Paul Ryan Isn't Exactly Miss Popularity Any Longer Inside The House GOP Caucus

Brought to you by our creative friends on Wall Street

Paul Ryan may be Big Business's Golden Boy-- the one they've tasked with their long-term dream of shredding the social safety net and doing away entirely with Medicare and Social Security-- but many Republican Members of Congress are wishing they'd never heard his name. In the House they all-- except for 4 wily enough to look down the road a piece-- got suckered into voting for his extremist Budget, what he calls his "cause," that was inspired by the "Greed Is Good," explicitly anti-Christian ethos of Ayn Rand. Last weekend when he said he knows that many Republicans may lose at the polls because they supported his budget but that he didn't care, that was probably the last straw for many of them. Senate Republicans are begging Harry Reid to not force them to vote on Ryan's budget. Republican senators Susan Collins, Rob Portman and Lamar Alexander have already gone on record opposing Ryan's extremist proposal. Wednesday 11 of them broke the GOP filibuster of the hated judicial nominee Jack McConnell as a gesture of good will.

Even Boehner started backing away from it once the public started expressing their rage and disapproval, calling it "just an 'idea' and that he wasn't 'wedded' to." And Wednesday night it started leaking out that the Republican leaders are giving up on Ryan's whole idea-- at least for now-- of gutting Medicare.

Senior Republicans conceded Wednesday that a deal is unlikely on a plan to overhaul Medicare and offered to open budget talks by focusing on areas where both parties can agree, such as cutting farm subsidies.

On the eve of debt-reduction talks, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) said Republicans remain convinced that reining in federal retirement programs is vital, but recognize they may need to look elsewhere to achieve consensus.

As TPM put it so gracefully yesterday, well over 200 Members of his caucus just walked the political plank for nothing. The GOP presidential candidates don't want to be asked about Ryan's budget. A sociopath like Rick Santorum may be screeching about how his only concern is that it doesn't end Medicare soon enough but the ones who are trying-- desperately-- to pass for normal are running from it as fast as possible. Wednesday Pawlenty refused to comment and said he'd have his own budget plan. But he isn't the Chairman of the House Budget Committee who's "cause" (to gut Medicare) virtually the whole Republican House Caucus had just voted to go along with-- before getting scared out of their wits by senior citizens (i.e., likely voters) mad as hell. Republican politicians can't be happy seeing a plethora of articles like this in places like the Wall Street Journal: Voters Dislike GOP Plan to Change Medicare, Medicaid. They liked it more when Villagers were heralding Ryan as courageous for stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Changes to Medicare and Medicaid remain wildly unpopular and more than two-thirds of registered voters want to repeal Bush-era tax cuts for households that make more than $250,000 a year, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

More than twice as many voters oppose efforts to change Medicare than those who favor limiting benefits under the popular health-care program for seniors. And a distinct majority opposes new limits on Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor.

What’s worse for the GOP, the numbers don’t change much when voters were told how much federal spending Medicare and Medicaid consume.

Will that translate into 25 lost seats in 2012? And what about Ryan's own seat? Next year he'll be facing the first serious opponent he's ever had since first being elected, Kenosha Co. Supervisor, Rob Zerban. This morning Zerban told us that voters he's talking to are seeing Ryan in a whole new light now. "Yesterday he proven again how out of touch he is with his constituents, voting to keep subsidies in place for oil and gas companies. People in the 1st CD are continually voicing their concerns for the future of their children and grandchildren with his budget to end Medicare, and repeal the healthcare act." [You can donate to Rob's campaign directly at StopPaulRyan.] If the DCCC were competent they wouldn't be looking at 25 red seats switching over; they'd be on the road to 50 or 60. Tying Republicans who voted for Ryan's "cause" (all of them but 4) should be enough to wipe them out. Wisconsin's most celebrated political journalist, John Nichols, explained very thoroughly what the DCCC-- which has studiously ignored Ryan since he was elected to Congress-- should be tying their targets to.

Paul Ryan, the smooth-if-not-always-substantive congressman, is the darling of the D.C. talk shows. The House Budget Committee chair, chosen by GOP House leaders to respond to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, is the prime pitchman for the Wall Street lobbying agenda on everything from privatization of Social Security to tax cuts for the rich. During Congress’ spring break, he took his show on the road.

Ryan, R-Janesville, may have thought that his carefully crafted sales pitch for pulverizing Medicare would play perfectly in Paddock Lake and Milton and Kenosha-- Wisconsin towns where the congressman expected to be greeted with cheers for a conquering hero from inside the Beltway.

As it happens, hundreds of Ryan’s constituents were turned away from the town hall meetings, which were packed to capacity long before their starting time. But the crowds that did get in to the sessions did not exactly come to hail their congressman as an American idol.

Outside the cloistered confines of Capitol Hill and the few blocks of southern Manhattan where he is a hero, the congressman had a hard time peddling his fiscal snake oil.

And in Kenosha, Ryan bombed.

When he claimed that he was serious about balancing the budget, someone in the crowd shouted: “That’s not what the Congressional Budget Office says.” And the room erupted with cheers for the correction of the congressman’s attempted deception.

When Ryan claimed his Republican budget plan would save Medicare and Medicaid, the packed room erupted with shouts of “Liar!”

When Ryan claimed that he didn’t want to replace Medicare with a voucher system but rather with “choices,” a woman piped up: “You can call it what you want, but don’t tell us that it’s still Medicare.”

When Ryan claimed that taxes needed to be cut for corporations and the wealthy in order to create jobs, he was greeted with a collective groan from hundreds of workers in a town that recently lost a major auto factory. One man yelled: “We’ve been cutting their taxes for 30 years and what did it get us? Outsourcing and layoff notices.”

When Ryan claimed he couldn’t impose serious cuts on Pentagon spending because troops were in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crowd started chanting: “Bring them home!”

The congressman was spinning out what were supposed to be sure-fire applause lines. But they fell flat.

Like a rock star who used to “have it” but can no longer get his groove on, the congressman kept looking for a trick, some gimmick, some ploy that would work. Think Spinal Tap, the “mockumentary” where an over-the-hill British band tries one comeback stunt after another until, finally, the guitarist announces that he is going to rock harder by turning his amplifier volume “up to 11,” and you’ve got the picture.