I know you all are sick of this, and I even got this picture today from a reader:
For those of you who don’t know what Green Balloons means, go here. Having said I know you are sick of hearing about this, allow me just one more link. Here is Bruce Bartlett decimating the Ryan nonsense in words so clear that it might move Sullivan to tears:
A number of respected public finance economists quickly ridiculed the Heritage numbers as grossly implausible. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber said, “The Heritage numbers are insane.” In response to such criticism, Heritage simply deleted some of the more extravagant figures from its analysis.
Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would be shredded to pay for them. Even as an opening bid to begin budget negotiations with the Democrats, the Ryan plan cannot be taken seriously. It is less of a wish list than a fairy tale utterly disconnected from the real world, backed up by make-believe numbers and unreasonable assumptions. Ryan’s plan isn’t even an act of courage; it’s just pandering to the Tea Party. A real act of courage would have been for him to admit, as all serious budget analysts know, that revenues will have to rise well above 19 percent of GDP to stabilize the debt.
Anyone who insists there is anything remotely serious about the GOP and Ryan’s plan is simply a buffoon. There is nothing brave about the plan, as it does nothing but destroy the social safety net and reward the rich- since when is that position brave as a Republican? It doesn’t actually do anything about the debt, considering the numbers are fanciful and just made up, and there is a good chance it will make things worse, with the tax cuts frontloaded and the cuts to come later- we all know how that usually works out. It does nothing to shore up Medicare or Medicaid, it basically eliminates them. It does nothing to stop the rise in health care costs. Quite simply, this “plan” does nothing but transfer wealth to the wealthy and kneecaps everyone else. There simply is no reason for anyone, not even someone as mathematically challenged as Andrew, to insist this is serious. It isn’t.
Most damning of all is that this simply has no chance of ever being enacted. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch. The Democrats will never go for this, and even some of the teahadists, who spent the last election cycle screaming about Obama killing Medicare and cutting 500 billion are sitting there looking at Ryan saying “Wait? Four trillion? WTF?” This plan is simply DOA. Any plan like this that has absolutely no chance of passing is not serious, it is simply masturbatory fodder for Galtian douchebags.
What if Bernie Sanders sat down, wrote a “Plan for Prosperity,” and in it raised the top marginal rate on everyone over 250k a year to 70%, hiked capital gains, got rid of every deduction, got rid of all the loopholes, ended farm subsidies, put in place a VAT tax and a carbon tax, called for nationalizing the health care industry, making union membership mandatory, abolished the Defense Department and consolidated all the branches into a coastal and air defense force with 100,000 men, got rid of our nukes, allowed gay marriage nationwide, put in place a rigorous regulatory regime for food, water, environmental, and financial security, shortened the work week to 30 hours and raised the minimum wage to 22 dollars an hour, and gave DC and Puerto Rico statehood?
Actually, some of that sounds pretty good. But would Andrew Sullivan call that a serious plan? Would he call it brave? Would he insist that the Republicans come up with a counter-proposal and demand that they not politicize it. Because that is what he is doing with the equally fanciful GOP/Ryan plan.
Will Reks
@JC
Please add a link to Bartlett’s article.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Yes, please, Green Balloon Juice, enough is enough.
Elisabeth
This. The End.
Tara the antisocial social worker
I’m totally going with the Sanders plan. (And the gay marriage part would have lowered my federal taxes $1200 this year.)
Lolis
This has forever altered how I see Sullivan. I have actually been a fan of a lot of his work. He is a brilliant writer but a selfish idiot. I just can’t stand. There are only two sides. One for economic justice and one against. I have no interest in reading anything by someone in the latter group. Sully really is just a gay Republican. So sad.
Guster
Some of that sounds good?
Are you kidding? Now I don’t have to go surfing for porn before bed tonight.
Upper West
@Elisabeth:
masturbatory fodder for Galtian douchebags.
yes, a classic phrase. I would only add, “. . . and the villagers who worship at their onanistic altar.”
Lolis
@Elisabeth:
Well a few presidential candidates made public comments in support of the plan. Apparently they didn’t understand it was DOA. Even Charlie Cook thinks Republicans have a death wish on this. Hopefully Romney or Pawlenty will be the one and we can run ads against them using this. We should educate the voters on what Republicans. That is what politics is all about.
RSR
>>Anyone who insists there is anything remotely serious about the GOP and Ryan’s plan is simply a buffoon.
precisely
now we back into the catfood commission compromise if we don’t keep the democrats on their toes.
Binky
Speaking of Bernie Sanders, he’s on MSNBC right now. Why isn’t this guy on TV every single day? Has he ever been on a Sunday show? I’m thinking about moving to Vermont just to vote for him.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Please, email the plan to Bernie immediately. Tell him he has the vast support … well, make that half-vast of the BJ community, no, wait, better spell that out.
Anyway, great plan, I’d love to see Sen. Sanders bring it to the floor.
ruemara
Hey, I’d vote for the Sanders plan. Man, if he did primary Obama with that, I’d vote for him knowing it was just doomed posturing. Sanders plan at least really would create jobs and reduce the deficit. It’s too damn crazy what passes for serious in our failed media experiment.
freelancer
@Lolis:
Of all the shit he’s gone off the deep end about, he’s lost me on this. Today. I no longer care what he thinks.
Elisabeth
@Binky:
Come on down ~ we’ve got room. :)
Keith G
No Cole, not tired of this at all. If other readers are, they are free to not read these posts for Christ’s sake. I depend on you and a few other folk to track down interesting takes on important (and sometimes not) stuff.
This stuff “is a big fucking deal”.
Elisabeth
@Lolis:
Pawlenty has been my long-standing pick to be the nominee; I’ve had a bet with someone since mid-2009. I guess Ryan is the very serious and courageous GOPer who put his name to the plan they feel honor-bound to support it. Message discipline and all that.
Martin
Oh, and some people don’t realize this but most of DCs city budget is actually part of the federal budget, so huge swaths of basic DC city functions get shut off in a shutdown. Of course, nobody in Congress actually lives in DC, so what the fuck do they care, right?
General Stuck
If we are going to obsess with one single wingnut, I guess Sully is a good choice for that. I don’t dislike him, and he seems like some forlorned character out of a British Shakespearean Tragi/Comedy. A big bundle on raging neurosis bouncing off every wall. Think the Woody Allen of American and Palin Politics.
eemom
let’s look on the bright side. Perhaps if there’s a shutdown, it will be our Tahrir Square.
Probly not, but one may dream.
Elia Isquire
Imagining the Sanders scenario, and the ensuing media reaction, is why I have difficulty thinking the Ryan lovefest is only or mainly about wanting to be “balanced.” If Sanders presented something like that they’d mock him relentlessly for weeks — it’d be like the Howard Dean scream x 50.
I mean, just look at this interview he did with Tina Brown’s New and Improved and Totally Different (Except in Terms of Style and Content) Newsweek. It was one of the more laughably biased things I’ve ever seen. Good on Bernie, though; he didn’t take no shit.
Jay C
@ John Cole:
Right on. Absolutely. Seriously. No argument.
So, and this is a serious question: why should you – or for that matter, any of the umpty-nine gazillion other bloggers on the Internet who have been hyperventilating 24/7 about it – give a flying fart in a canteen what Andrew Sullivan thinks about Ryan’s ludicrous “budget plan”? I know he’s considered a moderately influential “real writer” and all: not just another Cheeto-stained basement-dweller; but why him? There’s been enough reflexive jackoff starbursting from enough other usual-suspect hacks over Ryan’s nonsense; but everywhere I’ve gone in the blogosphere, it’s been “Sully, Sully, Sully” everywhere and anywhere. Not he doesn’t deserve as much scorn, disdain and mockery as can be heaped on him for not laughing Ryan’s Folly out of the house: but it’s a mystery – why him?
Martin
Oh, and let me reiterate cleeks call for shutdowns being proper shutdowns – all domestic air and rail travel should be shut down. All ports closed. Everything. A shutdown should be a shutdown. Let’s motivate those fuckers.
kdaug
Oh, no no no. This ain’t no Sanders Scenario.
This is the Cole Gambit.
Let’s dance.
eemom
@General Stuck:
O General, my General, why hast thou forsaken me?
Politically Lost
John,
I speak only for myself, however, shutdown is no all but a foregone conclusion. Sully is a perfect foil for this discussion because he susinctly tows the fantasy Ryan fillate line. This needs to be discussed. Please, keep up the good work.
M. Bouffant
@Elisabeth: Yup.
SteveinSC
Count me in.
maye
i think this horse is dead.
West of the Cascades
Can I has Bernie’s Socialist paradise? Please?
Nix on the green balloons – this is an important service. More of it, please. Sully also has to be mocked until he cries uncle on this.
eemom
Jesus H.C. Christ on a matzoh, General. Woody Allen may be an asshole in a lot of ways but he HAS actually contributed something to the world.
That S-thing, the beloved of John Cole — not so much.
SaminMpls
Brave isn’t the right word but what Ryan did to his career is irreversible. He will parachute into a series of corporate gigs but he’s given up any shot he had at moving up the ladder. This is sort of like what Hillary did in 1993 with health care reform, it transformed her image with conservatives forever. It doesn’t matter how many prayer breakfasts she attends because to them she is who Rush Limbaugh said she was.
What is funny to me is that Republicans still have to make a serious political miscalculation in order to be marginalized. All Democrats need to do to draw this sort of attack is to speak honestly about certain issues like drivers licences for undocumented workers.
Jay C
The big difference between the fantasy “Sanders Plan” and the real one Paul Ryan
puked upproduced is that if you compromised on the former, and say, enacted just half his proposals, or all them just halfway, the country would still be in vastly better condition than otherwise: do the same with the latter, and we’d still be f*cked – bigtime….ppcli
To make the analogy complete, you would need to add that the Sanders plan made bold predictions – 2.8% unemployment! Deficit vanishes in x years! And that these predictions were supported not by some standard authority like the CBO but rather “supported” by “research” from some hack left wing outlet. [In fact there isn’t anything close to a left-wing analogue of the Heritage institute for sheer, on demand, “you give us the results, we’ll give a number-filled report to give em a patina of respectability”. So I’ll invent one: the Acorn-Black Panther Institute for Election Stealing and Honkie To-it-sticking.] Then, when the ABPIESHTIS presents its “analysis”, every real economist in the country – left and right wing alike – break out into open hoots of derision, and it just drops key predictions from the website as if they had never existed.
Yes, I suppose that wouldn’t be counted as Serious. I wonder why not.
Comrade Luke
Part of the reason they do this is to get it out there so they can say “See? We’re trying, but the Democrats won’t play ball. Elect more of us and we’ll get this stuff passed”. And the dollars come rolling in.
We’re a couple of lost Senate seats from this getting passed in two years. I don’t know why everyone is ignoring that fact.
General Stuck
@eemom:
cool yer engine eemom. It was a joke to illustrate Sully’s flighty personality, not to equate him with Woody Allen. Just Allen’s neurosis.
And I don’t dislike him like I do most wingers. I think he is a fool and sometimes an ugly one, but that is true of many bloggers, left and right. Most of them, actually.
I am practicing some zen on myself, so Cole doesn’t drive me completely crazy.
RossInDetroit
I almost feel bad for Ryan. he’s an intelligent guy. He has to know this is horseshit. But it’s horeseshit that the Tea Partiers believe in and so it must be put forth as serious policy. Someone had to do it just so it could get shot down. The fusillades have been continuous and devastating.
Elia Isquire
@SaminMpls: I’m not sure about all this. I think if anything he just solidified his prospects of moving into the Majority Leader position in the event of a Cantor putsch. In general, he’s going to be a Golden God in the GOP at least until the Tea Baggers no longer call the shots.
ETA: I didn’t even notice Sully responded to Cole. He says John’s being unreasonable.
M. Bouffant
Oh gawd, it’s on now! Duck!!
Gin & Tonic
I work in an office with college-educated adult people, most of them reasonably well-read, although politics is almost never discussed. I asked about a dozen of my co-workers today, and not a single one had ever even heard of Sullivan. Two had heard of Brooks.
This probably was said in one of today’s eleventy-billion Sully threads, but really, he is about as irrelevant as I am.
Elia Isquire
@M. Bouffant: Am I wrong or did Sully misunderstand and/or misrepresent Cole there? I thought John’s argument was simply that doing nothing would be better than Ryan’s plan — not that it’s the only thing we need to do to solve the long-term problem.
JCT
@eemom:
Given our luck of late the teabagger nitwits would all show up with their cool outfits and muskets and try to reenact the Boston Massacre.
Special Ed
It seems like this obsession with Andrew has no end in sight. I wish you would let it go. However it is your blog and you did give us a nice Tunch photo…
Andrew is a buffoon. The Ryan plan will never get past the Senate. Rosie needs to go as well.
/end of lurker rant
Hawes
Glad to see we’re calling it the GOP/Ryan plan! Stick this hose in their mouth.
freelancer
@Elia Isquire:
Yeah he’s quoting Cole out of context and burning down a position that doesn’t exist. He has the entire front page to work with today, but he quotes two lines of ALL CAPS and dubs it “Cole’s Plan”. I’ve read Creationists quote-mining scientists that had more intellectual honesty. What a load of horseshit. Fuck him, I’m done.
aimai
@RossInDetroit:
Really, what makes you think he’s intelligent? Besides, the plan does what it is supposed to do. It lowers taxes on important people. What happens to the rest of us simply doesn’t matter.
aimai
eemom
@General Stuck:
I’ve tried zen. The Universe just laughs at me.
Hawes
@Special Ed: A smart political party would use this to end the GOP as a national party. Too bad we go to war with the Democrats we have rather than the Democrats we wish we had.
Bob
@Gin & Tonic:
Eh, if anyone really wants to just finish Sully off for a while on the topic, just grab his statements on Ryan and run it through the logical fallacy machine one by one. Get it posted to the front page since his team of underbloggers will read it.
I’d start with False Dichotomy and move on from there. Moving the goalposts, pq errors, etc.
Of course, when Sully is putting his head this far in his ass, it’s hard to argue with him. And yes, that head in his ass? it’s his.
The problem is that Sullivan matters because the Beltway people follow him, not that your coworkers don’t know who he is.
TooManyJens
John, this is what you do.
You use Windows, right? Go to this file:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Add this line:
127.0.0.1 andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com
Save, maybe reboot, and then you will be unable to torture yourself this way.
I’m much happier since I did this with http://www.huffingtonpost.com.
asiangrrlMN
I like the Sanders plan. We’ll do it live!
Gian
the modern GOP would lynch Nixon for being too left wing.
modern GOP – the clear the skies of birds act (as Al franken used to call it)
Nixon, the real clean air act.
they live in a purity echo chamber, in their own reality, like a patient in sore need of psych meds.
I think that trying to compromise with them is like enabling an addict when intervention is what’s really needed.
RossInDetroit
@aimai:
Because the plan is so radical it’s way beyond political feasibility as written. I think it’s just a show to appease the tea partiers. It must embarrass Ryan to have to treat it seriously. But it does tell us what their priorities are and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of all of them in more palatable forms.
Didn’t really answer your question, but Ryan’s not drooling on his tie and chewing the furniture so he’s sane enough to know crazy when he sees it.
jl
From some comments and links to Sullivan above, I assume this post is part of some mortal internet combat between Cole and Sullivan over the bogus Ryan budget ‘plan’.
I guess that is part of a daily drudgery of running a blog. It is a blog so I can spend as much or as little or as zero time on it as I please.
I’ve preferred to pay attention to the smaller quiet dramas of this saga. Like, can CATO change the numbers in the reports that Ryan relies on faster than the numerate pundits can check them.
Calouste
Someone on a blog linked here today (vague, isn’t it?) said that when pundits go on about Ryan touching the third rail in American politics by reforming Medicare, they are no longer correct. The third rail for the GOP is raising taxes on the rich and corporations.
Actually, I think that statement is slightly off. The third rail for the GOP is not cutting taxes on the rich and corporations, not just leaving them the same.
SFAW
And also doesn’t laugh at you.
Or maybe moos [sic] at you.
Or, if the Universe is dyslexic, we could ask if Dog has a Buddha nature.
I prolly got a few more like those, stashed away somewhere in the dark recesses of my “mind”, but you might decide to hurt me.
joe from Lowell
I’m starting to think John is just not on board with this proposal.
Bob
@RossInDetroit:
Did you not see Ryan’s last plan? His “Roadmap?” Or statements about his general political philosophy?
No, I think you need evidence that he isn’t as crazy as his plan says he is instead of asserting that it’s so crazy he can’t believe in it. We’ve been down this road already the last 11 years with other Republicans.
SFAW
Wanna bet? Anyone past the age of, say, 18, as Randian as Ryan is, is clearly a few bricks shy of a load.
General Stuck
OT
Fresh Charlie pics – hot of the press
One
two
Midnight Marauder
I decided to visit Andrew Sullivan’s website and read his writing for the first time in a long fucking time. It lasted approximately no longer than 20 seconds. This is where I stopped.
“Earnest grounds.” You have got to be fucking kidding me.
As you can imagine, I will not be repeating this experiment anytime soon.
+4
General Stuck
I think it was the sequel to Earnest Goes To Camp.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@ppcli: Dude or dudette, I don’t know how you managed to get this:
…to end up with an acronym that I read sa APESH*T, but you did. I’m still laughing.
Gian
@Midnight Marauder:
earnest grounds? I think he just misspelled ernest
as in ernest goes to camp…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092974/
burnspbesq
Bartlett is one of the few (at last count, I think they were down to about 30) sane Republicans left. If Ryan has lost Bartlett and Douthat, he’s toast.
Quiddity
Re John’s: “Anyone who insists there is anything remotely serious about the GOP and Ryan’s plan is simply a buffoon.”
David Brooks wrote: “[Ryan’s] proposal will set the standard of seriousness for anyone who wants to [discuss budget proposals]”
I guess that means Brooks is a buffoon.
burnspbesq
I’m starting to like Mark Kleiman. More like this, please.
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/04/uncategorized/patriotism-3/
SaminMpls
@Elia Isquire:
I agree! He has set himself for life as a randian hero to conservatives. He can still move up the in GOP leadership.
Hillary had to move to New York to win a statewide election she would have had no shot running in Arkansas. Ryan gave up any shot he had at winning Kohl’s senate seat and doesn’t seem like the sort of creature who wants to be governor.
Elia Isquire
@SaminMpls: Ah yes youre very right. I frankly would just love to see him actually have a legit challenger in 2012…for the first time in his career.
eemom
@General Stuck:
the doggie!!! The little curled doggie tongue!!
Pray tell, why DO you squander time that could be better spent catering to his every doggie whim, amongst dysfunctional humans like us?
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@M. Bouffant: Ugh. I went there to have a look and I really dislike his response to John.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@eemom: Same here. then it kicks sand in my face.
asiangrrlMN
@General Stuck: Aaaaah! Now that’s refreshing. Who’s a good doggie? CHARLIE is! And, really dang cute, too.
garage mahal
But Ryan/Heritage has it on a PIECE OF FUCKING PAPER!
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Bob: I thought the Roadmap was proof enough that Ryan was crazy.
General Stuck
@eemom:
But then I’d miss out reading your honest and r rated expressions/ :)
zach
The Bernie Sanders plan is missing what we’d do with the $1 trillion or so in revenue that exceeds outlays every year. I say we buy Mexico piece by piece.
Valdivia
I haz a sad, no hat tip for reccing this very article in the hair cut thread?
burnspbesq
@zach:
“Pay off the national debt” sounds like a winner.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@burnspbesq: Or pizza for everyone?
cxs
@General Stuck:
Lurker. Pictures of of Charlie make my day.
Heilchimp
John – I have read you daily for 5 years, but very rarely comment. Just wanted to let you know that it’s posts like these that keep me coming back.
Trinity
@Heilchimp: Ditto!
Rock on Cole. Keep on rantin’!
NonyNony
@zach:
If a plan like the one John outlined above were ever enacted, I’d feel comfortable saying that so long as revenues were exceeding or equaling outlays it would actually be a reasonable time to cut some taxes.
inthewoods
I just hope this isn’t a trial balloon sent up by the GOP to create the outrage, and then they come back with a slightly moderated plan that is still the same tired shit, but that suddenly Dems feel the need to compromise with them.
I keep waiting to hear, this morning, about Dems giving up Planned Parenthood and NPR because they are straight-up chickens.
Robert Waldmann
You brought up safe words. I have to point out that fodder is something one feeds to a cow (or bull or horse or whatever). Hay if they are lucky, straw if not. So “masturbatory fodder” sounds distinctly painful and kinky. I won’t discuss the implicit sexism of assuming one can masturbate with fodder, because I don’t want to be banned.
“The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking.” — George Orwell
I think I will call such metaphors “John Cole Slaw.”
“Masturbatory fuel” makes more sense (I’m told — I wouldn’t know — really I get it so much that I don’t have time to masturbate (he’s lying)).
Jeff Darcy
“Flying fart in a canteen”? I think I’d pay to see someone attempt that.
Barry
A comments beg (ceg?) – does anybody know alternate Twitter feeds to Paul Krugman’s blog? I’m getting odd errors from Twitter.
someofparts
You know, honestly, it would be perfect if Bernie DID do that. Then Cenk or Larry could talk about how brave it is. Flattering reviews at Salon maybe. The howls from Faux News would be wonderful.
Redwood Rhiadra
@Quiddity:
Yes, that’s exactly what it means. Not that we needed any more evidence of that, it’s been obvious for years.
Less Popular Tim
@Robert Waldmann:
That sounds like a good way to burn your junk, at least chemically if not thermally. So fuel is not the petroleum derivative I would use.
For that matter, your fodder could make decent fuel, and therefore is equally scratchy.