Paul Ryan

Listening to the golden boy, Paul Ryan present his argument about how to reform health care is the disease that needs to be given immediate health care attention to. Turning to the free market has failed America and he knows it and admits that too, but can't break from his party to tell the truth on how we should fix it. However, Barney Frank corners him into admitting that Republicans/conservatives, (whatever you call the party of George Bush) failed to reform health care for the eight years that they ran the country.

FRANK: I just want to ask Paul one question. … When did you figure that out? Because apparently for the 12 years that the Republicans were in control — eight of which had a Republican president — that hadn’t occurred to you. So I’m glad you now understand that. Can you tell me at what moment the revelation occurred?

RYAN: First of all, I introduced on this subject about six years ago.

FRANK: You had control of the Congress. Why didn’t the Republican Congress fix it?

RYAN: I will have a moment of bipartisan agreement. We should have fixed this under our watch and I’m frustrated we didn’t.

I doubt he's frustrated because Republicans never, ever wanted to fix health care for America. Michael Moore's movie called "Sicko" really was instrumental in shining a light on our health care nightmares to the country and made it a problem that no longer could be ignored. He deserves a lot of praise for that. And Frank gets major props for getting Ryan to admit that at least they failed under Bush. The next question is to ask the media: why then should we give a good damn about what conservatives have to say about health care if all they do is make outrageous claims about death panels and obstruct in an effort to discredit the president?



Fun with Rep. Paul Ryan

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Can you tell what Republican Congressman Paul Ryan is talking about without any sound? There could be an after-Congress career for the man from Wisconsin in Pantomime.
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10 Republican Lies for Tax Day

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The truth may set you free, but not if you're a Republican and the subject is taxes. After all, 95% of American families as promised received a tax cut from the Obama stimulus package. And while three-quarters of Americans support President Obama's proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 to their Clinton-era levels, it turns out that affluent voters, too, chose Barack Obama over John McCain. Making matters worse, a Gallup poll Monday revealed that Americans' "views of income taxes among most positive since 1956."

So as their furious followers head off to their April 15th orgy of tea-bagging, the leadership of the GOP and its amen corner in the right-wing media have instead turned to tall tales on taxes.

Here, then, are 10 Republican Tax Day lies:

  1. President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.
  2. The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms.
  3. 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
  4. Tax cuts always increase revenue.
  5. The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.
  6. Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time.
  7. FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse.
  8. Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year.
  9. Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving.
  10. The rich pay too much in taxes already.

For the details behind each of the GOP's Tax Day deceits, continue reading.

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Rob Nabors, Deputy Director for Management and Budget, gives his no-nonsense take on the so-called Republican alternative budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).

DNC leader Tim Kaine was just as dismissive yesterday.

"The House GOP budget would be just an April Fool’s day joke if it didn’t actually reflect the true priorities of House Republicans and what they would do if they had the votes in Congress to pass their own plan. Their budget relies on the failed economic policies that drove the U.S. economy into its deepest spiral in decades," he said in a statement.

"If House Republicans had their way and the budget they outlined today were adopted, President Obama’s economic recovery program, which is already saving and creating jobs throughout the country, would be gutted, Medicare as we know it would all but be all but eliminated, Social Security checks would be slashed and a proposed spending freeze on discretionary programs would cut essential services – from health care and support for veterans to education to job training - that Americans most depend on when the economy is in crisis."

The Wall Street Journal gave the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee high visibility to feature their nonsense yesterday, an April Fool's joke.


April Fools: GOP Budget a New Windfall for the Wealthy

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It may be April Fool's Day 2009, but the Republican Party is playing the same joke on the American people. After brushing off last week's calamitous Republican "road to recovery" blueprint as a "marketing document," Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP's alternative budget in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it, Ryan offers the same snake oil his party has been selling since the days of Reagan and Bush. The cure for what ails the U.S. economy, it turns out, is a massive tax windfall for the wealthiest Americans who need it least.

The new Republican budget doubles down on the wildly regressive Bush/McCain tax cutting binge American voters rejected at the polls in November. Making the budget-busting Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent, the GOP also proposes an alternative "highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates." Taxpayers making over $100,000 would see their rate drop to 25% from its current high of 35%. (Below that level, the rate drops to 10%.) Corporate taxes would also drop to 25%. While the capital gains tax rate would be frozen at its post-2003 level of 15%, the estate tax would be eliminated altogether.

The predictable result is yet another massive redistribution of the tax burden away from the richest Americans even as it produced a torrent of red ink. While the Center for American Progress concluded the Boehner-Ryan giveaway would hand an annual tax bonanza of $1.5 million to the average CEO, a preliminary analysis from the Center for Tax Justice last week concluded that by 2011, the GOP scheme would drain the Treasury to the tune of $300 billion more than the Obama plan. And as is par for the course for the Republicans, the usual upper-income suspects benefit the most:

Over a fourth of taxpayers, mostly low-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan.

The richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $100,000 less, on average, under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan.

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GOP Rep.: 'Very difficult' to block Obama budget

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Rep. Paul Ryan told Fox's Chris Wallace that Republicans in the House and Senate would have a hard time blocking President Obama's budget. "You can't stop this in the House. It is a complete majority rule. It will be very difficult to stop this in the Senate," he said.

Republicans in the House will lobby conservative Democrats to vote against the budget. Ryan said, "If you can get a few Democrats to turn, then I think you can slow this down. If not, I'm not sure you can."