“Unintentionally Revealing”: Paul Ryan’s Path To Nowhere
“Why don’t you balance the budget at 24 percent [of GDP] instead of 19 percent?” I asked.
“I think it would do damage to the economy,” Rep. Paul Ryan replied.
This simple exchange from a conversation I had with Ryan in his office last October captures the uber-debate the country needs to have. That is, once we get done dissecting the deceptions, hypocrisies and regressive priorities in the Wisconsin Republican’s latest blueprint.
For starters, Ryan’s assumption that higher levels of spending and taxation would automatically hurt the economy can’t be right. If it were, America would be a poorer country today than it was a hundred years ago, when the federal government taxed and spent less than 5 percent of gross domestic product. But we’re obviously vastly wealthier. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a limit beyond which higher taxes and spending would hurt. Just that we’re not close to that point. How can we be, when President Reagan ran government at 22 percent of GDP?
Federal spending has gone from recent norms of about 20 percent of GDP to 24 percent under President Obama, thanks to the lagging economy and spending on things like the stimulus and unemployment insurance. Ryan wants to get it back to 20 percent in the next few years and return taxes to their more recent norms of 19 percent, up from today’s recession-depleted 15 percent. (The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said Tuesday that Ryan’s proposals would in fact fall dramatically short of 19 percent, but leave that aside for the moment.)
At first blush, Ryan’s plan sounds perfectly reasonable — until you remember that we’re about to retire 76 million baby boomers.
“I think the historic size [of government as a share of GDP] is about right, or smaller,” Ryan told me that day.
“But how can that be,” I asked, “when we’re doubling the number of seniors” on Social Security and Medicare, the biggest federal programs.
“Because we can’t keep doing everything for everybody in this country,” he said. “We should trim down a lot of other stuff we’re doing.”
This was unintentionally revealing. Ryan has sounded this theme before. “We are at a moment,” Ryan said in his State of the Union response in 2011, “where if government’s growth is left unchecked and unchallenged . . . we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.”
But what hammock is Ryan talking about? The only thing slated to grow the size of government in the years ahead is the retirement of the baby boomers. The doubling of the number of people eligible for Social Security and Medicare is what is driving all the increase in federal spending — along with the spiral in system-wide health costs, which afflicts Medicare along with all privately financed health care.
If those programs for seniors haven’t been a “hammock” until now, simply doubling the number of people eligible for them can’t turn them into a “hammock” tomorrow. When it comes to fiscal policy, we have an aging population challenge, and a health-cost challenge. We don’t have a “hammock” challenge.
The upshot? Ryan wants to use an aging America and the bogus but superficially appealing constraint of “historic levels of spending and taxation” to force massive reductions in the rest of government. That’s why the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and others Tuesday were already calculating that Ryan’s new plan would basically zero out everything in government a few decades from now, save for Social Security, Medicare and defense.
The crucial thing to understand about Ryan is that he is not a fiscal conservative. He’s a small-government conservative. These are very different things. The fastest-growing federal program in Ryan’s new budget is interest on the debt, which nearly triples from $234 billion next year to $614 billion in 2022. He doesn’t even pretend to balance the budget until 2040, and then only under utterly dubious assumptions.
These are not the choices a fiscal conservative makes. A fiscal conservative pays for the government he wants. Ryan wants government smaller than the one Reagan led even as America ages, and he doesn’t want to pay for it. Instead he adds trillions in new debt and makes no bones about it.
“Why would you choose to have debt, as opposed to saying we’re going to pay our own way now” via higher taxes, I asked Ryan back in October. This even after spending cuts that most Republicans think won’t command public support. “Why is that a conservative value?”
“Because of growth,” he said. “What I don’t want to do is sacrifice an entire generation to having less than optimal potential growth because their parents didn’t fix this problem.”
Huh? A cynic would say Ryan would do anything to avoid acknowledging the need for higher taxes as the boomers age. The conservative darling just won’t go there. The less charitable assumption is that the congressman is confused.
There’s more to say on Ryan’s blueprint, and, in spite of my general hostility to his thinking, he deserves credit for putting his party’s head in the noose by calling (rightly, if imperfectly) for Medicare reform. But the first order of business is to expose Ryan’s overall plan for the misguided, misleading and unacceptable vision it represents.
By: Matt Miller, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 21, 2012
“A Lying Candidate Will Be A Lying President”: More On Mitt Romney’s Lies
Is Mitt Romney a guy who tells a bunch of lies, or is he a liar? That the question Jonathan Chait asks, and he winds up sort-of defending Romney, saying that his lies, many of which revolve around his effort to deny his own history, have been practical in nature. “It’s Romney’s bad luck that fate has dictated his only path to the presidency lies in being a huge liar,” Chait says, so those lies don’t tell us much about what’s deep in Romney’s character.
There are two problems here. The first is that Romney lies about President Obama as often as he lies about himself. It’s just that when he does the former, he does it with actual squirming (if he’s sitting down), the phoniest smile you’ve ever seen, and panic in his eyes, so it’s really obvious. The second problem is that Chait’s distinction applies to pretty much every political liar in history. There’s always a reason why a politician lies. The biggest lies come when they get caught doing something they shouldn’t have (Nixon with Watergate, Reagan with Iran-Contra, Clinton with Monica Lewinsky). They might be telling themselves, “Taking responsibility is all well and good, but it’s better for the country if I get out of this scandal and continue with my duties.”
In fact, saving one’s own skin, whether from scandal or the displeasure of the party base, is a near-universal motivation for politicians’ lies. In Romney’s case, what he got caught doing wasn’t trading arms for hostages or getting serviced by a young intern, but supporting abortion rights and health care reform, which to the people whose votes he’s now seeking are sins even more deplorable. I’d argue that Romney’s lies about Obama (see here for some ) are the worse ones, because it wasn’t like some reporter backed him into a corner and he was grasping at straws to keep primary voters from hating him. He could make a critique of Obama that’s just as persuasive without making things up, but he chooses not to, fairly regularly.
So is there a real meaningful difference between a politician who’s a liar, and a politician who tells many lies? No—or, at least, none that will matter to us as citizens. Experience tells us that a guy who lies as a candidate will not only tend to lie just as much as a president, but will probably lie about the same kinds of things. If he’s lying on the campaign trail about whether he has cheated on his wife, it’s a good bet he’ll end up telling us more lies about future cheating. If he’s lying on the campaign trail about what his tax plan contains, it’s a good be he’ll end up lying to us about his tax plan when he tries to pass it, as George W. Bush did.
So the really important thing to watch out for is the guy who tells lies about policy. Which would seem to apply fairly well to Mitt Romney, whatever happens to lie deep within his heart.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, March 15, 2012
Mitt Romney: “Scourge Of The One Percent”
When Mitt Romney unveiled his new tax plan cutting taxes across the board by 20 percent in Arizona today, he pledged that he would “make sure the top one percent keeps paying the current share they’re paying or more.”
This illustrates how much the landscape has shifted in the wake of Occupy Wall Street and the broader public’s rising preoccupation with inquality. After all, only last month, Romney attacked Obama as divisive for using the 99-versus-one-percent language, which he termed as “entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.”
That aside, his rhetoric raises a question: What does his new plan actually mean for the wealthy?
I just got off the phone with Bob McIntyre, the president of the liberal-leaning-but-nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice. He says the upshot for the rich is a huge tax cut that’s paid for by cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Total taxes cut in the plan: $10 trillion over 10 years, by his calculation.
The central feature of Romney’s new plan is an across-the-board 20 percent tax cut — on top of continuing the Bush tax cuts, by McIntyre’s reading. For the top earners, that means the tax rate drops to 28 percent. The plan also cuts the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, repeals the estate tax, and maintains the current tax rate of 15 percent on income from capital gains.
Bottom line?
“The wealthy will pay far less in taxes than they do now, including a wealthy person named Mitt Romney,” McIntyre says.
McIntyre notes that the plan does allow for the closing of some loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy, but said we need more detail to see whether they will constitute anything meaningful.
The plan appears to be paid for by unspecified cuts to Social Security and Medicare. On the latter program, Romney’s plan envisions a “a premium support system that gives each senior the freedom to choose among competing private plans and traditional fee-for-service Medicare.” That appears to be a reference to the Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan.
So how does this all square with Romney’s claim above about the one percent? McIntyre says the key is that Romney said the one percent’s “share” would not drop. He didn’t say the amount the one percent pays wouldn’t drop.
“If you reduce the whole thing by 20 percent then they can go down by 20 percent and still pay the same share,” McIntyre explains.
So there you have it.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, February 22, 2012
Willard Mitt Romney Rails Against “Entitlement Society” — That Takes Chutzpa
Earlier this week, Republican Presidential candidate Willard Mitt Romney delivered a speech framing the 2012 presidential election as a choice between an “entitlement society” and an “opportunity society.”
It really takes chutzpa for a guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth to rail against an “entitlement society.” Here is a guy who got his start in life the old-fashioned way — he inherited it.
Now I realize that you don’t get to choose your parents. He had no role in deciding that he would be born into the family of an auto executive and Michigan Governor — but at least he should have the decency not to attack “entitlements.”
This is not a guy who pulled himself up by his boot-straps. His name, his family connections and — not incidentally — his money gave him a real leg up when he decided to go into the investment banking business. And let’s not forget that when he did go into business for himself, he didn’t make money building things or inventing things — or designing new products. He made money buying companies, and often breaking them up, or firing employees.
Last Sunday’s New York Times reported that Romney continued to make money from his old firm Bain Capital through his time as Governor and his attempts to run for Senate and President. It noted that much of his income is likely taxed at only 15% — though we don’t know for sure since he refuses to release his tax returns.
He is the poster boy for the one percent — and he is talking about “entitlements”?
If you ask someone on the street which kid in high school Mitt Romney reminds him of, he is likely to tell you it’s the kid who drove to school in a Ferrari and got all the socially “in” girls. He was the smug guy who knew he was set for life.
As humorist and political commentator Jim Hightower used to say of the first George Bush — Romney is a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. And he is lecturing America about the “entitlement society? ”
And let’s look at what he refers to as “entitlements.” Mainly he’s talking about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Let’s remember that Social Security and Medicare are not “entitlements” at all. They are earned benefits that people pay for through their payroll taxes throughout their working lives.
And Medicaid? It’s the program that guarantees that if you’re a child who is not lucky enough to be born into the household of an auto executive and Michigan Governor you still get health care. It’s the program that assures that if you weren’t lucky enough to have a trust fund — or if some investment banker bought your company and fired you — that you can still get treatment if you get hit by a bus. It’s the program that assures that when you’re 80 years old and get Alzheimer’s but your 401-K disappeared because a bunch of Wall Street sharpies made reckless investments and sunk the economy — you can get long-term care instead of being left to die on the street.
Then again that’s not something a guy like Mitt Romney would know about. In fact he admitted the other day that he didn’t really know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid until he was 55 years old. Guess a guy who has about $200 million in assets doesn’t have to worry about such things.
You see, a guy like Romney doesn’t have the foggiest that the government initiatives he attacks are precisely the things that actually do create “an opportunity society.”
It was the GI Bill that sent the generation of Americans that fought World War II to college. It is Pell Grants and government-guaranteed student loans that allow most middle class Americans to send their kids to college.
It was Medicare and Social Security that rescued American seniors from poverty and provided guaranteed health care and a guaranteed base income for retirement. Romney, of course, wouldn’t know how important an average $14,000 annual Social Security benefit is to an everyday senior — that’s an hour’s compensation for the high-flying Wall Street types he hung around with at Bain Capital.
No, Romney is much more interested in privatizing Social Security and Medicare so his Wall Street buddies can get their hands on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds — even though that would eliminate the guaranteed benefits that are so critical to the health and welfare of America’s seniors.
Romney and the Republicans in Washington don’t seem to give a rat’s rear about the unemployment insurance or payroll tax holiday that will expire in ten days because the House Republicans have refused to pass a two-month extension while the terms of a year-long extension can be negotiated.
Forty dollars a paycheck — the cost of the increased payroll tax bite that everyday families will experience the first of the year — may not mean much to a multi-millionaire like Mitt Romney. But to ordinary families, $40 is the electric bill or several bags of groceries — and after just a few pay periods, it begins to add up pretty fast.
Turns out that when Republicans in Washington talk about taxes, they’re not so worried about a $40 increase ordinary people will have to pay in payroll taxes every time they get a paycheck. They’re worried about million dollar tax breaks for the gang on Wall Street.
Romney doesn’t even seem to have a clue that it is funding for public education and the public infrastructure that allows everyday Americans to have an opportunity to succeed — or that government has a responsibility to jumpstart the economy so that everyday, middle class people can get jobs.
In fact, he seems to agree with the Republican leaders of the House who say that unemployment benefits discourage people from looking for work. Guess Mitt has never been one of the five people competing for every available job. Oh, I forgot, Mitt says he is “unemployed” too. Talk about out of touch.
No, Romney’s view of an “opportunity society” is one where the government does nothing to help prevent foreclosures “so the market can bottom out.” It is one where the government stands by while the American auto industry collapses and costs a million Americans their good middle class jobs.
Then again, maybe Mitt’s idea of an “opportunity society” is having the “opportunity” to win the lottery — or maybe that would be a $10,000 bet. Doesn’t everyone make those?
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, December 22, 2011
New Study: Raising Medicare Eligibility Age Erodes Social Security Benefits
A proposal to increase the Medicare eligibility age, which the Super Committee is considering, would drive up health care costs to the point where they would consume almost half of the Social Security check of a middle-class retiree, according to a new analysis by Social Security Works.
In his testimony before the Super Committee yesterday, Erskine Bowles, a Morgan Stanley executive and co-chair of the President’s Fiscal Commission, recommended raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 as a way to bridge the differences between Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee.
Bowles explained his support for the policy on the grounds that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made “other coverage available” to 65- and 66-year-olds, by providing subsidies to purchase health care in the private sector.
Bowles’ testimony in favor of raising the age comes on the heels of public endorsements by the American Hospital Association, the leading trade association for the nation’s for-profit hospitals, and the Healthcare Leadership Consortium, a consortium of health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and other medical providers.
The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, a center-left think tank, criticized Bowles’ compromise for being “to the right of Boehner’s offer to Obama in July.” They dismissed, in particular, Bowles’ reliance on the ACA to justify raising the Medicare eligibility age. Robert Greenstein, the Center’s President, wrote that without assurance that ACA will withstand overwhelming Republican political and legal opposition, Bowles’ proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age “would risk leaving many 65- and 66-year-olds with no insurance at all at the very time of life when they are developing more medical conditions and problems due to their age.”
Even if ACA is successfully implemented, however, many experts believe raising the Medicare eligibility age would be poor policy. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 would increase health care costs across the economy, saving the government little money. What money the government would save, the Kaiser study found, would come from shifting the costs of care onto patients — especially, but not only, individuals aged 65 and 66, who would no longer be eligible for Medicare.
A new analysis of the Kaiser study by Social Security Works shows that the increase in out-of-pocket costs for 3.3 million people aged 65 and 66 would take a large bite out of affected seniors’ already modest Social Security checks.
From Social Security Works’ analysis:
Of the 3.3 million people aged 65 and 66 who would pay more out-of-pocket for health care if they were no longer eligible for Medicare, the following two groups would be hit especially hard:
- Out-of-pocket health care costs would increase, on average, by $4,300 in 2014 for 960,000 people aged 65 and 66 who purchase coverage through a health insurance exchange and have incomes exceeding 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($43,560), making them ineligible for subsidies available to exchange participants with lower incomes.
- Under current law, these 65- and 66-year-old retirees’ average out-of-pocket costs would be $6,800 in 2014, out of a total Social Security benefit of $24,469. If forced out of Medicare and onto the health insurance exchanges, their average out-of-pocket health care costs would grow to $11,100, out of a total Social Security benefit of $24,469. [Figure 1] As a result, if the Medicare eligibility age is raised, out-of-pocket health care costs would go from consuming 28 percent to 45 percent of those 65- and 66-year-old retirees’ Social Security check.
Sources: Social Security Works analysis of estimates from Social Security Trustees, 2011, and Kaiser Family Foundation, 2011.
- Out-of-pocket costs would increase, on average, by $1,200 for 240,000 people aged 65 and 66 who purchase coverage through a health insurance exchange and have incomes between 300 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($32,670-$43,560). Under current law, these 65- and 66-year-old retirees’ average out-of-pocket costs would be $4,800 in 2014, out of a total Social Security benefit of $18,464. If forced out of Medicare and onto the health insurance exchanges, their average out-of-pocket health care costs would grow to $6,000, out of a total Social Security benefit of $18,464. As a result, if the Medicare eligibility age is raised, out-of-pocket health care costs would go from consuming 26 percent to 32 percent of those 65- and 66-year-old retirees’ Social Security check.
Costs to Social Security beneficiaries could be substantially higher than estimated here. The out-of-pocket costs discussed in Social Security Works’ analysis do not include the cost of medical services that are not covered by Medicare at all, including dental care and most kinds of long-term care, such as permanent residency in a nursing home. Accounting for these medical services would not have any bearing on the amount that out-of-pocket costs would increase if the Medicare eligibility were raised to 67. It would, however, show average out-of-pocket costs to be considerably larger under both current law and if the Medicare eligibility were raised to 67.
By: Daniel Marans, Policy Director, Social Security Works, Published in Huffington Post, November 4, 2011
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