This week, House Republicans selected Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as the next chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. That lofty perch, the AP was quick to proclaim, gives Ryan "a high-profile platform if he decides to run for president in 2016 or beyond."
But that's not the only perk for Mitt Romney's 2012 running mate. His plans to privatize Social Security, shelved due to their consistent unpopularity, will be back on the front burner. Ryan's ploy to ration Medicare by replacing the guaranteed system of government insurance for the elderly with an under-funded voucher scheme that will dramatically shift healthcare costs to seniors will return as well. Despite having repeatedly warned America about "takers" and lazy men "in our inner cities" who are turning "the safety net into a hammock," Chairman Ryan is recasting himself as an anti-poverty crusader. And above all, Paul Ryan wants to use his move from the Budget to the Ways and Means Committee to advance his dream of tax reform that "lowers rates and broadens the base."
But to realize his dream, Congressman Paul Ryan is perpetrating the greatest public policy con game since Arthur Laffer first sketched his laughable curve. Faced with the inescapable historical truth that tax cuts don't pay for themselves but instead have only increased the national debt and income inequality, Ryan turned to a three-part fraud to deceive the American press and the American people. Call it Paul Ryan's triple scam:
- Promise to Close Trillions in Tax Loopholes. Needing to find almost $6 trillion over the next decade to fill the massive revenue hole left by his tax cuts, Ryan promises to end or limit many of the myriad tax breaks, loopholes, and credits that cost Uncle Sam about $1.3 trillion a year.
- Refuse to Say Which Loopholes. Ending popular tax breaks, many of which benefit the middle class, is politically dangerous. So when pressed, Ryan refuses to name a single loophole he'd close, or say it's someone else's job to figure that out.
- If the Math Still Doesn't Work, Change the Way Math Works. When it comes to the ending $500 or $600 billion in tax breaks every year, the politics of producing a "revenue-neutral" budget are brutal and the math is even worse. So Paul Ryan is demanding the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) use so-called "dynamic scoring" to magically generate new revenue from the extra economic activity his rate cuts theoretically produce.
As you'll see below the break, Ryan's triple scam has been underway for almost five years.
understand there is no plan coming from the republicans that benefits you that doesn't render it null and void by the riders that are their ulterior motives that is why we never get anything but broadly worded already said by the Pres. that they never intend to implement, look at now the 20th day after midterm and see all the obstructionist rhetoric, finger pointing and threats and suits to Pres. and the same weak vague references to what they want but never with any meat on those bones, to say we're going to focus on jobs well they told that lie in 2010 got elected anybody out there get a job directly because of republicans or did your unemployment get crushed at Christmas time while they went home with holiday cheer for their families, how was your holiday?
