Taibbi on Paul Ryan's budget: "Having balls is not the same as having courage"
by Gaius Publius on 4/08/2011 05:20:00 PM
Paul Krugman has been writing about the Paul Ryan deficit reduction "plan" - for example, here and a - but I like Matt Taibbi's take. The prose is full-Taibbi, as you'll see shortly; but the analysis is also dead on.
Here's his open (my emphasis):
Paul Ryan, the Republican Party’s latest entrant in the seemingly endless series of young, prickish, over-coiffed, anal-retentive deficit Robespierres they’ve sent to the political center stage in the last decade or so, has come out with his new budget plan. All of these smug little jerks look alike to me - from Ralph Reed to Eric Cantor to Jeb Hensarling to Rand Paul and now to Ryan, they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street. They all look like they sleep with their ties on, and keep their feet in dress socks when doing their bi-monthly duty with their wives.
Every few years or so, the Republicans trot out one of these little whippersnappers, who offer proposals to hack away at the federal budget. Each successive whippersnapper inevitably tries, rhetorically, to out-mean the previous one, and their proposals are inevitably couched as the boldest and most ambitious deficit-reduction plans ever seen. Each time, we are told that these plans mark the end of the budgetary reign of terror long ago imposed by the entitlement system begun by FDR and furthered by LBJ.
Never mind that each time the Republicans actually come into power, federal deficit spending explodes and these whippersnappers somehow never get around to touching Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. ... The reason for this is always the same: the Republicans, quite smartly, recognize that there is great political hay to be made in the appearance of deficit reduction, and that white middle class voters will respond with overwhelming enthusiasm to any call for reductions in the “welfare state,” a term which said voters will instantly associate with black welfare moms and Mexicans sneaking over the border to visit American emergency rooms.
As Taibbi points out, the problem is that once you start hacking at the remains of the welfare state, you start hacking at white people, especially older Republican white people. Which is why Medicare destruction is never going to happen. This is just pre-election tough talk for the cameras - and explains why they always choose telegenic "pod jobs" like Ryan (Taibbi from another context) to smear the goo. That anal-retentive Republican peas-in-a-pod look is no accident - it's the point.
Paul Ryan, like all the telegenic clones before him, is a salesman and no more, a front-runner for the eventual nominee. He's John the Baptist in a suit. Punishing Browns is the product he's hawking, the drug he's pushing. His looks and the orchestrated media praise around him are all part of an well-scripted ad campaign, and I'd bet money that millions were spent on it. I'd almost bet there was a casting call.
Rachel Maddow has been saying for a while, "It's not about the budget." How do you know? Taibbi again:
Ryan’s proposal also includes dropping the top tax rate for rich people from 35 percent to 25 percent. All by itself, that one change means that the government would be collecting over $4 trillion less over the next ten years.
Recognize that number, 25%? That's just slightly higher than the top tax rate suggested by Obama's Deficit Commission. They wanted 23%. See? Ryan looks almost generous by comparison. Taibbi's conclusion, his last two paragraphs, make an excellent bottom line. I'll tease you with just a part:
Ryan’s gambit, ultimately, is all about trying to get middle-class voters to swallow paying for tax cuts for rich people. It takes chutzpah to try such a thing, but having a lot of balls is not the same as having courage.
Looking at politics as a series of ad campaigns - cynical, scripted, coordinated, professional, and expensive - allows you to see below the skin of the world and into its inner workings. The ad campaign is not a metaphor; it's a description.
GP