Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Reprising a column he wrote back in 2010, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes at his blog, Flim-Flam Fever:
Way back in 2010 I declared that Paul Ryan — who was rapidly becoming the darling of the “fiscal responsibility” crowd — was a fraud, a flim-flam man. Very Serious People were very seriously annoyed — they’d anointed him, and they didn’t want to hear anything negative. They even gave him a “Fiscy,” an award for fiscal responsibility.
So I wonder: are they willing to concede, at long last, that he’s a clown?
His latest budget proposal has received some harsh critiques. It calls for huge tax cuts, supposedly offset by closing loopholes and ending tax expenditures — except that in a long report he fails to name a single tax expenditure that he would cut. It assumes drastic cuts in discretionary spending, basically eliminating everything except defense. And over the medium term, of course, it’s a plan to savage the poor while giving big tax breaks to the rich.
So actually two questions: are 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?
UPDATE: It appears we have a consensus on the GOP budget and their boy genius (not), Paul Ryan:
Paul Ryan’s dangerous budget (Washington Post)
The Careless House Budget (New York Times)
Ryan's path to nowhere (Matt Miller)
Reverse Robin Hood (Dana Milbank)
Phony Fiscal Hawkery (Greg Sargent)
As Greg Sargent said at the Morning Plum this morning:
Judging from all the scathing commentary out there this morning, the verdict is in: Paul Ryan’s budget is a blueprint for radical right-wing economic extremism and a monumental con job. This might not be a big deal if the overall vision on display here — which mirrors likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s proposals — didn’t constitute the GOP’s main offering in the grand ideological argument that will determine the future of the country.
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