Originally Posted By FaMulan <<as long as his policies don't take away from people << Donny, I'm lifting this to try to show you something. This now-presumptive Republican ticket wants to "privatize" Social Security. A program every legal working citizen pays into their entire working life. They want to take it away from you. Stating what you did above, how can you vote for people who want to take away a program you and all us other working Americans have paid into?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Of course, there was also the great moment when Romney introduced Ryan as "the next President of the United States!" before correcting himself. Freudian slip, a la Norquist? I'm sure the Daily Show will be showing that on Monday, along with Romney with his arm on Ryan's shoulder, looking at him and saying "Sometimes I've been known to make a mistake." They'll have fun with that. And then show the full context of what Romney said next. And I don't expect to see these gaffes repeated out of context in any Obama campaign ads. However, we've seen that the Romney campaign (not superpacs, but the campaign itself) is very much not above taking quotes out of context and letting them STAY out of context, in a deliberately dishonest way. Two I know of (and there may be more - I live in NY and we don't see all the ads) are the one with Obama saying "If we talk about the economy, we will lose" - which was from 2008, with Obama quoting McCain as saying that, but presented dishonestly as though it was Obama saying that in his own words. And then there's the "You didn't build that" ad which left out the context of Obama meaning that no businessman built the roads and bridges and other infrastructure necessary for businesses to thrive. So I was struck by the fact that Ryan used the dishonest line "If you have a business, you built that!" in his rollout speech. In a 30 second attack ad, sadly, we've almost come to expect crap like that. But in your rollout speech? Paul Ryan: slick and dishonest from the get-go.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 One more question I haven't seen addressed anywhere yet: Remember when Lloyd Bentsen was Dukakis's running mate? I remember hearing at the time that "according to Texas law" he could run on the presidential ticket AND still run for re-election for senate from Texas. So that even if the Dukakis ticket lost, he could still win his senate seat (and of course, both of those things happened). Because at the time they said "according to Texas law," it makes me wonder what Wisconsin law is. DDMAN, do you know? Can Ryan run for his House seat simultaneously? Or will he be out of the House now, whether Romney wins or loses?
Originally Posted By DyGDisney >>>Stating what you did above, how can you vote for people who want to take away a program you and all us other working Americans have paid into?<<< Because FOX News and the TeaParty tells him to.
Originally Posted By 182 Fa Mulan Paul Ryan, in a March 2005 interview on C-SPAN, described his Social Security plan in detail. His bill would have allowed people under 55 to divert roughly half of their payroll taxes away from the traditional program and into a private account "owned" by the individual but managed by Social Security, and invested in stocks and bonds. "Individuals own their own retirement accounts that are invested in markets and stock and bond indexes and things like that," Ryan said of his plan. "The system is off the hook to pay you that part of your benefit from those dollars, because you're going to get that benefit out of your personal retirement account. Because the system's off the hook to pay you that benefit, the system reduces its expenditures by that amount, that helps bring the system into solvency." Ryan said his plan would work to guard against wild swings in the stock market by moving people out of stocks and into government bonds as they approached retirement. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-social-security_n_1767292.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ons-2012</a> I like it.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "WE PROMISE EQUAL OPERTUNITY,NOT EQUAL OUTCOME" Paul Ryan So Ryan can't spell, either?
Originally Posted By FaMulan That's very stale information, seven years out of date. It's not going to change my mind.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox John Nichols of The Nation magazine has been following his home state politics in Wisconsin for years. This article about Paul Ryan is definitely worth a read: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/169285/paul-ryan-seriously" target="_blank">http://www.thenation.com/blog/...eriously</a>
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I like it." I absolutely f'n guarantee you don't understand one bit of it. You just do what you're told.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 That's the same plan that Bush famously and disastrously tried to push on us in that same period, early in his second term. Remember when he said he was going to use the "political capital" he had just won in the 2004 election (even though it was a squeaker) for one big proposal - and that was it. And the more he talked about it, the less people liked it. People understand that the stock market is volatile. (And boy do they understand that better than ever after 2008). Most people have stocks already in the form of 401ks or IRAs that are invested that way. Social Security was never intended to make people rich. It was intended to provide a certain minimum floor. And by having part of your retirement invested in (risky) stocks and part of it in the guaranteed form of Social Security... that's in itself what you call diversifying assets. People understood that. They didn't like the Bush privatization plan at all. And it's essentially the same as Ryan's. Who really benefits? Wall Street. Fund managers who take their cut. They make out like bandits.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>"WE PROMISE EQUAL OPERTUNITY,NOT EQUAL OUTCOME"<< They can't even promise the first part. They don't even try for the first part. In fact, they explicitly work against the first part. People really need to realize that the game is rigged.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox How convenient that Donny misses two very important points about Ryan's budget: 1) Privatizing Social Security will kill disability as we know it. Anyone who becomes permanently disabled or cannot find an employer who will accommodate their disability if they can still work (that percentage of disabled workers has been steadily increasing, btw) will be screwed to the wall for the rest of their lives. 2) Ryan wants to privatize Medicare and abolish Medicaid. Even if your 'private' Social Security investment nets you over a million dollars in your lifetime, your medical costs as a senior citizen will eat them up before you die. Guaranteed. So when you run out of funds when you develop Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or one of dozen common maladies seniors develop, forcing you to live in a nursing home, how will you pay for it without Medicare and Medicaid? Even the cheapest nursing homes available today where two or three beds are crammed into a tiny room cost at least $7000 per month. Most nursing homes cost closer to $10,000 per month, even in the middle of nowhere where the attendants make minimum wage. Private insurance premiums and co-pays will eat up most of your non-Social Security investment dividends before you even need a nursing home. And without Medicare and Medicaid to help foot the bill, you won't have enough funds to pay for more than one year of care. Why would you 'like' this?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I just read that Wisconsin law allows Ryan to run for re-election even though he's on the presidential ballot, just like Bentsen. I kind of figured it would - my guess is since he's considered a "rising star" in GOP circles, he wouldn't have accepted the nomination if he'd thought he'd be out of a job entirely if Romney lost.
Originally Posted By ecdc Well, that was fast. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWyk-Mr6cfc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...k-Mr6cfc</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 They probably correctly perceived that Romney was going to cave to the far right (again) and pick Ryan.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Here's my two cents on why Romney picked Ryan. I believe the GOP leadership has already quietly conceded the Presidency amongst themselves, and is now focusing their efforts on Senate and House races. The reasoning being that another Obama term won't mean bupkis if Republicans can control both chambers and the Federal pursestrings that go with them. So... the GOP was backed into a corner. The base pretty much hates Romney, which creates the inherent danger that many will do as William and DD have already proclaimed, and stay home on election day. They needed some bold move to fire up their teabagging base and guarantee their turnout at the polls in November. The only way the GOP can win the Senate and keep the House is for every single registered Republican to turn out and vote. And offering up the teabagger poster child of Paul Ryan helps to achieve that goal.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder From Ryan's wikipedia page: "Graduating from Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville in 1988, Ryan was voted prom king and "Biggest Brown-Noser" by his classmates.[14] He went on to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, returning to Camp Manito-wish YMCA, to work as a staff member and counselor during his college summer vacations.[15] He worked as a salesman for Oscar Mayer, driving the Wienermobile.[16] During his junior year at Miami University, Ryan worked as an intern opening mail for the foreign affairs advisor assigned to Senator Bob Kasten of Wisconsin.[17] Ryan graduated from Miami University with a BA in economics and political science in 1992. He also studied at the Washington Semester program at American University and was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity. Following his studies, Ryan briefly returned to Wisconsin and worked as a marketing consultant for a construction company run by his relatives."
Originally Posted By mawnck >>They probably correctly perceived that Romney was going to cave to the far right (again) and pick Ryan.<< I guarantee they had one uploaded and ready to go for every plausible candidate. If it had been Donald Trump, it would've taken them a few more hours to throw something together.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I guarantee they had one uploaded and ready to go for every plausible candidate. > Possibly. <If it had been Donald Trump, it would've taken them a few more hours to throw something together.> Because it was implausible, or because there'd be too much material?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <voted prom king and "Biggest Brown-Noser" by his classmates.> That doesn't surprise me. I've long looked at Ryan and seen oily, naked ambition. Sorry if that mental image is a little hinky.
