No politician can be perfect...and Ryan did initially vote against TARP in the House (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-101), but voted yea on the final Senate amendments ( http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml ).
Ron Paul's commentary is worthwhile:
The money for this bailout does not just materialize out of thin air. The entire burden will be borne by the taxpayers, not now, because that is politically unacceptable, but in the future. This bailout will be paid for through the issuance of debt which we can only hope will be purchased by foreign creditors. The interest payments on that debt, which already take up a sizeable portion of federal expenditures, will rise, and our children and grandchildren will be burdened with increased taxes in order to pay that increased debt.
As usual, Congress has show itself to be reactive rather than proactive. For years, many people have been warning about the housing bubble and the inevitable bust. Congress ignored the impending storm, and responded to this crisis with a poorly thought-out piece of legislation that will only further harm the economy. We ought to be ashamed.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/sp_081003_hr1424.shtml
That said, Denninger (who I respect as a financial journalist and market analyst) deconstructs Paul Ryan's GOP budget here:
Here are the facts: Your so-called "reform" won't reform anything. It will simply screw the citizens on health care, it will do nothing to fix the tax code and it won't produce the "savings" you tout.
That's a fact.
You want solutions? I've been writing on them in relationship to Health Care since the debate began. Nobody wants to have that debate in a public forum. I'm open to it - let's have at it Paul. Or anyone else, for that matter. Dylan Ratigan? Glenn Beck? Hannity? Rush? Rachel Maddow? Does anyone want to have an actual debate on the issue? If you're in the media and would have to have such a debate I'm very easy to find. Let's do it - in public. Come armed with facts and figures and we'll have at it. This nation has long-deserved such a process and it has been notably absent.
On the rest of this "proposal" all I see is moving line items from one person's balance sheet to another's, instead of actual reform and fixes. That won't do; it's a fraud and our international creditors will see right through it.
We can solve these problems, but first we have to stop lying to the American people. And despite my hope that such was forthcoming from the Republicans I see no evidence of that in Paul Ryan's proposal.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183646
It's useful and entertaining to read the comments from Denninger's faithful. This one strikes me as quite rational:
I think you are being a tad harsh here. I wholly agree with your math, the problem is politics. Ryan is going to face the wrath of Kahn trying to cut the budget - and he will be "blamed" for every ounce of pain those cuts cause. He is fighting against an entrenched "gift giving" system. Look, if the Fed were not so accommodating - buying U.S. gov't debt, then Congress might be responsive to U.S. credit weakness. And if the Fed were not so accommodating, Congress might suddenly find the cajones to "audit the Fed." But, the Fed is accommodating, so Ryan is trying to end the party while the keg is still pumping and Ron Paul has a pile of paper to review but no true audit. Ryan will be lucky if he gets $50 billion in reductions. I would give Ryan a pass on this one. In my view, the big fight is not over this year's budget, or next, it is the Fed and the fact that an unelected body of bankster sycophants controls the purse strings of the nation and has violently attacked the nation's currency and financial future in order to enrich its benefactors. Once the Fed is reined in, the market would bring Congress to heel.
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