An Answer to Moivory’s question on Paul Ryan

It is more than evident that the diseases of misinformation as well as blatant disinformation have taken complete control of Americans in pandemic proportions resulting in vertiginous outcomes. This morning while in the truck I was listening to talk radio as usual. Given it was too late for NPR; I turned to WAOK, a radio station in Atlanta that only promotes talk radio programming.  Unfortunately this episode was all talk, little fact and even less substance. Listening to the host, Mo Ivory, it was reminiscent of something I had read by Daniel Foster. For listening to the host ramble on about Paul Ryan, Romney and President Obama was fit of his description of being “a mélange of relentlessly provocative half-insights garbled by ponderous jargon…delivered by a narrator who seems to delight in [their] unreliability.” For as like Conservative Talk Radio, she too was all venerate in her support of Obama as they are of Conservative stalwarts – since there was nothing said to inform an already dumbed down audience.

First there was the rant that suggested since Romney introduced Ryan as the next President, that it showed he was not prepared and unfit to be President. Although several callers correctly informed her that Obama did the same thing, she asked that they show her proof commenting that they are all hypotheticals and can’t back up what they with facts. Next she attacked a caller who correctly discussed capitalism without a political slant and she cut him off saying that he was trying to make it a republican and democratic issue (she has poor listening skills). After a few statements addressed to vilify Mr. Ryan, asserting that he had ran a state or a budget, another caller confronted her on this and indicated that neither had Obama, since he had not been a governor of a state or balanced a budget (both jobs off the governor). He was attacked as well and here logic then morphed into being in state politics.

None the less her question, which she never supported or answered was would Ryan be a benefit or liability for the November 2012 election. So to assist her I will provide a substantive argument to answer her query and suggest why Ryan will be a liability. I hope if she reads this it will assist her in the future.

If President Obama had any brains, Romney’s selection of Ryan as his running mate would be like a baseball set on a tee. First, his record or lack of record over a thirteen year career in government would be the ball. During the bush years, Ryan voted for and helped to pass Medicare part D (prescription drug benefit) which just happened to be the largest entitlement since the days of FDR and added trillions to the massively underfunded Medicaid/Medicare system.  He was also one of the twenty Republicans who voted for TARP and even pleaded for others in the GOP to follow suit.  Not only did he support the bailout of Wall Street but of the autoindustry as well.

During the Obama administration, many of the issues that most knowledgeable Americans which are so vehemently against and see as a threat to individual as I do – NDAA, ThePatriot Act and Funding for the Libyan war – he voted for and helped get passed. Which reminds me that also under the Bush administration, he voted for the war in Iraq without it being paid for as a supposed conservative fiscal hawk. These are actions that some in the Tea party will not forget or forgive and will likely isolate a majority of independent voters.

Now some may say I am wrong, that his affiliation with the former senator Jack Kemp will do him some good.  I think it will work against him.  See, I remember Jack Kemp, even remember seeing him on Monday Night football playing quarterback for the Buffalo Bills and the LA Rams before that.  He is the complete antithesis of Kemp.  To start with, It was Kemp who noted and informed conservative neocons that the war in Iraq was unnecessary and would only serve to weaken America economically and bea major waste of our resources.  Unlike Ryan, Kemp has been described by some as an “optimistic realist” who authored and passed legislation for years in the congress. Ryan over his tenure in Washington as authored or passed any major legislation on his own. Not to mention I can’t ever recall Jack Kemp ever voting for a tax increase then turn around and say he was against tax hikes – as Ryan’s record reveals.  Plus Jack Kemp looked out for the poor first and was inclusive of both the poor and minorities when authoring his legislation.

Even staying on his budget may be enough for Obama to pounce.  I won’t discuss the stuff most talk about (Medicare/Medicaid, cuts in education, head start and college aid), but will point out that it does include increasing Pentagon spending by $20 billion and overall it is just a plan for facilitating a plutocratic transfer of wealth.  On second thought maybe Obama should shy away from such since his economic proposals do the same? But if he does, he should attack his logic, for Ryan blames majorentitlement programs for our impending fiscal cliff and doesn’t even include the cost of unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (if I take him from what he said in his speech to the Alexander Hamilton Society).

If Obama wanted to play dirty, he could use the Reverend Wright card and hit below the belt for Ryan’s firm belief in the philosophical views of Ayn Rand. In her 1943 novel “The Fountain head” (if you all recall or ever read it), the in the end of the book the main character blows up a home for mentally retarded orphans.  If this is too low for Obama, then attack him on his profiting on insider information to avoid the 2008 crash.  According to an article published in the Richmonder Newspaper, Ryan was part of a closed door meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and other congressional leaders on September 18, 2008 that informed the congress of the impending economic collapse and to get them to pass the TARP legislation.  The article continues: “on that very same day Paul Ryan sold shares of stock he owned in several troubled banks, and reinvested the proceeds in Goldman Sachs, a bank that the meeting had disclosed was not in trouble.” They even provide a link of PDF files of his transactions.

Now I could continue but in summary, the point is that Obama should have no problem dealing with a Romney-Ryan ticket if he has half a brain. Thus he being selected as Romney’s running mate is more of a liability in the bigger picture than an asset.