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Title: Veep Pick Paul Ryan Is No Conservative
Source:
The New American Magazine
URL Source: http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/po ... k-paul-ryan-is-no-conservative
Published: Aug 12, 2012
Author: Jack Kenny
Post Date: 2012-08-12 15:11:38 by hondo68
Keywords: backed "Government Motors", Omnibus Appropriations 2012, NDAA, TARP, Patriot Act, support of big-spending
Views: 563
Comments: 47
No sooner had Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate become known than the world of punditry was abuzz with talk of "Ryanmania." Since mania is by definition an excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm, the label may be regarded as an understatement.For while the seven-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee is not yet a household name across America, he does generate excitement within the "conservative movement," an excitement and enthusiasm that suggests the talking heads at Fox News and the dot.com warriors at The Weekly Standard have no more sense of conservative, constitutional government than the cheering chanting crowd of Republican partisans who greeted the vice presidential hopeful in Norfolk, Virginia, Saturday morning. Like him or not, the one thing politically aware Americans are supposed to know about Paul Ryan is that he is a fiscal conservative, a bold budget hawk. He is, after all, the prime author of the House budget plan (titled "the Path to Prosperity") to repeal the Obama health insurance program ("ObamaCare"), turn the Medicaid program for low-income Americans over to the states and create a private insurance option for Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2023. The plan would also turn food stamps and other federal programs for the poor into block grants to the states, with limits on the growth of those programs. If Republican voters have any doubts about Ryan's commitment to budget austerity, they need only hear the Democrats' outcry that Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" will be a road to the poorhouse for elderly and low-income Americans. But on the other side of the ledger, Ryan's voting record shows a robust support of big-spending programs to enlarge the role of the federal government, especially when they are promoted by a Republican in the White House. Ryan voted for all of the big-ticket, budget-busting items of the administration of President George W. Bush, including the No Child Left Behind Act and the prescription drug benefit known as Medicare Part D, often described as the largest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Ryan voted to create the new Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration that has harassed air travelers, while making aircraft safe from shoes, belt buckles and grandma's knitting needles. He voted for the PATRIOT Act, giving government enhanced powers for warrantless snooping into the lives of American citizens as well as foreign nationals. Ryan voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program that bailed out the "too big to fail" financial institutions and inspired the Tea Party rebellion against big government and "crony capitalism." He backed the auto bailout that turned GM into "Government Motors." And while conservatives generally like to leave wars and military spending off the list of costly "big government" programs, Ryan's record on that front is also troubling. Like Romney, Ryan has no foreign policy credentials and no record of military service to point to in the election campaign. And like Romney, Ryan swallowed whole the Bush-Cheney line on Iraq and supported the decision to invade and occupy that country in a needless war that cost more than 4,000 American and hundreds of thousands Iraqi lives and has added roughly a trillion dollars to our soaring national debt. Ryan's budget calls for no reduction in military spending, despite the continued presence of U.S. troops in some 130 countries around the world, most of which have no bearing on our own national security. Even more troubling is Ryan's vote last December in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation included a provision authorizing the President to use the military to arrest suspected terrorists, including American citizens apprehended in the United States, and hold them indefinitely, without charges and without trial, in clear violation of due process rights guaranteed by the Constitution. This year Ryan voted against an amendment to remove that provision from the law. Ryan did vote against reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which grants loans and loan guarantees to foreign governments and businesses for the purchase of U.S. products. But his vote last year for the $915 billion Omnibus Appropriations Bill for 2012 went to support further spending on housing, education, foreign aid, and other programs for which there is no constitutional role for the federal government. On The New American magazine's latest Freedom Index, matching congressional votes with the strictures of the Constitution, Ryan's rating for the 112th Congress to date was an anemic 67 percent. Paul Ryan is, in short, a typical Bush-era Republican, whose selection as a vice presidential candidate is being trumpeted as a triumph by many of the same Republicans who are doing their best to flush the administration of George W. Bush down the memory hole. Republican candidates almost never invoke the Bush name and the most recent Republican President will not be attending the party's convention in Tampa, where Romney and Ryan are expected to be officially nominated. Chances the name of the 43rd President will be mentioned in rare fleeting reference, if at all. Yet in his choice of running mate, Romney has chosen a loyal Bush Republican and reliable supporter of the programs and policies that made the Bush administration an anathema to genuine conservatives and an embarrassment to the nation. Finally, the Ryan budget, while including a number of unspecified cuts in entitlement programs, would push overall spending higher than current levels. Despite its optimistic revenue projections, the Congressional Budget Office projects the Ryan plan will lead to a balanced budget by 2040.That suggests a rousing slogan for the Romney-Ryan ticket: "Slightly Less Socialism And A Balanced Budget in 28 Years." Poster Comment: Just another big gov progressive like Obama and W. Mitt. 
Paul Ryan's first choice for a running mate?
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#3. To: hondo68 (#0)
He's only a budget hawk when it comes to cutting money going to the welfare state. He's a typical big spending Republicrat when it comes to funding the warfare state. He's nothing special. We need someone who will take a hammer and chisel to both the welfare AND warfare state.
Yep, Ryan is a RINO neocon - a slightly different shade of color of leftism. Let's keep in mind that Neoconservatives were former Democrats before they crossed over to the GOP and polluted that party too. http://conservapedia.com/Neoconservatism snip A neoconservative (also spelled "neo-conservative"; colloquially, neocon) in American politics is someone presented as a conservative but who actually favors big government, interventionalism, and a hostility to religion in politics and government. The word means "newly conservative," and thus formerly liberal. A neocon is a type of RINO, and like RINOs does not accept most of the important principles in the Republican Party platform. Many older neocons had been liberals in their youth and admired President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while younger neocons are more economically conservative than Roosevelt but like to downplay the social issues. In 2010 the highest priority of the neoconservatives was to increase military action by the United States in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and to expand it to an American confrontation against Iran; in 2011 their goals include supporting a military attack on Libya, continuing the Afghanistan War indefinitely, and even suggesting military action against Syria. There is a revolving door between some neocons and highly paid positions in the defense industry, which may explain the constant neoconservative demands for more wars. In the European nations of Britain and France, neoconservatives dominate right-leaning politics, but in the United States neocons are less influential than the conservative movement. For example, neocons begrudgingly supported Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee for President in 2012, even though he was not their first choice and Romney has never supported the neocon agenda. Neoconservatives tend to oppose the appointment of social conservatives to high governmental positions, such as nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Neoconservatives support candidates who are liberal on social issues instead. Neoconservatives favor expensive foreign interventionalism with massive federal spending, often to replace a dictator with a new system of government that may be worse. Sometimes this is expressed as a desire to install a democracy in a culture that may be incompatible with it. The neoconservative position was discredited in the failure of democracy in the Iranian elections of 2009. The neoconservative movement emerged in the mid 1970s, played a limited role in the Ronald Reagan Administration, and then had a voice in the Defense Department under the George W. Bush Administration after 9/11. Candidates favored by neoconservatives for president in 2012 include Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pence and, to a lesser extent because she pulls support away from those candidates, Sarah Palin. Some prominent spokesmen include Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Christopher Hitchens, Bernard Lewis, Stephen Schwartz, Elliott Abrams, Ben Wattenberg and Carl Gershman. In contrast to traditional conservatives, neoconservatives favor globalism, downplay religious issues and differences, are unlikely to actively oppose abortion and homosexuality. Neocons disagree with conservatives on issues such as classroom prayer, the separation of powers, cultural unity, and immigration. Neocons favor a strong active state in world affairs. Neocons oppose affirmative action with greater emphasis and priority than other conservatives do. On foreign policy, neoconservatives believe that democracy can and should be installed by the United States around the world, even in Muslim countries such as Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Neoconservatives were prominent in the George W. Bush administration by supporting a strong foreign policy, and especially favored the Iraq War and its efforts to spread democracy worldwide. Also: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Co.../000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp "The Neoconservative Persuasion" by Irving Kristol
Nope, he a REAL Republican neocon, like Bush, McCain, Bill & Irving Kristol. W. Mitt, Boehner, and most holding office. The RINO's are the pro-American conservative ones, like Ron Paul. A minority, at least on the leadership level of the GOP.
If you see it that way, more power to you. You obviously do not want to accept the fact that Ron Paul is Republican. Imo, Ron Paul is a true conservative Republican. He is what the GOP has been and should be. The RINO's are liberals in Republican clothing that have infiltrated and taken control of the GOP.
...W. Mitt is a real, genuine Republican. Hope & Change... Dream on.
What's your point? I said Romney is not a genuine Republican - he is a RINO. You claim Romney is. I said Ron Paul is a genuine conservative Republican. You claim Ron Paul is not. Ron Paul describes himself as a Republican. He says he is trying to save the GOP from itself - from the RINOs and Neocons - liberals wearing GOP clothing - who have high jacketed the GOP. www.huffingtonpost.com/20...epublicans_n_1394927.html If you like Ron Paul, you have to face the fact that he identifies himself as a Republican. Sorry. It is what it is.
#15. To: scrapper2, wakeup (#14)
"ALL" FEDS are FEDS. They are the enemy ! My son e-mailed me the above video and I thought it was funny that one of our 4UM members made it. Ya just never know. Thanks Ron !
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#6. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#3)
We need someone who will take a hammer and chisel to both the welfare AND warfare state.
#7. To: scrapper2 (#6)
Yep, Ryan is a RINO neocon
#8. To: hondo68 (#7)
The RINO's are the pro-American conservative ones, like Ron Paul.
#13. To: scrapper2 (#8)
You obviously do not want to accept the fact that
#14. To: hondo68 (#13)
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