Krugman: A Public Service Reminder: Paul Ryan is a Con Man

[ProSense]

A Public Service Reminder: Paul Ryan is a Con Man

So now that the Unperson/Ryan ticket has lost, Republicans are clearly expecting Paul Ryan to move right back into his previous role as Washington’s favorite Serious, Honest Conservative.

He might get away with it; but I hope not.

The fact is that Ryan is and always was a fraud. His plan never added up; it was never, contrary to what people who should know better asserted, “scored” by the CBO. What he actually offered was a plan to hurt the poor and reward the rich, actually increasing the deficit along the way, plus magic asterisks that supposedly reduced the debt by means unspecified.

His genius, if you can all it that, was in realizing that there was a role — as I said, that of Honest, Serious Conservative — that self-proclaimed centrists desperately wanted to see filled, so that they could demonstrate their bipartisanship by lavishing praise on the holder of that position. So Ryan did his best to impersonate a budget wonk. It wasn’t a very good impersonation — in fact, he’s pretty bad at budget math. But the “centrists” saw what they wanted to see.

- more -

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/a-public-service-reminder-paul-ryan-is-a-con-man/

[GoneOffShore]

1. Thank you and shared on my Facebook page.

The comments at the Times article are pretty good as well.

[gollygee]

2. It worked for his purposes, as it was never intended to protect the poor

He's a believer in Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. Their only goals are to privitize everything, end corporate and bank regulation, and reduce labor costs. Hurting the poor reduces labor costs, so his plan was great as far as that goes.

The con is that neo-liberals don't tell people honestly what is involved with their plans, because obviously the more people know about it, the less they'll vote for it.

[Mc Mike]

3. Sometimes he's an ultra-fundamentalist Catholic,

when it comes to being anti-women's rights, anti-gay, anti-health care. But he turns into an Ayn Rand atheist when it comes to any social justice or social safety net issues. He's deeply religious and believes religion is a sham.

Neither type of repug minds his flip-flops, the labels are just convenient pegs for them to hang their nazi ideological hats on.

[CrispyQ]

10. +1

Well said!

[freshwest]

17. +1

[Fumesucker]

4. It's not the right that's really the danger to the nation so much as it is the centrists

It's the centrists who slurp the vomit of false equivalency, of both sides do it, Cokie Brooksian, David Robertsonian moderation.

Every time the right wing nutbags get the helm of our ship of state they put the rudder all the way over in their favored direction, then the centrists with the desperate vote of the left manage to wrestle the controls back for a brief moment and grudgingly put the rudder amidships, all the while telling the left to quit whining about purity, and then they expect that to correct the overall course. Then the RWNBs take over again and we rinse and repeat.

All the crowing over the anticipated demise of the Republican party is just plumb stupid, IMO. We are dealing with the walking dead here and they have more money than God, Allah, Yahweh and the Great Pumpkin put together. They will find another angle to divide the population and the Mighty Wurlitzer of the Corporatarchy will play a slightly different but catchy earworm scored for dogwhistle and orchestra.

The bottom line is that people are for the most part not paying strict attention and are easily tricked into voting against their own best interests, it's not just older white people they are only the most obvious marks of the latest scam. There are an infinite number of scams a well funded and motivated scam artist can run.

[RC]

5. And here is the problem in a nut shell -

...then the centrists with the desperate vote of the left manage to wrestle the controls back for a brief moment and grudgingly put the rudder amidships, all the while telling the left to quit whining about purity, and then they expect that to correct the overall course.

We go evermore to the Right, never correcting for that hard right of the rudder. We need to turn that rudder over to the Left, way passed midships to correct our course. We aren't doing that. The new Rightward direction becomes the new normal, the new Center. Never mind with each repeat, we keep going more and more to the Right. We are kinda like that frog in the ever increasingly hot water.
To mix metaphors, our goose is being cooked.

[HiPointDem]

26. +1. When Jeb Bush & Obama are making common cause on education policy,

you know something's out of whack.

[madokie]

20. If I could recommend a reply this is the one I'd recommmend

Spot on

[tex-wyo-dem]

21. +++1000

That's some serious truth you're spittin', Fumesucker!

[FSogol]

6. K & R. n/t

[mountain grammy]

7. Gee, Wolf Blitzer still believes

and we'll have to leave it there.... saw a post of him "destroying" DNC Chair, Wasserman-Shultz. But, wow golly gee, what a surprise. She was correct!! He's just right, way way right.

[Pakid]

8. If Paul Ryan's kind ever told the truth about what they want to do to America

they would be tared and feather and run out of town on a rail. That is a sight I would love to see. Like other here have said the other danger is our so called liberal media. I wish we did have a real liberal media but we don't. Every once in a while they do there job but only when they feel that they have no other options. How do you wakeup a nation when about 50% of the people have and don't want to have a clue about the truth when it comes to what todays Republicans have become?

[DallasNE]

9. I Have Always Considered Ryan's Budget

In the same light as Bush's belated plan for Iraq. It was a thin document that kept repeating the words "clear, hold, build". Ryan's budget is another thin document that can be summarized as "gut, gut, gut" while being devoid of specifics.

[vlyons]

11. A Catholic misogynist, who worships Ayn Rand?

That's quite a con job. Need I say more?

[snagglepuss]

12. .

[mojowork_n]

13. P.R. gets the benefit of a lot of media P.R. What we need from him next

...is a good sex scandal. Like a lot of other con men, his kinks aren't likely to be nearly as midwestern mayonnaise on white bread with cottage cheese as you'd take him for. At first glance.

Lewis Black to Steph Miller on Lyin' Ryan. (Starts about halfway through the clip.)

http://current.com/shows/talking-liberally/videos/lewis-black-is-enlightened-with-paul-ryans-wolf-eyes/

[Spazito]

14. No wonder the repubs' various election 'get out the vote" programs didn't work....

They think Ryan is a numbers whiz which tells me they can be sold a phony bill of goods by just about anyone including software programs that don't work, budgets that don't add up, a VP candidate who really isn't a wonk or a serious, honest conservative and is, instead, a grifter.

[mstinamotorcity2]

15. Paul Ryan is a Snotty-Nosed Brat!!!!

He is a creature of opportunity!!!! He came to Congress and quickly learn which side of the bread the butter was on. He is a benefactor of all things Government. The very things that were provided to him he now wants them done away with. And really the truth is he has sided with big business and wall street to keep a continuum of low suppressed wages in this Country. Which is like a flame and gasoline. One day it will ignite just from the fumes. Paul ryan being chosen by Boehner is a strategy move to me. Paul Ryan's state was bluer than blue. He has issues. Not to mention the STENCH of the GOP Conservatives on him. which makes it hard to be in the same room. A lot of house races were close as all get out. Ryan was no exception. that Personhood Bill put a target on him. He was flying below the radar and the GOP put their boy out Front and Center. He may be in politics, but the credibility of his word will be non-existent.

[William769]

16. "Honest Conservative"?

I haven't had a good laugh like that in a long time!

[Electric Monk]

18. k&r

&u&g&m&a&n

[Cha]

19. He Fooled Senator Ron Wyden, right?

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/13/683201/ron-wyden-pushes-back-at-mitt-romney-linking-him-to-paul-ryans-plans-for-medicare/

EDIT: Maybe Wyden will think twice before teaming up with a scam man again?

[Ikonoklast]

22. There is a very good reason why Ryan never wants to discuss 'his' budget.

Every time he is asked to expand on the particulars of it, he says that either they don't have enough time to discuss it, or it's too difficult for those of lesser intellect to understand.

People that have no clue as to what they are talking about say things like that in order to derail discussion.

Ryan is a fraud that doesn't understand the budget handed to him by others to push through Congress, and neither do any of the other right-wing asshats that support it.

[libodem]

23. Clean House in the House

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. a very important message which cannot ever be repeated often enough - postd on my Facebook

[struggle4progress]

25. "... he’s a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like ..."

November 18, 2011, 12:45 pm
Delusions Of Mobility
Paul Krugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/delusions-of-mobility/