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Congressman Paul Ryan gave the Republican response to the President's weekly address this weekend and I don't have much to add that our own Nicole Belle didn't already mention at C&L in her post on his Sunday show appearance on Meet the Press, but the Republican Party apparently wants us to take his budget proposal seriously enough that he was chosen to be their voice to respond to the President this week.

So here we go with the same old "up is down, tax cuts create jobs, let's destroy our social safety nets in order to save them and let's send the have-mores some more money because god knows they all aren't doing well enough already" business. Oh yeah -- and the country is supposedly broke, unless you look at the hordes of cash the upper 1 percent are holding onto and not being taxed on. Ryan wants us all to be scared to death about this "crushing debt" we're facing, but it's funny he didn't seem to have those same concerns when Bush was breaking the bank.

Transcript via the LA Times:

Hello. I’m Congressman Paul Ryan from Janesville, Wisconsin – and Chairman here at the House Budget Committee. It’s no secret our government has a spending problem –- and the problem has gotten so bad it’s threatening our future and hurting our nation’s ability to create jobs.

Republicans made a pledge that we would work to change this if given the opportunity to lead. Since January, we’ve been urging President Obama to listen to the people and work with us to reduce spending. The president started this year by proposing a freeze that would make no cuts at all.

But now bipartisan legislation is in sight to enact the largest spending cut in American history.

This is good news for job creators in America –- but much more has to be done to put....
... our nation on a true path to prosperity. Earlier this week, the House Budget Committee advanced a new budget for the United States government that will move the debate in Washington from billions in spending cuts to trillions.

We did so because it is unconscionable to leave the next generation with a crushing burden of debt and a nation in decline. Washington’s obsession with the next election has come at the expense of the next generation.

We are calling this budget The Path to Prosperity, because it is more than just a budget.

It is a commitment to honor the American legacy of leaving the next generation a more prosperous nation than the one we inherited.

More prosperous -- but only for that 1 percent.

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Former US Comptroller and Pete Peterson Austerity Pimp David Walker joined Andrea Mitchell's set on MSNBC to warn all of the peons that we'd better get ready to be paying more in taxes because heaven forbid we can't dare to ask the rich to do any more to reduce the deficit.

He also had some new snake oil to sell all of us with his description of privatizing Social Security; we need to make it "more savings oriented." I wonder if he's been talking to Frank Luntz? That just sounds so much nicer than saying let's turn it over to Wall Street, doesn't it? Maybe he's figured out that calling it "a cancer" like his fellow deficit hawk Erskine Bowles wasn't such a good idea. What Susie wrote in that post deserves repeating in response to David Walker here.

As I keep saying, Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program which funds itself. All Social Security needs to stay 100% funded through the next 50 years is to remove the cap on earnings placed there under Ronald Reagan as a perk for the well-to-do, and raise the rate by one percent.

To say that Social Security is part of a "cancer" as Erskine Bowles does, is the same as saying that the United States cannot meet its own bond obligations -- which is decidedly not true. But the Very Serious People, contrary to the facts spelled out by economists like James Galbraith and Paul Krugman, have decided that the best way to deal with their own gnawing sense of economic uneasiness is to grind the boot heel into the backs of the lower classes -- just to show us who's boss!

Here's more of the same nonsense from Walker. These people are determined to raid that trust fund and pretend that the United States can't meet out debt obligations if we don't.

Mitchell: Look the fiscal commission doesn’t even have anything mandatory. It’s all advisory and all the muscle from that commission was taken out because of the disagreements on the hill. Doesn’t that forecast that you’re not going to have the kind of results from this commission that is going to make a real difference in terms of the deficit or the tax climate?

Walker: Well Andrea we’re hopeful that it can make some recommendations based on the super-majority requirement. I believe it’s very possible to re-impose tough statutory budget controls next year that don’t have trillions of dollars worth of exemptions. I believe that it’s possible to reform Social Security to make it solvent, sustainable and more savings oriented.

Realistically, the two tough things that we’re going to have to do, which is comprehensive tax reform and really taking a hard look at health care costs that are out of control. Those are probably not going to be ripe until around 2013, but we need to start getting some points on the board, start doing some things sooner rather than later before our foreign lenders lose confidence in our ability to do so.

Mitchell: Mr. Walker in your recommendation that we extend the tax cuts for the middle class for all the top earners, the 2 or 3% of the top earners, would you do it even if they’re not paid for?

Walker: I think it’s highly preferable if we pay for them quite frankly but it’s important to keep in mind this. If anything is done in that regard, it should be temporary. We should not deceive the American people by letting them believe that their taxes are not going go up once the economy has recovered.

President Obama made a commitment that he wasn’t going to raise taxes on people making over $200,000 or more. That was an unrealistic commitment. Our problem is primarily a spending problem and the resolution to our fiscal challenge is primarily spending, but we’re going to need more revenues and it’s going to have to be more broadly shared than just those that are wealthy.

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President Obama went on the campaign trail this week and accused the Republicans of "peddling the same old snake oil that they've been peddling now for years." Of course that didn't sit well with conservative curmudgeon George Will who insists that it is President Obama, not the GOP that's selling snake oil.

George Will doesn't seem to have much trouble stretching the truth himself since the two solar plants he's talking about here are going to do a great deal more than just create the 1600 short term construction jobs he mentions and that's not even considering the long term benefits of building these plants other than job creation.

Obama extends $2 billion for solar plants:

While one of the projects is to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona, that will create about 1,600 construction jobs, another project is to build two new plants, that will create more than 2,000 construction jobs, and over 1,500 permanent jobs, Obama said in his weekly address to the nation.

"These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act. Already, I've seen the payoff from these investments. I've seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy," Obama said.

Obama said Abengoa Solar company has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world.

"After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it's good news that we've attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America.

In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona," he said.

"What's more, over 70 per cent of the components and products used in construction will be manufactured in the USA, boosting jobs and communities in states up and down the supply chain. Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the US to actually store the energy it generates for later use - even at night.

And it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes," Obama said.

"The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs.

A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what's now an empty Chrysler factory.

Here's George Will's interpretation. You tell me who's the snake oil salesman.

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