You’ve probably already seen this: http://www.theliberaloc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/AynRandVersusJesus.jpg
You mean defense? Bring it on. It should be on the table as well. Between Medicare, Medicaid, SS and defense, that’s about 2/3 of the budget, last I checked.
And the modest drop from 2009 to 2010 notwithstanding, we are still closing in on $4 trillion.
And you’re making the same “tit for tat” mistake. It’s not about giving up more taxes in some fair proportion, not if we don’t significantly overhaul entitlements. “We gave up something, now you give up something” doesn’t do shit. We have an unsustainable model. It needs to be redesigned, drastically. Ryan is one of the few people willing to acknowledge this. Let’s eliminate “waste.” Let’s raise taxes on the wealthy. Fine. If that’s where we stop, we’re still heading for the cliff.
I, and the CBO, disagree. Under current law, the deficit drops to $200 billion in 2022. That’s if Congress does nothing. It will verage 1.5% od GDP fom 2013-2022. http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42905
Well, darn that Obama and his Social Security! When did he sneak that in on us?
Is it just me or do so many lame portraits of Jesus make him look totally gay?
Well, at least Ryan would approve. 
This is persuasive. I hadn’t thought of that. And you called this before the announcement?
Well, we’ll see. It’s hard to read a presidential contest as a referendum, with everything else going on outside that issue. But yeah.
Yeah, I thought of that.
Really? Wow.
That’s plenty of reason for me. Wants to keep subsidizing fossil fuels, but not renewables. And he voted to ban family planning funding in foreign aid. (May 2001)
Still, I think Romney may pull it out. Paul Ryan’s such a horrible candidate from a lefty point of view that the Democrats may get complacent. And Ryan is reasonably personable, and could win over people who are easily won over by the man-pretty, and those freaky pale blue eyes. They creep me out, but there is presumably a base for that.
Well, much as I dislike what I know of Paul Ryan’s stances on issues and budget proposals, I have to say this much for him: like any politician, he made a bunch of campaign promises, but unlike them he did do seven of nine.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79607.html
Bullshit! They hated it. I wish you guys could just stop spouting false statements.
That’s a different Ryan. You think Romney would pick the sex club guy for his VP?
I’m still considering this development, but from this thread it looks like it’s solid in one respect at least: shifting the debate to Obama’s weakest ground, the economy (at least insofar as the deficit, and by extension all of fiscal policy, applies to that). Whatever Paul’s weaknesses, I imagine the Obama team will have to scramble a bit to adjust tactics. And as Sun Tzu would acknowledge, forcing the enemy to meet you on your own terms is at least half the battle.
Hmm… you’re not the guy that used to run around Wash DC tackling women in order to rip their shoes off and smell their feet… are you?
That refers to the budget deficit, do you realize that? That says that our current almost $16 trillion in debt will only have $200 billion added to it in the year 2022–plus all the intervening budget deficits that will push the debt up to, I don’t know, some number they may need to invent. That is better than the $1.1 trillion the current budget will contribute to the national debt, to be sure, but it’s still a red number in a long, uninterrupted line of red numbers that lead back to an already unsustainable level of debt. Fiscal sanity does not that way lie.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You should check out
Post 22… 8.
(Yeah, so that didn’t rhyme. Oh well.)
Not only that, but “current law” assumes that ALL the Bush tax cuts will expire. That’s something that not even the Dems agreed want to happen. So we use pretend numbers and still come up with a scenario where the debt is increasing dramatically for the next ten years and still adding to the debt.
Everyone says that Keynesian economics allows for deficits and that we should quit complaining. But everyone always leaves off the second part of the theory: That in normal or good years, the budget should be balanced or have a surplus to use to pay down the money you borrowed in the bad years. The interest that we have to pay on the debt is theft from the next generation who will have to pay for what we have consumed. It has to be gotten under control. If that means that social security or medicare or defense spending has to be scaled back, then I’m glad that we have a candidate who is telling the hard facts instead of misleading with numbers.
If only you had been able to offer the content of 228 at the time you offered post 217, it wouldn’t have had such an air of fecal matter around it. As it stands, you selected one poll to support that seems to be at odds with a host of subsequent polling - see the link to politico that i have provided above.
Does it really seem likely to you that seniors would favor a plan that does away with Medicare?
But the plan doesn’t do away with Medicare for current seniors. Further, if they can be convinced that the alternative is better for their children, then of course they will support it.
Here’s my problem which may turn into a legal issue. Ever since I started work at age 16, I’ve paid Medicare and Social Security taxes. The promise made then was that I could receive Medicare at 65 and would receive Social Security at age 65 (or age 62 with reduced benefits) That was the “debt” that the government incurred to me when I began paying.
How can they now raise the age for SS or Medicare (or replace Medicare with a different system) when they promised something different? Isn’t it a breach of a contract or at minimum “questioning” the debt owed to me under the 14th amendment?
It would seem to me that the Ryan plan would have to start with young people who have yet to pay a dime into either of these taxes. And I say this as a supporter of Ryan’s plan, but it seems unfair to change the rules once something’s been promised.
Actually the bottom line (and it is at Gallup in that case) is that: