Looks Like We Have To Save Ourselves From Paul Ryan-- The DCCC Won't Lift A Finger

If you read our challenge to the DCCC to change their steadfast policy of giving Paul Ryan a free pass and helping elect Rob Zerban instead... bad news. They refuse to respond. In fact when Jacquie put our challenge on DCCC Chair Steve Israel Facebook page, the "ex"-Blue Dog removed it in less than 10 minutes. Gee, Jacquie's stuff lasts longer on Republicans' Facebook pages! And, still no check for Rob. Blue America has already contributed over $5,000-- thanks to our members-- to Rob's campaign but we challenged Israel and his cronies to put their money where their mouths are and write Rob a $5,000 check to help him defeat Ryan. But do they even really want to defeat Ryan? The evidence is that they don't. They sure haven't even helped anyone before and this time-- with Rob in the best position of any Democrat to win in the district-- Israel and his pals are sitting on their hands. Israel is even telling wealthy Democratic Party contributors to not donate to Rob's campaign. Does that piss you off? It sure pisses me off. Unless you like conservatives and Blue Dogs, if you were thinking of donating to the DCCC this year, you're making a mistake. Consider contributing directly to Rob Zerban's campaign here on our Blue America ActBlue page.

The DCCC sent out one of their bullshit mailers again today about what a douche Ryan is-- to districts all over the country. Why not fight him. When they get serious about helping a candidate, they spend real money inside the districts-- like the millions and millions of dollars they wasted last cycle on Israel's putrid Blue Dog pals who vote with Ryan on the issues Israel castigates him on. All that wasted money-- though not a dime, never a dime, never a nickel-- to take on Boehner, Cantor or Ryan. Israel, Crowley, Wasserman Schultz, Hoyer... their careers are financed by the same Wall Street and K Street crooks who support the careers of Ryan, Boehner and Cantor. Is that why they give them free passes?

Yesterday Rob told his supporters that Ryan is using tax dollars to promote his toxic Path to Austerity budget. "Ryan's new ad has one purpose," he wrote, "and that is fear-mongering."

Paul Ryan wants us to believe he cares deeply about our deficit and our futures.

Paul Ryan wants us to forget he championed the Bush tax cuts and two unfunded wars that caused much of the deficit.

Paul Ryan wants us to forget that for 14 years, he has worked in Washington to create the problems we now face.

The truth is, Paul Ryan's agenda is not about the deficit-- it is about scaring you into big cuts so he can protect Bush tax cuts for very wealthy people like Mitt Romney.

The GOP turns to fear when they want to hide things from us. There is a lot to hide in Ryan's new budget! His budget attacks women's health, education, infrastructure, and jobs programs.

Ryan knows that our nation's seniors are not stupid. They understand Wall Street shouldn't get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund. Seniors know that private health insurance companies will charge more and give less care than Medicare.

That is why Paul Ryan wants us to be very afraid-- it is the only way anyone would support his crazy plan!

But it's his Republican colleagues who Ryan is really scaring. Dozens of House Republicans have been asking Cantor and Boehner to shut him up with this crackpot budget to kill Medicare so close to the election. A GOP staffer told me that the decision came down that they would let Ryan-- and his backers, of course-- have their day in the sun and then just make believe it never happened... make the whole thing disappear as fast as possible so that the Democrats can't hang Ryan around the necks of weak incumbents the way they did last year. As Steve Benen explained it on Rachel Maddow's blog yesterday, "For the Ayn Rand acolyte, these aren't cuts he wants to make, but rather, they're cuts he thinks he has to make to prevent a debt-driven disaster. Or so the argument goes."

There are a few angles to keep in mind as the debate begins again in earnest, and they share a theme: Ryan has absolutely zero credibility on these issues, and his fear-mongering is not to be taken seriously.

First, there is no debt crisis. The United States can easily borrow as much as it needs at low interest rates, suggesting there's nothing even close to a debt crisis. This is a fig leaf the right is using to rationalize draconian cut to domestic priorities, which they've long wanted to make anyway.

Second, if Paul Ryan and his allies were seriously panicked about reducing the deficit in a hurry to prevent a "crisis," they'd consider modest tax increases on the wealthy. Indeed, we know exactly what's driving the national debt, and much of it has to do with tax cuts the rich didn't need and the country couldn't afford. When Ryan acknowledges this, he'll start to have some credibility on the issue.

And third, for all of Ryan's alleged fear about the debt, his last budget plan ignored deficit reduction altogether, and instead prioritized more tax breaks for those at the very top.

Republicans running for office are in a bind. Ryan is popular with the far right of the base and with the Party paymasters who they depend on for their campaigns. Normal Americans, on the other hand, hate his approach for income redistribution upwards.

“As a campaign issue, the budget is a significant challenge for GOP candidates,” said Bob Honold, a GOP strategist and partner at Revolution Agency. “As a campaign strategy, it is so much more difficult for Republicans to communicate their responsible solutions than it is for Democrats to spook seniors with rhetoric.”

Another senior GOP strategist was far more blunt. “Didn’t they learn their lesson?” the source asked. “House Republicans are still under the mistaken impression they have to lead. It’s a presidential election year; they’re along for the ride.”

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) sought to paint the Ryan budget in the best possible political light during a briefing with reporters on Monday.

“I believe that we will get credit for effectively, first of all, having a budget, which the Democrats failed to do,” said Sessions. “I think the public will give us credit for having answers, and I think they’ll give us credit for being credible about the plight that we’re in.”

Maybe. But, the concern within Republican campaign ranks is that Ryan’s budget plays out much like it did when he put out his “Path to Prosperity” last year.

In that budget document, Ryan called for Medicare to be transformed into a voucher program-- a proposal that Democrats immediately seized on and used to great effect in a surprising special election victory in upstate New York.

Ryan's budget objectives are clear-- even to his GOP colleagues. He wants to slash huge amounts from federal retirement programs to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. That simple.



Rob's read on Ryan's "new" budget:

This new budget is full of old ideas. 

Paul Ryan's focus is on tax giveaways to the large corporations that line his pocket and fund his campaign.

Ryan wants to pay for these tax cuts with deep cuts to education, infrastructure, and radical changes to Social Security and Medicare.

Let's be serious. Let's put aside the FOX NEWS and GOP hype about Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget.

This budget is quite simply, a forced march to poverty for millions of students, seniors, and middle class families.

Mike Tate, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party had a similar read: more Ryan class war against working families and the middle class:

“This budget is more of the same from Paul Ryan, Sean Duffy, Reid Ribble and the Congressional Republicans. In their haste to pander to the far right wing and moneyed special interests, they have put forward a budget that contains an average $150,000 tax cut for millionaires and billionaires that is paid for by deep budget cuts that cost jobs and hurt average Americans, especially seniors, veterans and children.

This budget ends Medicare as we know it, puts health insurance companies back in charge of people’s health care choices, and puts the guaranteed coverage seniors have earned and paid for at risk. Under the Ryan Plan, Medicare as we know it would cease to exist and instead would be turned into a voucher program, putting seniors at risk of paying thousands out of their own pockets.

The Ryan budget would hurt the economy by slashing investments in education, R&D, job training and rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges. And making arbitrary cuts that don’t distinguish between wasteful spending we need to cut and investments we need for the future is no plan at all, it’s just political grandstanding.

Mitt Romney called the last Ryan budget ‘bold and right.’ Of course, that is par for the course for someone so hopelessly out of touch with the concerns of Americans. Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the GOP need to learn that slashing health care for seniors and cutting to the bone investments in education, research, veterans’ programs and job creation while maintaining billions in subsidies for oil companies, tax loopholes for Wall Street hedge fund managers and giving even more tax breaks to the wealthy is neither bold nor right. It’s outrageous and wrong.”

Professional staff on the House Energy and Commerce Committee got down into specifics this evening after looking over Ryan's ghastly roadmap to poverty:

• Ryan’s budget turns Medicaid into a block grant that cuts the program by $810 billion over the next decade.  That is a 22% reduction to the Medicaid program from the block grant.

• Ryan’s budget repeals the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, cutting an additional $931 billion from Medicaid over the next decade. 

• In total, Ryan’s budget cuts Medicaid by $1.7 trillion over the next decade.

• By 2050, Ryan’s budget cuts the Medicaid program by nearly three-quarters, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Krugman did a reprise of his best Ryan-as-charlatan and Ryan The Flimflam Man columns today. "[A]re people finally willing to concede that Ryan is not now and has never been remotely serious? And-- I know this is probably far too much to ask-- are they going to do a bit of soul-searching over how they got snookered by this obvious charlatan? And remember, there's only one way to stop Ryan-- and that would be to replace him with Rob Zerban... regardless of the DCCC's incompetence (or whatever it is that has prevented them from ever taking him on). You can help Rob do that here.