Paul Ryan

Sometimes there no joy in being right. Sometimes it's just no fun to say "I told ya so." This is one of those times.

Depending on whom you ask, Mitt Romney choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as a running mate is either inspired or insane; bold or boneheaded; a opportunity for meaningful debate or a triumph of theory. But without a doubt, Romney's pick or Ryan as his running mate has revived the Ryan's seminal budget document, The Path to Prosperity, which would end Medicare as we know it back in the spotlight. (It's OK, really. There would still be a program called "Medicare," but the resemblance would end there.) This is already turning in to bad news for the campaign, as Romney can't win without Florida, and it seems neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan can show their faces down there right now.

But a few people have noticed something I pointed out at length about a year ago. He may want to give Medicare a witness-protection-style makeover, but Paul Ryan still wants to gut Medicaid. Apparently, so does Mitt Romney.

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What the Republican budget proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan doesn't say is in many respects more ominous than what it says—and on taxes, perhaps more indicative of the truth. more »

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The most important thing the President said about the Republican Budget in his big speech Tuesday was when he described just some of the damage it does, and said, "This is not an exaggeration. more »

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In a speech today President Obama called the Republican proposals a "prescription for decline." The President reminded listeners how we got where we are -- Republican policies that led to collapse -- and said that Republicans are now "doubling down" with their new budget.

In the speech, the President said that the country tried tax cuts under Bush, with bad results, more »

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Europe's in crisis. Unemployment is at a fifteen-year high after climbing for ten straight months, thanks to the austerity measures imposed on it by conservative leaders in France, Germany, and the international financial community. more »

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River City faces a terrible deficit, and if we don't cut spending on the things We, the People do for each other right now, there will be trouble. We gotta do some austerity! We gotta eat that seed corn. We gotta stop taxing the 1% and stop paying for things the 99% need! more »

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In 2010, Christopher Beam reported that Rep. Paul Ryan (WI, R) required his congressional staff to read Ayn Rand's Objectivist tome, Atlas Shrugged (now a major motion picture). Ryan has made no secret of his admiration for Rand's philosophy, and has cited her as "the reason I got into public policy." (He's not the only one. Kentucky's aptly-name, big-oil-glorifying Senator Rand Paul is another.) Whether Ryan still makes his staff slog through Rand's work, is anybody's guess. But his latest budget proposal — unanimously approved by House Republicans, and embraced by all-but-inevitable Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — makes it clear that he and the rest of the GOP want very much to make the rest of us slog through a world redesigned according to Rand's worldview.

What exactly is that worldview? And what would a world designed according to its dictates look like? I'm glad you asked.

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Today, 228 House representatives -- all Republicans -- voted for a budget that would give every millionaire a brand new $265,000 tax handout, cut funding for the poor by $3.3 trillion, privatize Medicare, and more »

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