The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?

[ErikJ]

The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?



Jonathan Cohn August 29, 2012 | 11:54 pm

You’re
going to read and hear a lot about Paul Ryan’s speech on Wednesday
night. And I imagine most of it will be about how Ryan’s speech
played—with the party loyalists in Tampa, with the television viewers
across the country, and eventually with the swing voters who will decide
the election.

I’d like to talk, instead, about what Ryan actually said—not because I
find Ryan’s ideas objectionable, although I do, but because I thought
he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth.

At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of
the statements were new, the context was. It’s one thing to hear them
on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a
small crowd. It’s something else entirely to hear them in prime time
address, as a vice presidential nominee is accepting his party’s
nomination and speaking to the entire country.

Here are the five statements that deserve serious scrutiny:

1) About the GM plant in Janesville.

Ryan’s home district includes a shuttered General Motors plant. Here’s what happened, according to Ryan:

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM
plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that
if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for
another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.


Well,
as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up
and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today,
where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

It’s true: The plant shut down. But it shut down in 2008—before Obama became president.

By the way, nobody questions that, if not for the Obama
Administration’s decision to rescue Chrysler and GM, the domestic auto
industry would have crumbled. Credible estimates suggested that the
rescue saved more than a million jobs. Unemployment in Michigan and Ohio, the two states with the most auto jobs, have declined precipitously.

2) About Medicare.

Ryan attacked Obama for “raiding” Medicare. Again, Ryan has no standing whatsoever to make this attack, because his own budget called for taking the same amount of money from Medicare.
Twice. The only difference is that Ryan’s budget used those savings to
finance Ryan’s priorities, which include a massive tax cut that benefits
the wealthy disproportionately.

It’s true that Romney has pledged to put that money back into
Medicare and Ryan now says he would do the same. But the claim is
totally implausible given Romney's promise to cap non-defense spending
at 16 percent of gross domestic product.

By the way, Obamacare's cut to Medicare was a reduction in what the
plan pays hospitals and insurance companies. And the hospitals said they
could live with those cuts, because Obamacare was simultaneously giving
more people health insurance, alleviating the financial burden of
charity care.

What Obamacare did not do is take away benefits. On the contrary, it added
benefits, by offering free preventative care and new prescription drug
coverage. By repealing Obamacare, Romney and Ryan would take away those
benefits—and, by the way, add to Medicare's financial troubles because
the program would be back to paying hospitals and insurers the higher
rates.

3) About the credit rating downgrade.

Ryan blamed the downgrading of American debt on Obama. But it was the
possibility that America would default on its debts that led to the
downgrade. And why did that possibility exist? Because Republicans
refused to raise the debt ceiling, playing chicken not just with the
nations’ credit rating but the whole economy, unless Obama would cave
into their budget demands.

4) About the deficit.

Ryan said “President Obama has added more debt than any other
president before him” and proclaimed “We need to stop spending money we
don’t have.” In fact, this decade’s big deficits are primarily a product
of Bush-era tax cuts and wars. (See graph.) And you know who voted for
them? Paul Ryan.

5) About protecting the weak.

Here’s Ryan on the obligations to help those who can’t help themselves:

We have responsibilities, one to another – we do not each
face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that
of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is
how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves. … We can
make the safety net safe again.

The rhetoric is stirring—and positively galling. Analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
shows that 62 percent of the cuts in Ryan budget would come from
programs that serve low-income people. And that’s assuming he keeps the
Obamacare Medicare cuts. If he’s serious about putting that money back
into Medicare, the cuts to these programs would have to be even bigger.

Among the cuts Ryan specified was a massive reduction in Medicaid spending. According to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Urban Institute,
between 14 and 27 million people would lose health insurance from these
cuts. That’s above and beyond the 15 million or so who are supposed to
get Medicaid coverage from the Affordable Care Act but wouldn’t because
Romney and Ryan have pledged to repeal the law.

I realize conservatives think that transforming Medicaid into a block
grant, so that states have more control over how to spend the money,
can make the program more efficient. But Medicaid already costs far less
than any other insurance program in America. And even to the extent
states can find some new efficiencies, the idea that they can find
enough to offset such a draconian funding cut is just not credible

[avebury]

1. K&R nt

[diane in sf]

2. We haven't heard Mittens yet, he could be even more dishonest.