’t depreciate their way out of their difficulties.
Now let’s turn to the Ryan plan hijack. His 2010 plan was a joke. His tax cuts exceeded his specified spending cuts by a large margin. The way he claimed deficit reduction was to make allowances for unspecified spending cuts. Now it’s true that his plan raised taxes for 95% of the population. But the big boys at top received a tax cut – in fact the top 1% had their taxes snipped in half. I know, I know: none of this seems possible: Paul Ryan is such a nice man!
Ryan’s plan would reduce the federal deficit and public debt as a % of GDP over time.
http://www.pgpf.org/Issues/Fiscal-Outlook/2012/03/032112-Ryan-Budget.aspx
From your cite: (my bolding)
And this:
It’s not about reducing the deficit; it’s all about the tax cuts. Corporate raiding 101.
You forgot to mention this.
So has Congressman Ryan decided to join this discussion, or are you just one of his employees?
Comparing the Ryan plan to current law is useless because no one supports current law. Current law involves letting all the Bush tax cuts expire and for Medicare provider payments to drop so low that patients won’t be able to find a doctor.
granted, that’s a GREAT way to solve our deficit problem. But I doubt very many people support that method.
That’s funny, because you (and Ryan) forgot to mention how. Once again:
When you come back, bring details. Until then, it’s just a fairy tale for gullible cheapskates.
That’s not a bad description of the Republican base.
Well, racist gullible cheapskates.
I have a bias too but my impression is people at the top of the GOP know the the most vocal aspects of the right really doesn’t trust or care about fact checking. Are people who think Obama was born in Kenya, who think climate change is a myth but creationism is a fact, who think ACORN stole the 2008 election, etc going to know/care that what they believe is factually incorrect?
When did such flagrant dishonesty become common? I remember when Clinton lied about oral sex in the 90s and it was a scandal. Nowadays that caliber of lying is pretty mild.
I predict that this issue is going to seriously damage Ryan during the rest of the campaign. He was under the microscope for falsehoods in his convention speech and this new falsehood comes at the worst possible time. It is exactly the kind of thing that creates a Beltway “narrative”. It’s also the kind of thing that voters can easily understand unlike complex policy claims. It’s also stupid because it serves no purpose at all politically unlike ,say, the false welfare ads that the Romney campaign is pushing.