Fareed Zakaria is a perfect example of the media's absurd GOP-friendly posturing on Ryan's proposal [View All]

[ProSense]

First, Ryan's proposal is so bizarre that the Heritage Foundation is running for cover and several newly elected teabagger Republicans are afraid to commit to it:

HERITAGE FOUNDATION WANTS YOU TO STOP LAUGHING AT IT....

Pelosi: Dems shouldn’t take GOP’s bait on Medicare

'Seriously' Embarrassing (Paul Ryan's proposal and "unicorn sightings")

Alice Rivlin doesn't support Ryan's proposal

GOP Budget Ignores CBO To Claim Health Care Repeal Will Reduce The Deficit

Via Steve Benen:

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Politico talked to a half-dozen vulnerable GOP House members -- all of them freshmen -- and none of them was prepared to endorse their own party's budget plan, at least not yet, and all said they want to spend more time reading it.

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Imagine being one of these GOP incumbent freshman from a competitive district. The leadership is going to ask you to take an enormous gamble (vote for a wildly unpopular, right-wing agenda, including the elimination of Medicare), with no possibility of actually accomplishing anything (the bill will die in the Senate). It's all risk, no reward.

It also sounds like electoral suicide.

So what does Fareed Zakaria suggest:

The Ryan Budget: A test of character for Obama

I've just published a piece in Time on the Paul Ryan plan, which poses a test of character for President Obama. Will he turn the plan into a series of attack ads, or use it to spur a national conversation on the U.S. budget crisis? Check out an excerpt of my piece here:

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The liberal establishment is in full fury over Ryan's plan. From the New York Times to the influential website TPM (Talking Points Memo), all quickly denounced it. And it is an odd proposal from a man who seems genuinely committed to a comprehensive solution to the U.S.'s fiscal crisis. Ryan makes magical assumptions about growth — and thus tax revenues. He tells us that once his policies are enacted, unemployment will decline to 4%, a rate that the U.S. has not seen for nearly half a century.

The plan does not touch Social Security, and it does not specify the actual programs it would cut. So for all its supposed radicalism, it's actually quite weak at outlining reductions in government spending. The bulk of the deficit reduction — which allows for the large tax cuts in Ryan's plan — would come from changing American health care. But there, too, Ryan's plan is highly unrealistic....

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So why do I applaud the Ryan plan? Because it is a serious effort to tackle entitlement programs, even though any discussion of cuts in these programs — which are inevitable and unavoidable — could be political suicide. If Democrats don't like his budget ideas, they should propose their own — presumably without tax cuts and with stronger protections for Medicare and Medicaid and deeper reductions in defense spending.

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