The fiscal cliff: Which way will Paul Ryan go?
If Ryan can wring concessions from Democrats on entitlements, it could help his presidential ambitions. “If he’s running in two or four years from now he’ll be able to say [the deficit was reduced] because of my insistence on entitlement reform,” said Hoagland, who is now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Republicans feel confident in pressing for long-term entitlement reform as part of “grand bargain” negotiations because polling on Medicare during the campaign suggested the issue was not a major liability for Ryan and Republican White House nominee Mitt Romney, despite a barrage of Democratic attacks zeroing in on the Wisconsin congressman’s Medicare plan.
Eric Ueland, Frist’s former chief of staff, said Republicans recognize that Ryan might have to cede some ground in the budget talks because Democrats hold a significant amount of leverage, given that they still control the Senate and that President Obama won his re-election bid. “What he does and what he’s able to do is judged against the baseline,” said Ueland, now a vice president at the Duberstein Group.
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I know I know. Which ever way grows Government. He will do it proclaiming just the opposite though!
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:59 PM
Drop out of sight and spend the next five months at a Tibetan monastery? Spend the next five months teaching in the inner city as part of his new commitment to ending poverty in America? Get lost at sea?
Seriously, this is a no win for Ryan.
Illinidiva on November 25, 2012 at 1:59 PM
Ryan is a big spending GOP Oligarch. He’ll go the same way he went with Medicare Part D, Dept. of Homeland Security, TARP, Auto Bailouts, and so on. The GOP should voluntarily disband for the good of the nation.
Tripwhipper on November 25, 2012 at 2:24 PM
This is a no-win for Republicans. Obama laid a bitterly cynical trap with sequestration and they walked into it like the good-natured idiots they’re repeatedly proving themselves to be. Obama wants sequestration, and he will blame “radicals” in the House for causing it. No offer will be presented to Republicans that isn’t at least as toxic as sequestration itself. Either way, the economy and military are in for a massive hit in December.
The only thing I can imagine Republicans doing is to up their game and attempt to match the Democrat’s cynicism. Blitz the media (as much as possible) with the message that they disagree with the Democrat proposals in detail, but that they feel that in the aftermath of the election the American people have spoken and that they’ve no choice but to give them what they want. And that means rubber-stamping, under dramatic but meaningless protest, whatever horrific “compromise” Reid and Obama lay out for them.
This is the only way they can even hope to avoid being blamed by Democrats and their aggressive media co-conspirators for the results of the nightmare that’s coming. We can’t prevent the crime, but it may be possible to prevent the frame job.
Blacklake on November 25, 2012 at 2:48 PM
Which way did he go on tarp?
Joseph Russo III on November 25, 2012 at 3:08 PM
He voted for it and gave a big speech on the floor in support of it that was widely touted as having influenced other Republicans to vote for TARP. It’s impossible say for sure how the vote would have worked out if he had opposed bailing out crooked banks but I suspect it’s fair to say that without Paul Ryan’s support and advocacy for TARP it probably wouldn’t have passed.
The people on Fox News and other NY/DC GOP media outlets who say that Paul Ryan is the up-and-coming champion of the grass roots are nothing more than lying GOP establishment hacks.
FloatingRock on November 25, 2012 at 3:38 PM
Gosh.. as ugly as TARP was, not supporting it would have led to a complete collapse of the U.S. banking system. Paul Ryan isn’t in favor of a complete collapse of the U.S. economy for some reason.
Illinidiva on November 25, 2012 at 3:48 PM
The majority of the country voted for The Illusion.
Let them have their way. Entitling themselves to fiscal oblivion.
Which will end badly.
Maybe the pain will wake enough citizens to reverse course next time.
If not, adios America.
profitsbeard on November 25, 2012 at 3:51 PM
No, it would have led to the collapse of the crony-banks that destroyed the US economy and it would have cost a lot of the crooked politicians that the crony financial institutions bought and paid for to lose their reelection campaigns because their cronies would have been allowed to fail and would be unable to donate billions of dollars to their crooked politicians dishonest campaigns.
Passing TARP was like capping the safety relief valve on a hot water tank, explosive.
FloatingRock on November 25, 2012 at 4:02 PM
If TARP had not been passed then the crooked banks would be gone now, but the good, responsible banks would have risen in their place. If all the bad banks had been allowed to fail, as was the only moral course, then America would have fewer crooks still at the top today and more responsible banks would be in charge instead. We would all be better off.
FloatingRock on November 25, 2012 at 4:05 PM
I’m sorry.. That is the entire gist. The bad corrupt banks controlled the economy. No TARP and huge bankruptcies means that people wouldn’t be able to get money out of an ATM or access their accounts. I do think that breaking up the big banks is a good thing and that is actually something Ryan has toyed with.
Illinidiva on November 25, 2012 at 4:12 PM
Neither the nation, nor the economy, is the banking system. Letting it burn in 2008/9 would have cleared the field for those who’d stick to more rational, dare-I-say “conservative,” banking practices (think Canada). It would NOT have been TEOTWAWKI, economic or otherwise, which is what ignorant Congressmen got stampeded into thinking by those bankers who just happened to be set to receive the largess of TARP itself.
In short, things would have sucked for a shorter, sharper period of time, and then come roaring back at a steeper rate of growth than we’re now seeing. It would have happened just as it has on many occasions before, and without TARP we wouldn’t have the debts on our own books incurred by bailing out banks, either here or abroad.
Blacksmith on November 25, 2012 at 5:59 PM
More policymaking from a position of ignorance. Have you not heard of the FDIC? The Feds were already on the hook to make good your deposits. It would not have been available from an ATM, but rather via a check – so? The good banks that were not in danger of collapse would have been handily able to cash your check (or to take it in deposit for a new account). Your money was never at risk. What was at risk was the power and prestige of certain, very specific banks (and their very well-connected leadership). That’s not worth handing over the keys to the US Treasury or violating a century of bankruptcy precedent in order to protect.
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Blacksmith on November 25, 2012 at 6:09 PM