Ryan Doubles Down On The Lie Your Way To The Vice Presidency Strategy.

Paul Ryan’s breathtakingly dishonest speech

By James Downie

Yesterday, at an ABC News panel, Mitt Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Wednesday’s speech from Paul Ryan certainly took that disdain for truth to heart, as his address was filled with falsehoods from start to finish.

Let’s start with the chronologically impossible. Ryan spoke about the GM plant in his hometown of Janesville:

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

Set aside the fact that Paul Ryan, in a fit of anti-Randianism, asked for government funds to save the plant. Set aside that he voted for the big-government auto bailout. Ryan also conveniently forgot to mention that GM announced the closure of the plant in early June 2008. In fact, Ryan and then-Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold (D) and Herb Kohl (D) sent a letter that month to GM CEO Rick Wagoner asking him to reconsider. This was not just before Barack Obama was inaugurated or even elected; it was the same day he won his own party’s nomination. There was no way Obama could have saved that auto plant without also discovering time travel.

Despite his problems with calendars, how did Ryan fare when it came to his own record? Well, he also inveighed against Obama on the national debt:

[Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission [, the Simpson-Bowles commission]. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

But Ryan was on that commission, and he voted against that “urgent report.” Also, the president did not do “exactly nothing”: The White House released a debt plan last September, despite Republicans’ best attempts to pretend it doesn’t exist. Finally, if the crisis is so urgent, why does Ryan’s own budget proposal not balance the budget until the 2030s?

One more example — a line from his attack on Obama’s stimulus:

The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst.

As Time’s Michael Grunwald, who has just published a new book about the stimulus, points out, “Experts had warned that 5 percent of the stimulus could be lost to fraud, but investigators have documented less than $10 million in losses — about 0.001 percent.” Solyndra has been the exception, not the rule.

These are just three examples, and there are many others: attacking the president for “raiding” Medicare when his own budget calls for cutting the same amount of money from the program; claiming fiscal rectitude after voting for the two wars, Medicare expansion and tax cuts that remain key drivers of our federal deficit; and so on.

With tonight’s speech, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have doubled down on their twin bets of 2012 — that journalists will sit back and name winners and losers without regard to who is telling the truth, and that voters are too ignorant to care about the truth. Do not let them be right.

Romney Approves Of Forcing Miners To Work For Free.

Romney tells miners 'you've got a great boss.' That boss made them lose pay to listen to Romney.

 

by Laura Clawson

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson "You've got a great boss, he runs a great operation here," Mitt Romney told a group of Ohio coal miners at a Murray Energy mine on Aug. 14, before launching into an attack on President Obama's supposed opposition to coal. That "great boss," it turns out, had made the miners' attendance at the Romney event mandatory and unpaid:

A group of employees who feared they'd be fired if they didn't attend the campaign rally in Beallsville, Ohio, complained about it to WWVA radio station talk show host David Blomquist. Blomquist discussed their beefs on the air Monday with Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore.

Moore told Blomquist that managers "communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend." He said the company did not penalize no-shows.

Because the company's mine had to be shut down for "safety and security" reasons during Romney's visit, Moore confirmed workers were not paid that day. He said miners also lose pay when weather or power outages shut down the mine, and noted that federal election law doesn't let companies pay workers to attend political events.

What does mandatory but not forced even mean? If your boss tells you something is mandatory, do you think, "Well, as long as he doesn't force me"? Facing questions from a radio host, management is now adamant that they didn't intimidate anyone and attendance was voluntary. Except that, yes, they did say it was mandatory.

This contempt for his workers is of a piece with the past behavior of Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, who, as Meteor Blades detailed, has in the past lied about the company's actions just before a fatal mining accident, and who's lobbied against new safety regulations. But of course it's this kind of mine owner who Romney chooses to praise in front of a group of miners forced to stand there without pay. He's Romney's kind of people.

Allowing The Bush High-end Tax Cuts To Expire Would Raise $823 Billion In Revenue.

CHART: How Ending The High End Bush Tax Cuts Saves Nearly $1 Trillion

By Pat Garofalo 

President Obama has promised to end the Bush tax cuts on income in excess of $250,000 when they expire at the end of the year, with his aides saying that he is “100 percent committed” to preventing another extension. Of course, Republicans are again saying that all of the cuts should be extended, even as they claim that the federal deficit is too high.

But according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office, allowing the high-end tax cuts to expire on schedule would raise $823 billion in revenue and save $127 billion in interest payments on the debt over the next ten years. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities used this chart to illustrate how much would be saved each year:
As the CBPP noted, “Overall, this would mean $950 billion in ten-year deficit reduction, a significant step in the direction of fiscal stability.” That’s nearly $1 trillion in deficit reduction for those concerned about the nation’s finances.

In addition to blowing up the country’s budget, the Bush tax cuts did not lead to the promised economic growth. In fact, the economy has fared worse under the GOP’s supply-side policies, on a slew of economic measurements, than it did when supply-side was not in effect.

Another Study Shows That The Class War Waged By The Top .1% On The Middle Class Has Been Very Successful.

STUDY: Middle Class Suffered ‘Worst Decade In Modern History’ As Wages Stagnated, Share Of Income Fell

By Travis Waldron 

The middle class is shrinking, and so is its share of America’s income and wage growth, according to a new study released Thursday. The study from the Pew Research Center found that the middle class — defined as Americans with incomes between $39,000 and $118,000 — fell backward in income for the first time since the end of World War II, and the number of Americans who fit into that category shrunk from 61 percent in 1971 to just 51 percent in 2011.

The share of income that went to the middle class also fell during the first decade of the 21st century, a 10-year period that featured two damaging recessions, including the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and a major housing crisis. The share of income that went to the wealthiest Americans, however, has grown substantially since 1970, as the Washington Post notes:

In 1970, the share of U.S. income that went to the middle class was 62 percent, while wealthier Americans received just 29 percent. But by 2010, the middle class garnered 45 percent of the nation’s income, tying a low first reached in 2006, compared to 46 percent for upper-income Americans.

Since 2000, the median income for America’s middle class has fallen from $72,956 to $69,487.

The Pew survey is the latest to note rising income inequality in America as the middle class continues to struggle while the wealthy remain relatively prosperous. Income inequality in the U.S. is now comparable, if not worse, than it is in countries like Ivory Coast and Pakistan, as middle class wages have stagnated. A 2010 Census Bureau study found that incomes for the bottom tier of Americans fell four times faster than they did for the wealthiest after the recession.

The “lost decade” for the middle class corresponds to declining tax rates for the wealthy and a growth in corporate profits. In the last 12 years, incomes for the wealthiest 400 Americans quadrupled even as their tax rates were halved, and executive compensation has grown 127 times faster over the last three decades than worker pay, one study found.

Romney Is Perfecting "The Big Lie" By Only Allowing Reporter Questions About What He Wants To Lie About.

Mitt Romney Campaign Forbids Reporter From Asking About Todd Akin, Abortion

  By Sabrina Siddiqui 

A Denver reporter granted a one-on-one interview with Mitt Romney Thursday said she was instructed not to ask him any questions about abortion or Rep. Todd Akin's (R-Mo.) controversial comments about victims of "legitimate rape."

Shaun Boyd, a reporter for Denver CBS affiliate KCNC, was one of four local reporters to speak with Romney, according to the newscast. She said on air that the Romney campaign had set pre-conditions before allowing her to interview the candidate.

"You know, I had about five minutes with him, and we got through a fair amount of material, actually, in that five minutes," Boyd said on-air. "The one stipulation to the interview was that I not ask him about abortion or Todd Akin -– he’s the Missouri Republican who created a firestorm after saying women’s bodies shut down in a legitimate rape to prevent pregnancy. I did ask him about health care, the female vote, and energy."

President Barack Obama's campaign has also been criticized over its handling of local interviews. According to reports, the president recently granted interviews with local TV stations designed to focus on sequestration.

Yet the Obama campaign insists it did not "dictate the topics" of questions that could be asked, as the Romney campaign appears to have done.

A Great Election Poem By A Fine And Very Clever 92 Year Old Retired Judge And W.W. 2 Veteran.

Ralph Maxwell

WHEREFORE ART THOU, MITT ROMNEY?

By Ralph Maxwell

O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
You flip-flop here, you flip-flop there,
You flip-flop almost ev'rywhere.
You ballyhoo what you're gonna do
And then you pull a switcheroo;
You now malign what you found fine;
Seems like you've got a jellyfish spine.
Obamacare, by you begun,
Now you'd trash it on day one.
Gun control you did extol,
But now you're preaching decontrol.

O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
We've got no clue what you will do
Or what new view you'll pander to.
Time was you championed women's choice,
But you no longer heed their voice;
On gay rights, too, guess you withdrew
Support they once enjoyed from you.
Global warming, EPA,
Immigration, minimum pay,
Roe V. Wade, also fair trade,
All joined your flip-flop cavalcade.

O, Romney-O, Romney-O Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
So many things that you were for
You've turned against and slammed the door.
Stimulus and cap and trade,
Education, foreign aid,
Campaign reform, tarp rescues, too,
All victims of your switcheroo.
You take your stand on shifting sand,
We never know where you will land;
You vacillate, and you fabricate,
A wishy-washy candidate.

O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney?
As gov'nor you let taxes rise,
Now ev'ry tax you demonize.
You say regardless of the facts
You'd take an axe to the millionaire's tax;
You'd feed the greed of the richest few
The poor and middle class you'd screw.
Your tax returns you hide from view
What evil lurks there we've no clue;
If they're not bad why hesitate?
Is it that they incriminate?

O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney?
At Bain you plundered with a flair
And walked away a zillionaire.
You shipped off-shore, good jobs galore
To China, India, Singapore;
A job creator you are not.
And to boast you are is tommyrot.
As a total fraud, Mitt's got no peer;
What we must do is crystal clear:
Let's give Obama four more years!
Yes, it's Obama – four more years!
FOUR MORE YEARS!
FOUR MORE YEARS!
FOUR MORE YEARS!

Paul Ryan"s Budget Shows Him Not To Be A Deficit Hawk But A Snake Oil Salesman For The 1%

An Unserious Man

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 19, 2012

 

Paul Krugman

Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate led to a wave of pundit accolades. Now, declared writer after writer, we’re going to have a real debate about the nation’s fiscal future. This was predictable: never mind the Tea Party, Mr. Ryan’s true constituency is the commentariat, which years ago decided that he was the Honest, Serious Conservative, whose proposals deserve respect even if you don’t like him. 

But he isn’t and they don’t. Ryanomics is and always has been a con game, although to be fair, it has become even more of a con since Mr. Ryan joined the ticket.

Let’s talk about what’s actually in the Ryan plan, and let’s distinguish in particular between actual, specific policy proposals and unsupported assertions. To focus things a bit more, let’s talk — as most budget discussions do — about what’s supposed to happen over the next 10 years.

On the tax side, Mr. Ryan proposes big cuts in tax rates on top income brackets and corporations. He has tried to dodge the normal process in which tax proposals are “scored” by independent auditors, but the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math, and the revenue loss from these cuts comes to $4.3 trillion over the next decade.

On the spending side, Mr. Ryan proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, turning it over to the states while sharply reducing funding relative to projections under current policy. That saves around $800 billion. He proposes similar harsh cuts in food stamps, saving a further $130 billion or so, plus a grab-bag of other cuts, such as reduced aid to college students. Let’s be generous and say that all these cuts would save $1 trillion.

On top of this, Mr. Ryan includes the $716 billion in Medicare savings that are part of Obamacare, even though he wants to scrap everything else in that act. Despite this, Mr. Ryan has now joined Mr. Romney in denouncing President Obama for “cutting Medicare”; more on that in a minute.

So if we add up Mr. Ryan’s specific proposals, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by around $1.7 trillion in spending cuts — with the tax cuts, surprise, disproportionately benefiting the top 1 percent, while the spending cuts would primarily come at the expense of low-income families. Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars.

Yet Mr. Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk. What’s the basis for that claim?

Well, he says that he would offset his tax cuts by “base broadening,” eliminating enough tax deductions to make up the lost revenue. Which deductions would he eliminate? He refuses to say — and realistically, revenue gain on the scale he claims would be virtually impossible.

At the same time, he asserts that he would make huge further cuts in spending. What would he cut? 

He refuses to say.

What Mr. Ryan actually offers, then, are specific proposals that would sharply increase the deficit, plus an assertion that he has secret tax and spending plans that he refuses to share with us, but which will turn his overall plan into deficit reduction.

If this sounds like a joke, that’s because it is. Yet Mr. Ryan’s “plan” has been treated with great respect in Washington. He even received an award for fiscal responsibility from three of the leading deficit-scold pressure groups. What’s going on?

The answer, basically, is a triumph of style over substance. Over the longer term, the Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it — and in Washington, “fiscal responsibility” is often equated with willingness to slash Medicare and Social Security, even if the purported savings would be used to cut taxes on the rich rather than to reduce deficits. Also, self-proclaimed centrists are always looking for conservatives they can praise to showcase their centrism, and Mr. Ryan has skillfully played into that weakness, talking a good game even if his numbers don’t add up.

The question now is whether Mr. Ryan’s undeserved reputation for honesty and fiscal responsibility can survive his participation in a deeply dishonest and irresponsible presidential campaign.

The first sign of trouble has already surfaced over the issue of Medicare. Mr. Romney, in an attempt to repeat the G.O.P.’s successful “death panels” strategy of the 2010 midterms, has been busily attacking the president for the same Medicare savings that are part of the Ryan plan. And Mr. Ryan’s response when this was pointed out was incredibly lame: he only included those cuts, he says, because the president put them “in the baseline,” whatever that means. Of course, whatever Mr. Ryan’s excuse, the fact is that without those savings his budget becomes even more of a plan to increase, not reduce, the deficit.

So will the choice of Mr. Ryan mean a serious campaign? No, because Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV.