eh. I would like it, too, but it's too inside baseball. Voters won't care about this.

They should try, I just have low hopes. Complicated, boring, easy to obfuscate. Compare that with "it's your money -- why shouldn't we give you tax cuts?"

And yet Ezra Klein, is hard at work on his blog, day after day, hammering forth on behalf of Paul Ryan for his "radical" and "honest" budget balancing plans.

It's time to call ostensibly liberal bloggers to account for endowing the far-right with the glean of intellectual respectability.

Republicans: Making the world safe for Paris Hilton. And YOU are not Paris Hilton.

Well this should be gold for Democrats in the election cycle. If you let Republicans take control of congress, they will be promoting a budget that pushes the tax burden even more on the middle class and gives tax cuts to the already rich.

Seriously? Are these fuckers working for AlQueda ?
Doing their part to bring America to her knees.
A very rich class and some serfs , an ideal situation for them I'm sure.

rathskeller - not so hard, really.

[exterior shot of shiny phallic skyscraper; zoom on sign "First Bailed Out Bank & Trust Co."]

As camera then pans up building, odd mixture of laughter and oinking gets louder as Voice-Over says. . .

"Do you think the rich bankers and billionaires that crashed our economy need more of your money?"

[show inside of ornate conference room, men in suits wearing pig masks drink champagne, a large trough is in center of table; they look at wall chart that shows 'American Economy' going down and 'our bonuses' going up]

Because if the Republicans take back Congress, their budget chair has a plan to do exactly that.

[text graphics on black screen]

It would cut taxes 50% on people already making over $633,000 a year. Where does that money come from?

[photos of average Americans]

People not making $633,000 a year. By taking away Medicare

[shot of hospital slamming door in grandparents' face]

By taking away children's health care

[shot of worried parents holding crying child]

And by raising taxes and costs on everything you buy

[shot of pig banker sneaking around picking pocket of workers in various blue and white collar settings]

The Republican economic plan: good for bankers, bad for you.

Vote [insert local name], Democrat for Congress.

The Democrats ought to run a full ad campaign featuring Ryan's proposal. It is classic Republicanism at it's worst. Paint all those bastards with a plan to eliminate social security while lowering taxes for the rich. What a gift.

Nice to have a vision of the hell we inherit if we allow Obama and the Dims to fuck up hopelessly in 2010, in 2012...

Looks like Bush/Cheney: The Sequel.

A GOP rep posing a budget which coddles the wealthy? As the cliche goes, knock me over w/a feather.

It should be noted that the end result of such policies- a few rich controlling nearly all a country's wealth, and a mass of desperately poor- is precisely the condition Marx said would bring about a revolution. So, if you're an orthodox communist- like, apparently, the majority of today's GOP- then, by all means, go ahead and implement this economic plan. Marx, Lenin, Mao, + Pol Pot will cheer you.

-Z

Grayson was right. Republicans want you dead. Fuck them and their "garbage wrapped in skin" souls.

We spend a lot of time here wondering how to communicate with our fellow citizens. Republicans may be breathtakingly wrong on virtually every issue, but they've got the megaphones, the alternative reality, and the linguistic vectors. We have, I guess, a more accurate sense of reality. The problem is that reality has already been degraded. It's a bummer, so to speak. So, we're not going to beat Republicans by being more truthful or rational. It simply won't work. As creative as we are, we better figure out new roadways to the collective id. What we're doing now is spinning our wheels in the ditch by the freeway.

@Rathskeller:

It doesn't have to be inside baseball. It's not hard to develop a coherent message about stealing from the middle class to give to the rich.

Robin Hood in Reverse.

It's not a complicated narrative to establish. You need three or four key messages in bulletpointed form and then you just need to get prominent Democrats (congressional leaders and prominent party officials) to repeat them over again everytime they get in front of a camera or a microphone.

Frankly, I have never understood why "framing" is so hard for Democrats. The Republicans are cartoon-quality villains. They give Snidely Whiplash a run for his money. They caricature themselves. All the Dems have to do is shine a light on it.

The Paul Ryan budget roadmap would be a perfect opportunity.

I wondered when the budget first came out how it would take 70 years to balance the budget. I mean, if I was allowed to kill Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, I could balance the budget in a week. I guess I wasn't thinking like a Republican enough.

Zeitgeist, that was brilliant.

According to The Economist, Obama will soon have to face those hard choices, too - raising taxes, or cutting/privatizing Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security. They say a fix can't be done without either option A or Option B, and that all current projections (without a major change like A or B) show the deficit heading back northwards after 2018.

Obviously, the Ryan plan isn't the way to do it. But there just isn't any painless way, either, and the wiggle room is all gone. Hopefully voters will understand that, and put the blame where it belongs - but usually, they don't.

Zombie psychopaths understand only violence.

Wow. Our government really is as bad as the Republicans say it is.

I guess we should all vote Republican then, right?

Oh....wait.

All the bluster about limited government and the rest are nothing but misdirection.

Ryan's so-called road map gives us the GOP's true agenda: little or no taxes for the very rich (i.e., "producers") and whatever it takes to make that happen --- regardless of the consequences.

Jesus. Didn't we just vote this twisted worldview out a little over a year ago? Could it really be that the serfs are putting down their sticks and torches and going back to hoeing the potatoes and averting their eyes when the lords ride by? Isn't this just basic "good vs. evil" stuff here?

I have an alternate plan (called My Plan) to eliminate the deficit and create jobs. Euthanize everyone over the age of fifty.

No complicated, arcane details to confuse voters, can be accomplished in a few weeks, and certain to energize the Youth Vote.

If that's too draconian, then we could have another Civil War. . .

What's not to like about Ryan's plan???

Remember our republican mottos:
- More is never enough!
- I've got mine, fuck you!

Selling teabags to tea-totalers

The roadmap calls for radical policy changes that would result in a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation's wealthiest individuals.

No problemas...
Sounds eminently reasonable. Why I bet Beck and Limbaugh can sell that agenda in 30 seconds to their audience of snaggle-toothed dummies.

To DAY...

With your 'plan', I sure am glad that I was born on February 29th & am only 16!

sorry DAY, but Christopher Buckley Jr beat you to it. Read "Boomsday" sometime; not a bad read.

But there just isn't any painless way, either, [to fix Medicare and SS]

Sadly, all we hear/read/see about those are how impossible it is to fix them, and how we'll have to cut everything good in order to keep them going.

In reality, however, there is a very easy solution:

Raise the income limit on the income those taxes are applied to from $90K (or whatever it is now-- close to that, IIRC) to $250K or even $500K.

**POOF**

Problem solved!

After all, if those taxes are applied to 100% of my income, why the hell shouldn't apply to 100% of some rich person's income?

It really is that simple, and it really would make those two solvent for decades to come.

Why that's never discussed is because it will take a bit of money away from rich folks. And we all know how rich people need to be treated more fairly than the rest of us.

Some animals being more equal than others, and all that ...

I thought his plan was to privatize Social Security and do away with MediCare, not the other way around.

Nice to have a vision of the hell we inherit if we allow Obama and the Dims to fuck up hopelessly in 2010, in 2012

I agree. Maybe now we can get progressives to understand what the real alternative to Obama is, rather than the pie-in-the-sky liberal-utopia plan they keep demanding.

A Dem defeat in November wouldn't get us back to 2007, we'd be back in 1995 and instead of talking about HCR, we'd be talking about endless investigations and impeachment. I'd rather have a do-nothing Dem Congress than a do-something Repub Congress, any day. I can't imagine how that's not enough of an enthusasism booster.

Maybe now we can get progressives to understand what the real alternative to Obama is, rather than the pie-in-the-sky liberal-utopia plan they keep demanding.

Maybe now we can stop helping the small minority of refuse-to-work-with-anyone-who-doesn't-give-them-100%-of-what-they-want Democrats co-opt the term "progressives" for themselves. There ain't nothing progress-focused about that attitude.

zeit -- fine work.

This budget is a conservative's wet dream. At one fell swoop it eviscerates the Great Society, the Fair Deal, the New Deal and would give the New Freedom a boot in the nads for no extra charge.

It would take our budget priorities back to where they were in the 90's.....the 1890's.

If Dems can't run against this apostasy and win then they shouldn't be in power.

Maybe what we need to do is re-brand taxes so that people can feel a little better about paying them. Reposition them as "our patriotic duty," a "gift we give back" to the nation that has given us all so much. After all: "Free Isn't Free!" If people were made to feel more comfortable about paying their taxes and more proud of what those taxes have accomplished, then when taxes needed to be bumped up a little to meet a tight budget, only unpatriotic shitheels would dare complain.

Sound crazy? Well then, explain to me why so many low-income and middle-income people are demanding that we not raise taxes on the rich? If they can be made to believe that the rich are hurtin' and deserve a tax break, they can be made to believe anything!

shortstop - In my thinking, liberals are people who get things done, while progressives are people who shout that nothing's getting done. And both sides are needed, as progressives help push the agenda when we're out of power, while liberals implement the agenda while we're in power. The only problem is when we get power and the progressives start shouting at us too; which is to be expected, as that's all they really know how to do. It's basically the equivalent of a liberal setting up a thinktank when out of power.

And you can tell which side you're on based upon your compromise-to-shout ratio. Anything above 100 and you're a centrist. Anything below .01 and you're Ralph Nader. Most of us are somewhere in between.

"while liberals implement the agenda while we're in power."

Bang up job so far.

"The only problem is when we get power and the progressives start shouting at us too"

Have you considered that maybe the progressives wouldn't be shouting at you if you weren't, say, completely fucking up the democratic agenda? "Liberals" have completely screwed HCR, EFCA, global warming, and human rights in a little over 12 months. That's one cherished goal of the left gutted every quarter.

Why wouldn't we be yelling at you?

"And you can tell which side you're on based upon your compromise-to-shout ratio."

Compromising when you were given a huge majority by the voters isn't principled. Just the opposite- it shows you have no faith in your stated agenda. The voters believed in the dems more than the dems believed in themselves. And so the dems sabotaged their own agenda, and are now aghast that people think they suck.

Don't promise us health care reform if you have no intention of actually doing it. Don't assume you can trick us by putting the name health care reform on a bill that does the opposite. Don't be sure we'll reward you with votes if you betray our trust.

It's just that simple (and we can substitute an awful lot of other issues in for "health care reform" above).

It's a blowout:

Biobrain-zeitgeist 9
Tlaloc-Kucinich/Nader 0

Steve missed the best point of all: Ryan's roadmap *doesn't balance the budget!* He only got that reading from the CBO by cooking the books, by insisting that they evaluate his plan with the underlying assumption that tax revenues remain at 19% of GDP. However, Ryan is dramatically cutting taxes, which means that there is no way that that assumption holds true. The best estimate I've heard is that revenues fall to less than 17% of GDP, which means that we will never achieve a balanced budget.

Both Josh and Ezra have covered this. Sadly, the mainstream media has not.

For anyone interested, I expanded my explanation of liberals and progressives here:
Liberals vs. Progressives.

shortstop - In my thinking, liberals are people who get things done, while progressives are people who shout that nothing's getting done.

Too simplistic and thesis-forcing. The two words have evolved to refer to the closer-to-center and the farther left, respectively. The qualities of pragmatism and practicality are a whole separate issue from political philosophy.

I'm substantially to the left of a number of the people I find most adolescent and naive about getting things done (though I have my bat-blind tantrum moments, for sure). I'm also not inclined to let people who couldn't get a We Love Our Moms resolution through Congress (because they're holding out for maternal flowers for everyone) call me insufficiently progressive. Ain't my problem and I'm not embracing their language.

Too simplistic and thesis-forcing. The two words have evolved to refer to the closer-to-center and the farther left, respectively.

That's what I thought at first too, but I really don't think that's the case. After all, most liberals would be perfectly happy with a bill a progressive would come up with, while a progressive would reject anything that didn't include certain key provisions. And anything that was so far to the left that a liberal would reject it would have to be in the realm of outright socialism or communism, which isn't anything like what the typical progressive wants.

No, I stick with my premise that progressives are people who shout at whoever's in charge to get them to go further to the left, while liberals want to do what it takes to craft legislation. I think this has more to do with personality type, rather than the ideological spectrum. Some people just hate compromising more than others.

The problem with Republicans is that they refuse to deal with the government money that is taken by their constituencies: farmers, road builders, small business, veterans and the military-industrial complex. THEIR budgets don't get cut, it's always the Democrats. And they still think you can cut taxes and still police the world without running up a deficit. ONLY Ron Paul and a few others in the party understand this fallicy. The reason Republicans are still slaves to supply-siderism is that it's politically sellable: you get a tax-cut! No one wants to talk about cutting spending.

"Some people just hate compromising more than others."

you have to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable compromise. Acceptable compromise makes headway towards your goal but doesn't go as far as you like out of political necessity.

Unacceptable compromise doesn't get you nearer your goal at all, it may even take you further from it.

A public option is an acceptable compromise. It gets the ball rolling and even if weak is something that can be built on. A mandate without a public option is an unacceptable compromise that takes us further from where we need to be.

Again- consider that maybe progressive yell because "liberals" are simply fucking up.

Tlaloc @ 8:11 PM:
"...You have to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable compromise..."
And an acceptable compromise is one that can pass both Houses of Congress while still providing some HC insurance reforms. It's neither pretty nor perfect; that's life (and politics).

"...a public option is an acceptable compromise..."
No argument there.

"...a mandate without a public option is an unacceptable compromise...".
To you. You have made it more than obvious that you do not feel the legislation moving through COngress is "progressive" enough to deserve your support and without the inclusion of various items, the bill shouldn't pass. Very well, that is your prerogative. Stupid, silly and short-sighted, possibly, but your prerogative.
What isn't your prerogative is to annex the designation of "progressive" and apply it to only those people and measures to which you approve. Since you can't show me some document signed by all the progressives in this country appointing YOU, and only you, as the sole person to decide which measures attain the sacred status of "true progressivism" and which measures are to be cast into outer darkness, I'd be grateful if you'd refrain from implying/stating/demanding that your opinion is the one and only Truth. Frankly, it's a bit tiresome.

Acceptable compromise makes headway towards your goal but doesn't go as far as you like out of political necessity.

That actually sounds pretty close to the Republican Congressional version of compromise. The problem, assuming you mean it in good faith where as they mean it as a way to act in bad faith, is that life is not always so one-dimensional. Your description assumes that all parties to an issue have goals that fit on the ends (or if multi-parties, various points) on a single continuum - that is, the goals are at least related. "Acceptible compromise" then is the closest we can get to our point on the spectrum in this iteration of action.

That provides no solution, however, when parties have goals that are incompatible, or unrelated as is generally the case: progressives have a substantive goal; the Republicans don't have a different resolution of the underlying substance, instead they have a different goal - helping the rich, stymying Democrats, killing brown people, whatever.

At that point, there is no point on the continuum that meets your definition of acceptable compromise. There are three possible outcomes:
(1) stay on your continuum, but compromise to a lesser position on that continuum; (2) pick a "third way" on neither party's spectrum that represents the compromise; or (3) declare either of those unacceptable per se and simply accomplish nothing for an entire election cycle and work to change the playing field through electoral action.

Your definitions would suggest #3; I believe that plays into the R's hands as it actually is also a solution they would like. I see no reason to believe inaction lets us change the playing field. Therefore the only options are versions of (1) or (2), unless we can figure out how to play teh game well enough to reach a "Tlaloc-acceptable" result through sheer political and procedural power (which there is no evidence is within the realm of possibility.)

Check out that payday loan asshole from Tennessee
that was featured today at TPM. Exempting these jerks from financial reform is nuts. Democrats, who are supposed to be in charge, deserve to have their
asses kicked out if this is the best they can do.

"And an acceptable compromise is one that can pass both Houses of Congress while still providing some HC insurance reforms."

SO far this bill fails both of those criteria.

"To you. You have made it more than obvious that you do not feel the legislation moving through COngress is "progressive" enough to deserve your support and without the inclusion of various items, the bill shouldn't pass."

No god damn it. A public option isn't progressive enough for me to like but I'll accept it. This bill is actively harmful to this country. It is actively harmful to the democrats. It;s actively harmful to me personally as a person with a preexisting condition who could have really benefited from actual reform. Not pretend reform where we wink and nod at the insurance companies and give them a ton of cash if they pinky swear to be nicer.

"What isn't your prerogative is to annex the designation of "progressive" and apply it to only those people and measures to which you approve. Since you can't show me some document signed by all the progressives in this country appointing YOU, and only you, as the sole person to decide which measures attain the sacred status of "true progressivism" and which measures are to be cast into outer darkness, I'd be grateful if you'd refrain from implying/stating/demanding that your opinion is the one and only Truth. Frankly, it's a bit tiresome."

Make you a deal, I'll stop speaking as a progressive if you give up that making the perfect the enemy of the good bullshit. Talk about tired. Yeah, I didn't think you'd go for it.

"That actually sounds pretty close to the Republican Congressional version of compromise."

No that's pretty much the definition of compromise for carbon based lifeforms. You don't get everything you want but you get part of it. You seem to be arguing that compromise consists of fighting to get what you don't want-

which in retrospect makes the PTDB position a hell of a lot more clear.

"At that point, there is no point on the continuum that meets your definition of acceptable compromise"

That's nonsense. First of all it assumes the right is monolithic which it isn't. Second of all it assumes that there are only two actors- the right and the left, when as we've seen there are multiple factions within each party, some of whom are open to good faith compromises and some who aren't.

"I see no reason to believe inaction lets us change the playing field. "

I don't want inaction, I just also don't want action that HURTS our goals. The senate bill is a huge stpe backwards. Like most of the PTDB crowd you're demanding we pass something (anything!) without caring that it only hurts us.

How about a simple rule- when we're in the majority we don't choose to pass bills that completely sell out our party platform. Is that really so hard?

Biobrain, you've managed to completely miss my point: ideology/philosophy and pragmatism/practicality are two different things and you're arbitrarily mashing together the two. Sometimes I wonder if you ever read past the first few words of anyone's else's posts before earnestly and repetitively launching into a complete rehash of your last post.

No, don't respond with a lengthy and earnest recital of exactly what you said before. I understand that you're in love with your categorization. We'll agree to disagree.

Biobrain, you've managed to completely miss my point: ideology/philosophy and pragmatism/practicality are two different things and you're arbitrarily mashing together the two.

But that's not what I'm doing, as I don't think ideology/philisophy is the dividing factor between liberals and progressives. I think it's completely the pragmatism/practicality issue.

For example, Tlaloc, Obama, and I agree that single-payer would be the best solution, which means we're the same philosophically. The difference is that both Obama and I realize that single-payer wouldn't pass, so we're pragmatic and decide to pick what WILL pass that gets us closest to our goals; and that excludes the public option, which Tlaloc says is his litmus test. It's Obama's compromise that Tlaloc disagrees with, not his philiosophy.

And I think that's the case across the board. Anyone significantly to the left of me would be a socialist, not a progressive, as I'm pretty far to the left in terms of America's political spectrum. The difference lies in what we're willing to accept, not what we're wanting to get. We all want the same thing. It's what we're willing to do where we differ.

"For example, Tlaloc, Obama, and I agree that single-payer would be the best solution, which means we're the same philosophically. The difference is that both Obama and I realize that single-payer wouldn't pass, so we're pragmatic and decide to pick what WILL pass that gets us closest to our goals;"

that's not pragmatism, that's a self fulfilling prophecy. The only guarnateeing that single payer won't pass is that obama wouldn't even try it. That's not guaranteeing it would pass but look at the facts- we had a big congressional majority, we had a talented orator of a president coming off a very big electoral win, all the evidence suggests single payer works the best and that evidence set is enormous, single payer is very popular with the public.

All that and there's just no way Obama and the dems could have succeeded? Of course there was. It would have been a hard fight and one that would have hugely energized the base.

And if he lost then the fall back position would be a public option, which is acceptable if not ideal. Instead he started by giving up single payer and getting nothing in return. Then he tried for a public option and naturally got talked down to having nothing.

When you have every advantage on your side, and we did, there's no excuse for that kind of idiocy. And to call it "pragmatism" is ridiculous.

"It's Obama's compromise that Tlaloc disagrees with, not his philiosophy."

Given that obama didn't even try to get pretty much any of the progressive goals he campaigned on enacted I think maybe it is his real philosophy that is the problem.

and by the way, Dr. Biobrain,
I did what you asked and posted a long explanation of why exactly I don't believe the claims of the PTDB crowd that this bill accomplishes much of anything for us. It's in the open thread for this day.

I'm not exactly expecting the PTDB crowd to actually engage substantively since they never seem to.