Paul Ryan's Magical Mystery Tour--The Call For National Suicide

The economists--those pointy-headed liberals--have all weighed in on the 2012 GOP budget and --well--they politely point out that none of the assumptions are realistic and the numbers don't work, even if you agree that the federal government should be eviscerated.

The Washington Post gave the Ryan's plan two pinocchios on the fact-checking its accuracy. Paul Krugman, who initially got deflected by the stunning abolition of Medicare, recovers today to say that Paul Ryan's visions depends an awful lot on unicorn sightings--a belief in the impossible. Contrary to fellow new York Times' op-ed writer, David Brooks, Krugman writes, "This is not a serious proposal! It's a strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking."

Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, discovered another nugget to contemplate. Ryan's healthcare plan would mean that seniors would end up paying most of their income for healthcare. Incredible. On the United States eventually having a 2.1% unemployment rate, Dean Baker believes that the authors of the Ryan plan "just misprogrammed it." He points that the unemployment rate drops to this level in the outyears, even though the budgets says they will have created only 900,000 extra jobs.

Since the unemployment figures are all based on the Heritage Foundation's analysis, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber says,"the Heritage numbers are insane." For the full array of disbelief, check out Benjy Sarlan's piece in www.talkingpointsmemo.com .

I haven't even looked at the Republican war against infrastructure funding and education yet. But the glimpses of the America, Ryan wants is pathetic. With the new GOP 2012 budget,$89 billion will be privately invested in residential real estate. Over the next decade,nearly $1 trillion would be invested and this will be where the majority of the new jobs will be created. Not only is all that b.s. but it tells you that the Repubicans are committed to a FIRE economy--Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. This is precisely the reason the country is losing its competitive edge and the quality of its life style. What you see is doubling down on a commitment to an economy that can not be sustained and nor should it.

But let's face it, the primary funders of the New Republicans are these industries. The health insurance industry gets a guaranteed permanent livelihood. The finance industry with their lobbyists writing the laws get their piece of the pie. And the real estate interests are encouraged to be the engine of the economy. Remember the arsenal of democracy and the industrial power that generated the recovery from the Great Depression, now we will be powered by Groucho Marx selling real estate in Florida. If you want an ideological plan that was developed by intellectual pygmies, this is it.

Oh yes, no alternative energy sources and no high-speed rail. Now that is the preference of the oilies but think about it. Ryan's economy envisions an immediate boom through 2050. So it's natural to think that oil consumption would rise enormously. And we do have other competitors with real economies eating the same oil. So where does the energy come from?

More nonsense:

Interest rates in the Ryan plan will fall from the CBO baseline by roughly .35%--even though interest rates are at historic lows now. By 2021, the percentage of GDP spent on discretionary domestic budget items, excluding non-health items and social security, will fall from the current 12% to 6%. By 2050, this will be down to 3%. Of course, Paul Ryan will not tell you what programs are being cut.

Mark Halperin weighs in that at least the GOP have a plan but where's Obama's. beam me up, Scottie. I distinctly remember President Obama releasing a 2012 budget with cuts, a freeze on government salaries, and investments in alternative energy and education. And it seems to me a more rational point of departure for the debate then to debate whether we should have a government in this time of economic uncertainty.

More political types have analyzed the Ryan Plan and observed that it guts Medicare, which is one of the programs President Obama expanded to cover health care costs for children and the underprivileged. What this means is that the Republicans want to prevent any implementation of health reform.

Others observe that the Ryan Plan omits any discussion of increasing revenues for government, except the pie-in-the-sky thought that tax cuts generate revenue. Instead, the middle class, the poor and the elderly will absorb a greater tax burden and they get to see costs for health care ,etc. rise.

Still others observe the curious lack of any historical precedents or comparative examples. In other words,there is nothing in this plan that has ever been test-driven and proved successful. And the consequences for failure here is truly calamitous.

To get a sense of how the Ryan Plan would work,watch the experiments in state government in Florida and Michigan. These are the two states that have taken the radical measures advocated by Ryan and deserve watching closely.