The Line of the NIght From Paul Ryan

Here's a Doozy

Marc Benioff, a national campaign co-chair for President Obama's reelection campaign, donated $10,000 to Ryan's political action committee earlier this summer.

Asked about the donation by Cr. Benioff said that the nation's fiscal difficulties must be addressed and Ryan's ideas offer "a lot of the right long-term thinking for the country."

I bet the President was not happy about that quote, especially since it came from his national campaign co-chair.

Which is it?

On a conference call with the Boston Globe, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter suggested that Mitt Romney was a criminal and a felon.

When asked about the comment, President Obama said, "Well, first of all, I am not sure that all of those characterizations that you laid out there were accurate. For example, nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon."

So, either the President is not being truthful or he has no idea what his campaign operatives are doing and/or saying.  Either way, it is a sad commentary.

An Extremist??

The mantra or talking point we are hearing from the left is that Paul Ryan is an extremist.  I take note of that because posters on this blog and some of my former political opponents have called me an extremist.

In response, I am reminded of a passage from Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that discusses extremism.  He wrote, "You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. . . . But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.  Was not Jesus an extremist for love. . . . Was not Amos an extremist for justice. . . . Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel. . . . Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

 With the state of the economy and the state of our country, perhaps we do need some creative extremists.

THE ROMNEY-RYAN PLAN FOR MEDICARE

The National Review has released an editorial supporting the plan for Medicare released by Romney and Ryan.  It describes the plan exceedingly accurately.  The piece, entitled "The Return of Mediscare" is below:

On CNN yesterday, Obama strategist David Axelrod claimed that “most of the experts who have looked at this” have said that Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare would put the program “in a death spiral” and “would raise costs on seniors by thousands of dollars.” A day earlier — as Representative Ryan was preparing to accept Mitt Romney’s offer to join his ticket — Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina had said the plan involved “shifting thousands of dollars in health-care costs to seniors.”

None of this is true. Any expert who looks at Ryan’s plan — any intelligent and fair-minded person, really — can tell you the actual worst-case scenario for how much more it could make beneficiaries pay: $0.
The claim Axelrod and Messina are making is based on a hostile interpretation of an earlier version of Ryan’s proposal. Ryan has changed the proposal over the last year, however, and Romney has endorsed the new version. The Democratic criticism, applied to the new plan, is indisputably false.

The Romney-Ryan proposal — which has the support of liberal Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — would let senior citizens choose a coverage plan provided either by the federal government or by a private company. The government would defray the cost of purchasing the plan selected. The providers would submit bids showing the premiums they would charge to cover the benefits Medicare has traditionally offered. The second-lowest bid would set the amount the government would provide for each beneficiary

Seniors who picked the second-cheapest provider would have their entire premium paid by the government, and seniors who picked the cheapest would get a check for the difference. Seniors who picked a more expensive plan would have to pay the difference out of pocket.

We have reason to be confident that this arrangement would restrain the growth of costs. A study has just shown that applying the second-cheapest-bidder approach to even the much less robust form of competition in Medicare Advantage would have resulted in a 9 percent reduction in Medicare costs in one year alone. The savings from years of real competition could be enormous.

If, however, competition does not restrain costs, the growth of government spending per beneficiary will be capped at a level a bit above the growth rate of the economy plus inflation. That is the exact level that the Obama administration envisions as well. The administration, however, hopes to reach the target by setting low prices for medical providers and otherwise micromanaging medical markets. There have been many past efforts along these lines, and they have always failed.

Under a worst-case scenario, then, the Romney-Ryan plan costs senior citizens no more than current law. It offers the hope of doing considerably better: of reining in the costs of Medicare, the principal cause of long-term debt disaster, without sacrificing patient choice, the quality of health care, or medical innovation.
Republicans should explain that they have found a promising strategy to stave off national bankruptcy while improving senior citizens’ health care, and explain also the alternative of bureaucratic rationing Obama has in store for them. If Obama and his aides persist in claiming that the Romney-Ryan plan will increase costs for senior citizens or shift risks to them, Republicans and fair-minded observers should not hesitate to call these charges what they are: lies.

Time for a Real Debate

Governor Romney made a bold and exciting choice for his running mate.  He chose Paul Ryan, a solid conservative known for backing up his words with solid plans.

Already, the Obama campaign and their surrogates are doing what they do best.  They are spreading lies and allegations against Paul Ryan.  If you have not heard the Democrat talking point already, then allow me.  The Democrats are claiming that Romney and Ryan want to destroy Medicare and let granny die from a lack of care.  In some cases, they have even worded it exactly in that way.

Now, let's discuss the truth.  The only candidate for President who cut over $700 billion from Medicare was President Obama as part of his Obamacare plan.

Second, the Romney-Ryan plan changes NOTHING for current seniors.  The changes are for those down the road who are not even seniors yet.  It is an attempt to save Medicare.  Interestingly, the plan was originally conceived by a bipartisan commission created during the Clinton administration. Is it not interesting that not one word of that has come from the Obama surrogates?


The selection of Paul Ryan sets up a true debate.  The election presents a choice between President Obama/ VP Biden who believe that government is the answer to all our problems versus Governor Romney/Congressman Paul Ryan who believe that government is more often than not the problem itself.  It is big government versus a smaller more efficient government.  It is HUGE entitlement spending versus more efficient entitlement spending.

The only question now is whether the Obama campaign will allow this to be a debate or whether they will continue to run their campaign in the mud.  They or their closely allied Super PAC have been running ads accusing Romney of being responsible for the death of a woman who died of cancer.   They have run ads attacking an African American Congressman showing a computer generated version of the Congressman punching an old white woman in the face.  Yet another ad had a Ryan lookalike pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff.  They have promised even tougher ads.  It is going to get nasty and ugly, primarily because the President cannot run on his record.

Below I have attached a video of the "Homecoming Speech" offered by the next VP, Paul Ryan, when he and Governor Romney traveled to Wisconsin on the day after Ryan was named as the running mate.  Enjoy.