David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985 guts Ryan today

[Ian62]

Always best to use one of their own, where you can.
It carries more weight with Indie's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Paul Ryan's fairy tale budget


Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.

Indeed, adjusted for inflation, today’s national security budget is nearly double Eisenhower’s when he left office in 1961 (about $400 billion in today’s dollars) — a level Ike deemed sufficient to contain the very real Soviet nuclear threat in the era just after Sputnik. By contrast, the Romney-Ryan version of shrinking Big Government is to increase our already outlandish warfare-state budget and risk even more spending by saber-rattling at a benighted but irrelevant Iran.

....................


The Ryan Plan boils down to a fetish for cutting the top marginal income-tax rate for “job creators” — i.e. the superwealthy — to 25 percent and paying for it with an as-yet-undisclosed plan to broaden the tax base. Of the $1 trillion in so-called tax expenditures that the plan would attack, the vast majority would come from slashing popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, 401(k) accounts, state and local taxes, charitable giving and the like, not to mention low rates on capital gains and dividends. The crony capitalists of K Street already own more than enough Republican votes to stop that train before it leaves the station.

In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.

David A. Stockman, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy.”

[Berlum]

1. Ryan the "Defense Hawk" = yet another freaking Republican Chickenhawk

Republican chickenhawks like Ryan and Romney are a pathetically twisted lot.

[HiPointDem]

2. stockman mixes a lot of crap in with his criticisms of romney. such as:

"A true agenda to reform the welfare state would require a sweeping, income-based eligibility test"

bullshit.

[Ian62]

3. take the bits you want/like

they can't deny it came from a Rep.

There are some choice phrases in there.
Good sound bites for a headline or two.

You are not going to agree with it all - it came from a Rep, but a Rep that is attacking his own.
I am pretty sure most on here would agree with a lot of it, if a couple of phrases were left out.

I am pretty sure that a lot of Indie's would agree with a lot of it too.

[truebluegreen]

5. Whatever happened to...

St. Ronnie of Raygun's 11th commandment--speak no ill of another Republican? Gosh, the political world has just gotten so uncivil.

[xchrom]

4. I'm not a stockman fan but watching repukes

Devour each other is always amusing.

[King_Klonopin]

6. "broaden the tax base"

That's code for "making poor people pay income tax".

This is the ideology in a nutshell:

1) Wealthy People (i.e. the blessed job creators) who live off of their
inherited, accumulated, stolen gazillions should not have to pay
any capital gains taxes. Nothing. Zero.

2) Poor People who "don't have any skin in the game (also code for
free-ridin' freeloaders)" need to be paying taxes.

This is the most disgusting talking point I have ever heard.
It makes me cringe in insane rage whenever I hear someone
parrot it. Pure evil. The poor have "more skin" involved
than anybody. They are hurting the most, but a little salt
rubbed in the wounds is a great solution. The rich have no
skin in the game when it comes to sacrifice.

3) If we destroy the social safety net that the socialist bastard
FDR created, we will have tons of money left in the Treasury.

4) Borrow and Spend policy works great! Just ask W.

5) Austerity works great! Just ask Greece.

6) Everybody knows that the middle class gets stuck with
the bill in the end

(Can you believe Romney had the balls to accuse Obama of
having fiscal policies that would make the U.S. look like Greece !!!!)

Their values and morality are so bass-ackwards it's jaw-dropping.

Oh Yah, I almost forgot: 7) JOBS BILL ??!! We don't need no stinkin' jobs bill!!!

[tosh]

7. Great post, King.

Truly a great post.

[Thor_MN]

11. #3... If they destroy the social safety net, I want my money back

I've been paying into the system for 35 years, others longer. If they tried to dissolve the programs, there isn't going to be a single federal building left standing in this nation. There will be no tons of money, just empty places where people have reclaimed what they have contributed...

[BSUbluNorange]

8. Do Fellow Republicants Really like Stockman?

Seems like Reagan distanced himself from him during his presidency and he's kind of a black sheep... Maybe I'm wrong

[UTUSN]

9. R#21 & K n/t

[just1voice]

10. Stockman was Raygoon's "trickle down economics" guru, He's a LYING FRAUD

who just like other REPIGS is simply trying to cash in on whatever he thinks he can sell. He's spent his lifetime conspiring against Americans by spreading one lie after the other from his position of power.

David Stockman is a vile human being with no place among others in society. Rec'd that people, because it's the truth.