Comments on: A Paul Ryan Profile in the New Yorker

By: Allen

Allen — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:04:22 +0000

Jared — thanks for this thoughtful (and very timely!) post. I have a sense that the Democrats are going to fare very well in this election because Ryan’s proposals are out there in great detail for the media and the public to scrutinize. I have a gut-level feeling that middle class Americans are getting smarter and that they’re not going to vote against their interests as they have done many times over the last 30-40 years.

-Allen

By: Mike Trant

Mike Trant — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:16:34 +0000

Thank you Jared,as always.

It is a downright shame, not to say a sad indictment of the current state of our polity, that the pronouncements of one Paul Ryan can even be considered “intellectual”.

By: Nick Batzdorf

Nick Batzdorf — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:10:03 +0000

Excellent article. I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while, and this is the best one yet.

By: Alex A

Alex A — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:51:34 +0000

Unfortunately we don’t have the stimulative effects of a WWII to precede any future cuts now do we. Cuts in education too huh? The kind that have us outside the top ten in the world in reading and science? Why does everyone want it to be a morality play? Just look across the pond to see how well taking our medicine in the midst of a depression works out. Personally I appreciate the govm’t aid that I’ve received in my life like the EI tax credits and pell grants that allowed a poor first generation college student like me to afford an undergraduate education and eventually medical school. Hard to call that depressing or not lasting…

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:55:49 +0000

Both sides of the fiscal debate point to the other and say that since things aren’t yet fixed, the other side’s ideas are failures. Intellectual honesty would reveal that the problem lies in the vitiated functioning of government that accounts for widening income disparity (lobbying, special interest spending and tax breaks, poorly conceived regulations and ineffective regulators – all exhibiting lack of objectivity and significant dysfunction).

Our local government has tried to control spending for decades. Not until the state mandated a cuts in property taxes (which fund the cities) did spending cuts actually happen at the local level. Hand-wringers said that such massive (30%) budget cuts over three years would decimate education and make the world unsafe by reducing police and fireman by one-third. Guess what, forced budget cuts caused prioritization of spending and with police and fire cuts, no new crime of fire danger emerged and the kids still go to schools.

I am not suggesting 30% cuts at the federal level, but I imagine a two-year across-the-board budget cut totaling 10% would reveal that the sky would not fall and priorities would become much clearer. Mind you, such across the board cuts would also make it more difficult for politicians to provide the special interest law-making that started 30+ years ago and continues to do the most to explain income disparity.

As to the concern that this would hurt the economy – of course it would, but temporarily like it did after World War II. We would emerge stronger and with an economy that would be vibrant enough to add jobs quickly. We have bought time with the stimulus – averting the panic made sense. It is now time to take the medicine so we can get better instead of trying to avoid a hangover via further alcohol. (If a deflationary tone emerged, then we could change course, but we have to start somewhere.)

We need a leader that tells the American people to buck up and work hard and we will get through this tough time. Instead we get a dangerous tone from Washington that if your life is not going well, no need to try harder and seek to take care of yourself because the deck is stacked against you and Washington will work to supply what you need. How depressing. Can you see the logical conclusion of this line of thinking? It will not be growth, neither will it be an increased standard of living. Initially, people might like the relief that suspension of responsibility brings, but consequently will feel resentment when they realize that they really weren’t helped in a lasting manner but end up with a more dangerous federal debt/tax burden; such a plan only helps the cynical politicians in the short run get re-elected.

By: John Nail

John Nail — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:49:20 +0000

Maybe it is not so much intellectual laziness, which it is, as Ryan’s sole educational qualification of. BA from Miamimof OH.

To put your great column in a nutshell, “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king”

The republicans are the land of the blind and Ryan a one eyed man with good hair.

By: wkj

wkj — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:10:07 +0000

More poetically stated:

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html