Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011 7:30 am
What will Paul Ryan say in his response to President Obama's State of the Union address?
Whatever Wall Street tells him to say.
Rep. Ryan's got a reputation as a Republican "big ideas" guy. In fairness, he's far more familiar with conservative economic theories than GOP talking heads like House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But Ryan's "big ideas" never deviate from the demands of his Wall Street patrons.
The new chairman of the House Budget Committee has emerged as the GOP's point man on "fiscal responsibility" issues. Yet he played such a key role in passing the Wall Street bailout of 2008 that he earned a feature spot in filmmaker Michael Moore's expose of the bailout: "Capitalism: A Love Story." Ryan rallied Republican votes for the measure when sincere conservatives wanted to vote "no" to the $800 billion giveaway.
There was nothing fiscally responsible -- let alone necessary -- about the bailout. Indeed, it was such a bad deal that it spawned a popular revolt that gave rise to the tea party movement.
Now Ryan positions himself as the champion of the tea party's call for debt relief. But that's not where Ryan is really coming from.
In fact, nonpartisan analysts say his form of "fiscal responsibility" would actually expand debts and deficits. Why? Because Ryan is the most determined advocate in Washington for bailouts, privatizations and policy shifts that steer U.S. tax dollars into the vaults of big banks, the accounts of speculators and the bonuses of CEOs.
Technically, Ryan represents Janesville. But his real designation ought to be: Paul Ryan, R-Wall Street.
Janesville is -- or at least it once was -- a manufacturing town. Yet since his election to the House in 1998, Ryan has consistently voted for free-trade pacts -- including the extension of most-favored nation trading status to China -- that have been absolutely devastating to the community and others in his southeastern Wisconsin district.
How devastating? In 2008, the sprawling General Motors plant that had been the community's top employer for nine decades was shuttered.
What was Ryan doing in the months before the plant closed? Campaigning for a scheme to gamble Social Security funds on the stock market and to gut Medicare and Medicaid. Had Ryan gotten his way, tens of millions of Americans who lost most of their retirement savings when the stock market crashed in the fall of 2008 would also have lost much of their Social Security safety net. And they would have had an even harder time getting access to medical care.
Fiscally responsible? Not Paul Ryan.
His whole career has been about redistributing wealth upward, rewriting trade rules to favor multinational corporations, robbing the federal treasury to enrich his banking industry benefactors, and running up debts to bail out Wall Street.http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_e88167ec-2765-11e0-b463-001cc4c002e0.html 
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