Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math-- Steve Israel Declares War Against Rob Zerban

There aren't many-- if any-- Republicans who have been more demonized in those annoying DCCC emails begging for money from lo-info grassroots Dems, than Paul Ryan. Reading them, you'd think the DCCC is gearing up to fight-- if not already in the midst of hand-to-hand combat-- against the despised and much-vilified (rightfully despised and vilified) Ryan. But no, as we saw yesterday, the DCCC has once again-- as in every single re-election race he's ever run-- given Ryan a free pass. There will be no DCCC spending against Paul Ryan. There has never been any DCCC spending against Paul Ryan. In fact, DCCC Chairman Steve Israel, a corrupt lowlife seeking to protect his own posterior, calls big Democratic donors and insists they not give any money to Ryan's opponent Rob Zerban.

And what is it about Ryan's district that makes it so sacrosanct to Steve Israel. Israel's policy is to never go after any Republican leaders or committee chairs, no matter how horrible their policies-- policies the DCCC is always railing against in those misleading e-mails they never stop sending. Ryan, one of the most intellectually superficial corporately-programed zombies in Congress is the head of the House Budget Committee and has presented the Ayn Rand vision of America year after year in his widely-mocked, destructive and insane austerity budgets. And his district is anything but a deep red hellhole not worth battling over.

In 2008 Obama beat McCain 185,855 (51%) to 176,152 (48%). So, it's not like the voters have never pulled a lever for a Democrat. In 2012, Obama's share of the vote sunk to 47% but Ryan was on the national Romney-Ryan ticket and voters were excited about the attention their local yokel was getting. His House race against Zerban-- who he outspent $6,651,221 to $2,250,102-- yielded only 55% of the vote. Before Steve Israel wrecked the DCCC as a functioning organization, it was a rule of thumb that any Republican unable to get beyond 55% would be targeted in the next race. That isn't what happened. Israel is again studiously ignoring Zerban again-- despite polling that showed Zerban narrowing the gap to 2 points between himself and Ryan!

Yesterday, writing for New York magazine, Jonathan Chait took a close look at Ryan's war against math. Dissecting an interview Ryan did with conservative Washington Examiner editor Philip Klein, Chait asserts that "Ryan has found himself caught between his career-long obsession with cutting taxes for the rich and the problem of what happens to the revenue that would be lost. During the 2012 campaign, he swept aside the problem by couching his plan as 'tax reform,' promising not to cut taxes for the rich. Ryan’s new plan is just to go ahead and cut taxes."

He tells Klein, “Those of us who live in the tax system want to lower everybody’s tax rates.” If you lower everybody’s tax rates, then everybody will be paying less in taxes, and then the government will have less revenue, right? That’s where Ryan’s solution comes in: He plans to press the government budget agencies to adopt the optimistic assumption he prefers, which is that cutting tax rates for the rich creates faster economic growth. Ryan spent much of the Bush years assailing what he called “static scoring,” which is the standard budget practice of measuring the fiscal impact of tax cuts as if they do not contain magic pixie dust.

As Danny Vinick has noticed, Ryan has announced his intention to change the rules. Ryan reaffirmed that plan in his interview with Klein: “I’d like to improve our scorekeeping so it better reflects reality,” he said. “Reality” is Ryan’s description for a world in which Bill Clinton’s punishing tax hikes on the rich hindered the economy, which was restored to health when George W. Bush cut taxes.

…Ryan has been warning for four years of an imminent debt crisis and skyrocketing interest rates. Nothing like this has happened. But Ryan speaks as though his warnings have proven true rather than laughably wrong:

The shame of it is, we just wasted eight years of knowing this crisis was coming, it’s the most predictable economic crisis we’ve ever had in this country, knowing about it, and not doing anything about it for eight years because of this presidency.

So Ryan assails Obama for doing nothing about the long-term deficit, which he calls a “crisis” and claimed would lead to interest rate hikes years ago that are still nowhere in sight.

…Obama enacted policies to increase revenue and slow health-care inflation, over the staunch and often hysterical opposition of Ryan, who insisted that budget forecasts showing that Obama’s proposals would reduce the deficit were wrong. The deficit has in fact fallen very fast. Ryan’s response is to deny that any of this has happened, to castigate Obama for failing to reduce the deficit, and to propose new measures that would increase it. And he wants everybody to ignore the budget forecasters because their numbers won’t bear out his claims.

But this is what Steve Israel's DCCC adamantly refuses to confront. It's crucial that when he slinks off into oblivion after another catastrophic cycle, the Democrats pick a strategic thinker and someone not consumed with self-serving corruption. 'Til then, please consider giving Rob Zerban the assistance the DCCC refuses to give him.