Paul Ryan is No Deficit Hawk

[cal04]

http://wonkwire.com/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-is-no-deficit-hawk/

Ezra Klein says there is a “misconception” about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) policy goals: “He is not primarily interested in reducing the deficit or cutting federal spending. He has voted to increase deficits and expand government spending too many times for that to be the case. Rather, the common thread throughout his career is his desire to remake the basic architecture of the the federal government.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-isnt-a-deficit-hawk-hes-a-conservative-reformer/

“Take Ryan’s budget. It’s most famous for cutting entitlement programs, particularly Medicare. But that’s not primarily what it does… The truth is that the Ryan budget’s largest long-term savings don’t come from Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security, or even Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security put together. They come from everything else… Ryan is also known as having a deep allergy to debt. But such a concern isn’t evident in his voting record…”

(snip)
Jonathan Chait points out that Ryan “spent the entire Bush administration either supporting the administration’s deficit-increasing policies, or proposing alternative policies that would have created much higher deficits than even Bush could stomach, but came away from it with a reputation as the ultimate champion of fiscal responsibility.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/paul-ryans-party.html

Similarly, Paul Krugman says that “anyone who believes in Ryan’s carefully cultivated image as a brave, honest policy wonk has been snookered… he is, in fact, a big fraud, who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility, and whose policy proposals are sloppy as well as dishonest. Of course, this means that he’ll fit in to the Romney campaign just fine.”

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/galt-gekko-2012/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto