Ryan Republican Rubbish

The three “R”‘s: Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic. Or as of today: Ryan’s Republican Rubbish.

The budget proposal unveiled with great fanfare by the Republican leadership is a farce. The numbers are so other worldly it takes a great deal of effort to keep a straight face. I still harbor doubts about its intent. I wonder whether it isn’t some silly sophomoric joke being played on the media. After all the right-of-center media has pronounced that the earth moved and, at last, someone has made a serious attempt to deal with the deficit “crisis”. That someone being the heroic and evidently stupendously stupid Paul Ryan.

Let’s see now.

Real estate construction is going to boom. Not just recover from its bubble induced disaster, but boom. Despite the evidence that prices are beginning to fall again, and construction is at all time lows.

Unemployment is going to drop to 2.5%. It’s a miracle! Yes 2.5%. The last time that happened in the US? Don’t bother looking it up. Try never. At least in an economy not influenced by war. Yes, we had unemployment that low just after World War II. Since then? Nope.

Then discretionary spending, which is the dribs and drabs of the budget outside of the big four – those being Social Security, Medicare, Offense, and Interest on Debt – is going to disappear almost entirely. It is going to drop from its current 12% of total spending to 3.5% of total spending in 2050. How? Who knows? There is no information in the plan. None. This line item includes education, justice, foreign aid, and so on. Presumably in the Ryan nirvana we don’t need those things. Please don’t ask where these cuts are coming from. It’s a mystery. That, I suppose, makes it all the more inscrutable. And fun. These are, apparently, good qualities in economic policy making.

The list of insane assumptions goes on. That anyone could possibly take this plan seriously is truly odd. Only a committed right winger hoping for the GOP to get real about the evils of big government or the assumed debt crisis could read beyond the first page. The rest of us give up somewhere around the second line. It is that bad.

No. It is beyond that bad.

Set aside the obvious ideological arguments about whether there is a debt crisis – I say no – and let’s accept that we need to do some cutting. So we begin in Republican territory as we discuss what to do about this supposed problem. I would have thought that they would then have produced a serious plan. One that was attached somehow to planet earth. This one isn’t. In no way can we take this so-called plan as a blueprint for policy. Not a single piece of it is tenable.

That Ryan is already ordained as the new face of sensible, grown up, economic policy discussion is a testimony to the combination of gullibility and flat out ignorance of our media when it comes to anything remotely economic. They haven’t a clue. Not one whit of one. If they accept this garbage at face value they are … well words fail me.

Oh. And I didn’t tell you that the conjuring tricks Ryan pulls include more tax cuts for the wealthy. Is that a rabbit I see in that hat. I believe it is.

But here we are. Discussing it. That alone should tell us all we need to know about the state of our discourse.

From my point of view the logical process for discussion should include, up front, a debate about whether there is a true fiscal crisis. We should then identify the causes of whatever problem we think exists. Only then should we articulate responses.

Ryan has swept through the first two steps. The Republicans take it as established fact that there is a crisis. They then produce this fantasy solution. The entire debate is truncated, and focused on getting more tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by trashing all services provided by the government. This simple minded and politically motivated attack would destabilize the middle class, create a permanent poverty ridden underclass, and reduce business by draining demand from the economy. It seems to be built upon the utopian and puerile ideas of libertarianism coupled with the equally infantile dreamscapes of right wing economics. That’s exponential stupidity. It is bizarre.

I can understand a right wing argument based upon truly grown up analysis and thought. I don’t agree, but I recognize that sensible people can, and do, hold those views. Ryan’s plan, however, falls short of any reasonable standard of adult argument. The country needs to go through a cathartic debate about the cause and effect of various economic policies. A sensible right wing contribution to such a debate would be very valuable. It would act as a terrific counterpoint to a left of center description of the accumulated errors of the Reagan/Bush doctrine that produced the Great Recession. But we cannot have a critique of that doctrine if its defenders are incapable of coming up with ideas based here on earth.

Then again, right wing economics has been in fantasyland for the best part of seventy years, if not more if we go all the way back to its Walrasian roots in 1870. So I suppose it was inevitable that right wing politics would feel comfortable joining it.

My fear is that we will not have the debate we needed in order to correct course and avoid further decline. No one can debate with lunacy like this. Perhaps that was the intention. If so it is deeply disturbing that one of our two major political parties has decided that a comedy routine can substitute for policy discussion.

As for the other party … don’t get me started. Their ineptitude is what opened the door for Ryan to display his imbecility. I imagine Obama is already searching for ways to embrace the central message of the Republicans. It is when outrageous and plainly made up stuff masquerades as serious policy proposals that nations decline. The well of innovative or clever though has clearly run dry. We now reach the denouement where the clowns entertain us as we sink below the waves.

Is America that sick? The next few months will reveal all.

One thing we do know: the Ryan plan is not worth discussing. But we are. That’s not a good start.