* Greg Hinz reports on Democratic attempts to tie Mitt Romney’s new running mate Paul Ryan to congressional Republicans…
The party’s House campaign committee Tuesday began aiming mass robocalls into several swing Illinois districts, seeking to tar local GOP candidates with the Ryan brush.
For instance, one call being placed in the north suburban 10th says, “Your Congressman, Robert Dold, voted for a budget that would end Medicare, and now the budget’s architect, Paul Ryan, is the Republican candidate for Vice President.
“A nonpartisan analysis showed that Ryan’s budget would raise health care costs for seniors by $6,400. The Tax Policy Center also said the Ryan budget would give people making over $1 million a year an average tax break of $265,000. And Congressman Dold supported all of it.
“That’s just wrong.”
Team Dold replies that the bill in question would “preserve and strengthen” Medicare and allow those over 55 to stay in the current system — though potentially with fewer benefits. Team Dold further notes that the plan originally was drafted by not only Mr. Ryan but Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
That’s true. But Mr. Wyden has since backed away from the plan. It’s also true that the Congressional Budget Office concluded that seniors would have to pay more under the proposed system.
* Another robocall script…
Hi. This is Julie calling from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to alert you to a new development about Medicare.
Republican candidate for Congress Jason Plummer supports a budget that would end Medicare and now the budget’s architect, Paul Ryan, is the Republican candidate for Vice President.
A nonpartisan analysis showed that Ryan’s budget would raise health care costs for seniors by $6,400. The Tax Policy Center also said the Ryan budget would give people making over $1 million a year an average tax break of $265,000.
That’s just wrong.
Call Jason Plummer at 855-527-6612 and tell him to stop protecting millionaires at the expense of Medicare and the middle class.
Plummer is debating Democrat Bill Enyart and Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw tonight at 7 o’clock. Ryan will likely be a big part of this debate. The one-hour forum is sponsored by WSIU Public Broadcasting, the Southern Illinoisan, Belleville News-Democrat, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, and the Jackson County League of Women Voters. You can watch it live at thesouthern.com and bnd.com.
* More Ryan react from Democrat Bill Foster…
“Governor Mitt Romney’s choice of Congressman Paul Ryan, creator of the Republican budget that Congresswoman Biggert voted for that decimated Medicare, left Seniors with a bill of $6,000, and raised taxes on the middle class, all in order to protect tax cuts for corporations and billionaires, just shows how out of touch the Republican party is with ordinary people,” said Bill Foster.
“Congresswoman Biggert called the Ryan budget the best choice for Illinois, but in reality it was the best choice for the most wealthy people and for the corporations that fund her campaigns. The decisions made by Congresswoman Biggert are a clear indication of the direction she and her party have taken, where money and power is rewarded with tax breaks and favorable legislation. America’s economy is at it’s best when the middle class prospers. We need people in Washington who will stand up for middle class families.”
Judy Biggert, the Republican candidate for the 11th Congressional District, released this statement:
“Paul Ryan is an exciting choice for Vice President. He’s a smart, dynamic leader who has never been afraid to roll up his sleeves and dig in to the tough issues. He cares deeply about bringing fiscal sanity to Washington and growth back to our economy. And Americans are ready for strong leaders with the passion and expertise to turn our economy around and get people back to work. Paul Ryan has that, and he brings Midwestern common sense and simple clarity to the debate that will serve him well, especially when it comes to turning back the misleading attacks that he’ll face on the trail. Voters like facts more than attacks, and he’s a guy who can deliver.”
* Related…
* Biggert, Foster clash on blame for state of the country: “You Democrats have never talked about anything that you’re going to do. It’s always what we did wrong and what’s wrong with what we’re going to do,” said Biggert, 74. She also said she preferred to “look to the future,” then contended the housing market collapse began during the Clinton White House through policies that allowed people to buy homes “when they should be renters.”
* IL GOP VIDEO: Democrat Brad Schneider supports Radical ‘Occupy Wall Street’
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:32 am:
I think Romney wrapped Ryan around their necks for them. Odd choice. Don’t see what he brings to the table. If Romney loses Ohio and/or Florida by a point or two, he’ going to be sad he didn’t go with Portman or Rubio.
- Billy - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:33 am:
Of course the Democrats are running a negative presidential race, since Mr. Obama does not want to run on what a lousy job he has done as president!
- paddyrollingstone - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:37 am:
Billy - it ain’t beanbag.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:43 am:
–She also said she preferred to “look to the future,” then contended the housing market collapse began during the Clinton White House through policies that allowed people to buy homes “when they should be renters.”–
Gee, and I thought homeownership was the great goal of Thatcher, Reagan, Kemp, etc. And you must be a dumb property owner if the renter isn’t covering the cost of your mortgage.
Biggert’s economics and history are warped. Banks loved those high-interest loans when housing prices were on a steady rise.
They couldn’t lose. If borrowers could make the high-interest nut, great. If they couldn’t, you could foreclose on a higher-valued property, turn around and originate another high-interest loan (with all those fees and points) and start the process all over again. And baby, that drove the economy.
The problem was taking those subprime loans, bundling them as AAA securities and using them to lend on a 30-, 40, or 50-1 capital-asset ratio.
When the bubble burst, real estate crashed and those underlying securities were junk as were the loans they backed.
To say some schmuck who tried to buy a house with a high-interest loan crashed the economy is absurd.
- Ghost of John Brown - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:46 am:
If people are scared of the cuts that Ryan has proposed - one simple question:
When our debt to GDP ratio gets over 100%, then hits 125%, etc., will that be worse for the country than any cuts that Cong. Ryan has ever proposed?
We have passed the time that we can continue to stick our heads in the sand about the deficits and our debt. If that can be the centerpiece of the discussion, then Ryan will be a huge asset to the team. If the debate is all about “sock puppetry”, then all bets are off, which is why VP Biden equated the budget to “putting people back in chains”. It’s time for serious discussion instead of the kind of goofiness that the VP just put out.
- Plutocrat03 - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:56 am:
“high-interest loan crashed the economy is absurd.”
However when tens of thousands took out loans that they had no chance to repay, as well as those involved criminal behavior preying on the system defaulted, that did crash the system. It’s simple economics.
Plenty of blame to go around starting in the days of another heroic President - Jimmy Carter.
- grand old partisan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 11:57 am:
Would have been asking too much for Hinz to point out that the call’s lead attack – that the Ryan budget would “end Medicare” – is blatantly false?
I’m so glad that Romney picked Ryan, precisely because of this issue. I can’t wait for him to turn to Biden during the debate and say: “Joe, your generation has earned it’s Medicare benefits and I wouldn’t do a thing to change the system that you paid into. But everyone – and I mean everyone, including your own administration – knows that the system, as is, will be bankrupt before Generation X can start collecting the benefits that we are paying for now. This is personal for me, and for my kids. I have a plan to reform the system so that it can be sustainable across the generations. If you have your own plan, I’m all ears. Let’s debate the pro’s and con’s of each of our plans. But if you don’t have a plan, stop standing in the way of those of us who do. Tell your former colleagues in the Senate to stop standing in the way of the bi-partisan efforts to create a sustainable Medicare system for today’s workers and their children.”
- Adam Smith - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:00 pm:
Resorting to outright lies is common in politics but it is all the Dems seem to be able to do.
They know the Ryan budget will not “end Medicare.” That’s just a lie.
But it is the kind of cynical lie that campaigns with no record or solutions resort to.
The Democrats say they will keep Medicaid just as it is. That is also a complete lie. Obamacare changes it radically, including cutting funds and gutting Medicare Advantage. The Dems will also have to do something in about ten years when there is not enough money to pay for the current Medicare. What will they do then? Keep everything the same? Doubt it.
The Democrats are scared of a real discussion of the hard choices that we face because of their abject incompetence and are throwing rhetorical bombs everywhere they can to try and distract and confuse voters. They know it can work. And they know it is their only hope.
- Way Way Down Here - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:08 pm:
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never understood how Obama can be so incompetent on the one hand, yet be in charge of a huge multi-decade conspiracy to turn the good old US of A into the 98 pound weakling of nations. You wouldn’t think he could pull that off.
- Shore - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:15 pm:
It will be harder to use Ryan against Republicans than I think Democrats realize. It takes time for house members, even those like ryan on a national ticket to really sink in and for those attacks to resonate.
- illilnifan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:16 pm:
Interesting how the Ryan budget with cuts to the middle class does nothing to reduce the debt
it continues to grow to 4.9 trillion from 3.6 trillion and a June study from the Joint Economic Committee claims middle-class married couples could pay at least an extra $1,300 under Ryan’s plan, while those earning more than $1 million a year could see a nearly $290,000 cut.
- yinn - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:20 pm:
Ghost of John Brown: Our debt to GDP ratio is already over 100%, just as it was after WW2. (Japan’s is over 200% - their economy is sluggish but still no sign of imminent collapse.) What we did then was a lot of infrastructure spending along with a very progressive tax structure that gave us primary surpluses over a number of years.
Adam Smith: I haven’t heard anybody say that the Ryan plan would end Medicare. I’ve heard people say the plan would end Medicare as we know it, which this inadequate voucher plan most certainly would do.
- Colossus - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:20 pm:
WWDH: The same way George Bush couldn’t spell his own name yet masterminded 9/11 as an inside job.
Or how Paul Ryan is the smartest man in the room while Sarah Palin is a lightweight fluff, despite the two of them agreeing on just about everything.
The answer is cognitive dissonance and an inability to look at reality when it is unpleasant.
- illilnifan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:21 pm:
To Adam Smith, read the CBO report on the Ryan plan, you are correct it does not end Medicare but the cost to you will go up “Under the proposal, most beneficiaries who receive premium support payments would pay more for their health care than if they participated in traditional Medicare under either of CBO’s long-term scenarios. CBO estimated that, in 2030, a typical 65-year-old would pay 68 percent of the benchmark under the proposal, compared with 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario and 30 percent under the alter-native fiscal scenario.”
I think that says Medicare will change with you having to pick up to close to 2/3 of the cost vs. 1/3. That is not small
- girlawyer - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:22 pm:
But Illinfan, you forgot about the magical part of the plan. True, the massive social cuts won’t offset the massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but the magical growth that will occur will take care of that!
- Deep South - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:23 pm:
Can I watch the debate live on WSIU-TV?
- Way Way Down Here - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:40 pm:
I think I had me some of that cognitive dissonance in the 70’s.
- illilnifan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:40 pm:
thanks girl lawyer, but to quote a famous song line “do you believe in magic”
- Fed up - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:44 pm:
Rich Is today’s shooting Joe Bidens fault for his assinine rhetoric or is the blame game a one way street
- Way Way Down Here - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 12:44 pm:
Deep South
Yes you can.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:10 pm:
However when tens of thousands took out loans that they had no chance to repay, as well as those involved criminal behavior preying on the system defaulted, that did crash the system.–
You could keep the lend-and-foreclose industry going until Judgement Day as long the underlying asset — the property — kept increasing in value and supporting the securities.
In fact, foreclosing and flipping the houses was the bread and butter of the industry.
Again, when the bubble burst, and the properties supporting the securities went underwater, it pulled the rug out from the high capital-to-assets loans.
- Grandson of Man - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:17 pm:
The Democrats are doing a smart thing, and polling data may support them. Approval of Congress has tied an all time low, at 10%, in a Gallup poll released yesterday. According to the news article, ever since the Republicans took over last year, Congress passed only 90 bills. This year, less than 2% have become law. This Congress passed fewer laws than even the “do-nothing Congress” of 1948.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:28 pm:
Excellent and timely report profile on Ryan in the New Yorker earlier this month.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_lizza
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:36 pm:
@grand old partisan -
If a bunch of hippies bought out White Castle and started making their sliders out of ground lentils, would you still call it a “hamburger?”
Of course not.
Paul Ryan’s plan so radically undermines the fundamental design and guarantee of Medicare that it is no longer Medicare.
You can call a dandelion a “rose,” but its still a dandelion.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:37 pm:
And yes, Democrats are gonna wrap the Paul Ryan budget around Republicans like a burrito.
- downstate hack - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:48 pm:
Democrats who spend so much time attacking Paul Ryan should remember that such critism puts a spotlight on Joe Biden, who seems be be getting stranger every day.
- Ghost of John Brown - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:50 pm:
yinn - Really? A comparison to post WW2 debt?
- Most of the other industrial nations were bombed to smithereens, so we were one of the only producers still left - somewhat of a monopoly.
- We didn’t have but a tiny fraction of the entitlement programs that we did back then.
- The economy was booming from pent up spending
I think you should probably look at the details a little closer.
- just sayin' - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 1:52 pm:
Under the Ryan plan Romney would have paid less than 1% in federal income taxe last year (because almost all of Romney’s income was investment income that Ryan would exempt).
That fact is impossible for Romney/Ryan to sell. As someone said, this is the worst merger since AOL/Time Warner. Not only is Romney toast, all Republican candidates should be worried.
- grand old partisan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 2:18 pm:
=== Paul Ryan’s plan so radically undermines the fundamental design and guarantee of Medicare that it is no longer Medicare.
Thanks a very interesting line of argument, YDD. If Obama and/or Biden were smart, they would say something very similar to that in the debate.
But you and I both know that is not the message the DCCC is trying to send here – otherwise it would have included the more common “as we know it” verbiage. This is nothing but a shameless scare tactic intended to make older voters think that Ryan is trying to end a program that they paid into - a charge that is simply, utterly and undeniably false.
Call is a rose, call is a dandelion. Call it whatever you want. I’ll keep calling it what it is: BS
- Lakewood-Balmoral - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 3:14 pm:
Anyone else laughing at that Brad Schneider video?
- Team Sleep - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 3:36 pm:
I HATE D.C. TALKING POINTS!!!
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 3:39 pm:
@Grand Old Partisan
“End Medicare as we know it” makes sense if you’re comparing similar Items.
As in:
“New Coke ends Coke as we know it.”
But the Ryan Plan isn’t “New Coke.”
Its more like Diet Sprite.
- Grandson of Man - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 3:40 pm:
I read that Paul Ryan’s family got rich from government contracts, and that though he was against the federal stimulus, he was seeking stimulus funds in 2009 for job creation and environmentally friendly stuff like clean energy and conservation.
Per Ryan, his budget calls for getting Washington out of the way of private enterprise.
There seens to be a lot of rope here.
- kimocat - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 3:54 pm:
GOP -Ryan’s plan for Medicare is not exactly a “gift” for your kids and grandkids. By the time they get old enough to be eligible, that great government voucher ins’t going to be worth much compared to the costs of healthcare. And you really ought to consider the harm that Ryan would do to today’s Medicare recipients as well. If you start removing the younger end of Medicare recipients from the program, you end up with a smaller and smaller pool of sicker, older people whose costs increase with each passing year — no younger elderly coming into the mix any more. No one will want to treat them and Medicare’s buying power goes way down. In addition, you fail to mention the draconian cuts to Medicaid funding in the Ryan budget — about 40% of that go toward long term care. And being from Illinois, you should know the state can’t make up for all of that. Don’t forget that given his druthers, Ryan would have privatized Sodcial Security as well. The guy is poison.
- late to the party - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 4:09 pm:
Pluto -
I would venture to guess that since credit has been available, millions of people have taken out loans they couldn’t (and didn’t)for whatever reason repay. The only difference in the 2000s was, as wordslinger described, the securitization of these loans and the lack of oversight and capital requirements on the new products.
- late to the party - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 4:17 pm:
“Dems try to wrap Paul Ryan around Republicans’ necks”
They shouldn’t have to try. It’s Rep. Ryan’s budget. He created charts and a website and everything. The House GOP voted for it and passed it. Gov. Romney said it was a good budget and that the Senate should pass it and the President should sign it. It’s the GOP’s budget.
The headline should read “Romney, Ryan and the rest of the GOP try to run away from their own budget.”
- grand old partisan - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 4:37 pm:
YDD – we are comparing similar items: two systems for using government collected funds to pay for health insurance for retirees.
Kimocat – how would you propose reforming these entitlements so that they become sustainable over multiple generations? The Obama administration, by it’s own admission (via the Treasury Secretary’s testimony before the House Budget Committee) has no plan to reform a system that is’ own actuaries acknowledge is rapidly approaching insolvency. If you don’t like Ryan’s plan, where is yours?!?
- Anon - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 5:00 pm:
Ryan was a great pick. He’s young and likeable, and a great complement to Romney. Makes Biden look even older and meaner. R&R are definitely going to win the election.
- Holdingontomywallet - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 9:01 pm:
Obama probably wishes that Ryan was his Vice President after the week Biden has had. It’s only Wednesday. Biden probably has 3 or 4 more gaffes in him by the end of the week. I can’t wait to see the debate betweem Biden and Ryan. Maybe Biden can “tap-out” around the 30-minute mark…
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 15, 12 @ 10:11 pm:
–yinn - Really? A comparison to post WW2 debt?
- Most of the other industrial nations were bombed to smithereens, so we were one of the only producers still left - somewhat of a monopoly.
- We didn’t have but a tiny fraction of the entitlement programs that we did back then.
- The economy was booming from pent up spending–
Ghost of JB, you speak some truth there, you old Keyensian. But there was no pent up spending after WWII, because there was no money in a fully mobilized wartime economy.
But you’re close. I don’t ever want to hear you dissing Detroit, considering they geared up for an industrial plant that produced half the internal combustion vehicles in the world and crushed the Nazis. God bless them, always.
I guess if we had kept our boots on Japan and Germany’s necks, they still might. But that’s not how we rolled in Sunday school, so Detroit had to gear down.
The infrastructure improvements of the New Deal, followed by the universal mobilization of WWII, pulled the country out of Depression and laid the tracks for the greatest advancement of wealth for the most people in history. No argument.
The housing and education guarantees of the brilliant GI Bill (virtually no defaults) sent the United States economy through the roof. Not loans, daddio, guarantees. Big difference.
Couple that with the Marshall Plan, which the Commies could not compete with, and it explains why hairy-ass hillbilles like me got in our cars, drove from our houses, and wandered around magnificent grocery stores.
Meanwhile, the Commies schlepped out of their crummy apartments down to their corner stores to cue up for hours for Old Ivan Skullpopper and Redwook Bark Toilet Paper.
Don’t you all get it? We won. Nobody has done it better. Don’t believe the well-compensated Murdoch haters and yabbos who tell you differently.
As Pres. Nixon said, there’s never been a better place to be than the United States right now and you better believe it.
We have to cleve ourselves from the cable morons and the Wall Street gangsters who are in for the quick and cheap score.
And we have to stop pretending we’re fighting the Wehrmacht or Red Army rather than a bunch of punks on the Khyber Pass.
Then, we’ll all have a little more money in our pockets.