Romney Picks Ryan to Slash U.S. Government

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright August 13, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

           Picking 42-year-old House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), GOP presidential nominee former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finally revealed what he really intends to do as president:  Slash the size, influence and scope of the federal government.  By picking the ultra-fiscally conservative Ryan, Romney partners with a policy wonk who has every rationale for eviscerating the federal safety-net, balancing the government’s books on the backs of the poor, elderly, disabled and struggling newcomers.  Big vision now turns to the myopic line-items that, in Romney and Ryan’s view, contribute to the federal budget deficit and national debt.  Let there be no mistake, picking Ryan was not the safe play for Romney.  Mitt pandered to the GOP’s right wing, picking Party boss Grover Norquist’s kindred spirit, a true believer in his zealous “No Tax Pledge.” 

           With Romney and Ryan at the helm, the fix is in to reduce the size and influence of the federal establishment, including government jobs.  “I absolutely think it is game-changing, and it’s unique,” said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” who recently survived a recall vote June 5 for dismantling trade unions in his state.  For federal, state and local government workers around the country, Ryan is unions’ worst nightmare.  He believes unions are antithetical to free enterprise, not a way to protect workers against intolerable working conditions and exploitation by money-grubbing corporations, more concerned about the bottom line than employee welfare.  Arizona Senator John McCain called Ryan an “excellent choice,” the exact same language he used after picking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Aug. 29, 2008—a move that sank his campaign.

            While Ryan has more stature than Palin, he’s the policy wonk version, with every justification for slashing the federal budget.  Ryan looks at the bottom line, not the human toll on his budget-slashing decisions.  Calling Ryan a “new generation of leadership in our party and nation,” McCain said the same thing about Palin.  He promised that Sarah was the new generation of GOP leadership.  We all know what happened in 2008.  Now Romney rolled the dice with his arm broken by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.  Picking Ryan is the GOP’s way of keeping the economy as the central issue between now and Nov. 4.  Voters get a GOP team bereft of foreign policy experience, signaling they intend to slam President Barack Obama on the economy until Election Day.  Picking Ryan, Romney gets his attack dog who believes the president is a red-dipped socialist.

             Romney and Ryan want to hang the struggling U.S. economy on Obama.   They want voters to forget that the last GOP administration handed Barack the worst economy since the Great Depression, according to former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.  Greenspan speculated that under the best scenario it would take years for the economy to recover.  Yet Romney and Ryan blame Obama for increasing Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrials from 7,000 to over 13,100, adding over 4 million jobs, lowering the nation’s unemployment rate and improving the value of the dollar against foreign currencies.  When Barack took the baton from former President George W. Bush the nation was losing over 250,000 jobs a month in what Greenspan called one of the five worst financial panics in U.S. history.  Barack bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, both now thriving U.S. automakers.

            Picking Ryan was bold but not safe for Romney.  He tried to win back skeptical conservatives but does nothing to get back Christian evangelicals.  “A nation facing debt, doubt and despair,” said Ryan about Barack’s economy.  He doesn’t mention the nation faces less debt than when Obama took office Jan. 20, 2009.  Autoworkers in Ryan’s backyard in the Upper Midwest now working again have less “debt, doubt and despair.”  Wall Street investors have less “debt, doubt and despair.”  Ryan talks the GOP talk but doesn’t cite the real data showing the economy recovering from the worst collapse under the last GOP administration since the Great Depression.  “Regrettably, President Obama has become part of the problem . . . and Mitt Romney is the solution,” said Ryan, buying into Romney’s promise to create 12 million new jobs in the first four years of his administration.

            Romney picked Ryan to placate his party’s conservative base.  Like McCain in 2008, he miscalculated the needs of independent voters who currently count on Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs.  Romney and Ryan have nothing but praise for the past GOP administration that left the country in economic shambles.  They have no criticism for Bush and Cheney’s $50 billion a year Medicare Part D [prescription drug plan] or Afghan and Iraq wars costing U.S. taxpayers over $1 trillion and 6,574 deaths.  Romney and Ryan complain about adding 163,000 jobs in July but ignore the millions of jobs lost under Bush.  They both praise Bush’s $700 billion corporate bailout but rail against Obama’s $787 billion bailout that saved Detroit and major U.S. banks.  Ryan calls Obama the “problem,” Romney the “solution,” and his plan to slash thousands of government jobs “the fix.”

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2012 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.