Paul Ryan, Deep in $716 Billion Worth of Weeds

 

From “Paul Ryan On GOP Budget’s Medicare Cuts:  Obama Started It!”, Benjy Sarlin, Talking Points Memo:

 

“Paul Ryan, in his ongoing evolution from active supporter to newfound critic of the Affordable Care Act’s $716 billion in Medicare savings, now claims he actually opposed the cuts before he embraced them (and then turned against them again later).

“The confusing new wrinkle is the latest example of Ryan’s awkward contortions as he tries to reconcile the Romney campaign’s new promise to restore the $716 billion in cuts with Ryan’s previous decision to include the same exact cuts in two Republican budgets he wrote.

“On Thursday, Ryan tried to square the circle with reporters, explaining that he tried to reverse the cuts by voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but restored them in his own budgets anyway.

“So the score now stands at:  Ryan says he wouldn’t have cut Medicare.  Then Obama made those cuts.  Then Ryan voted to reverse them.  Then he decided to bring them back in the Republican budget.  Now he opposes them and thinks they hurt seniors.”

When you’re explaining, you’re losing, and Romney/Ryan are sure spending a lot of time ‘splaining.

Mitt Agrees with Obama

The Romney campaign says the Obamacare mandate is a penalty, not a tax.

So how can they run against Obama by screaming about the enormous tax increase on the middle class, which is the new overarching GOP strategy and theme?

Mitt is now aligned with the Prez and off-message with Fox News and his own party.

Roberts has painted Mittens into a corner by choosing the tax argument.

The GOP has painted itself into a corner by choosing  Mittens.

Crocodile Tears Over Our Lost “Freedom”

Peggy Noonan’s latest column — “Obama Has a Good Day (But liberty has a bad one)” — complains that “The ruling strikes me as very bad for the atmosphere of freedom in our country.”

You know, that wonderful freedom to choose not to have health insurance, crash your motorcycle into a truck, and stick your fellow Americans with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills for your care.  I’m sure that’s what the Founding Fathers saw as the essence of freedom, a God-given right to be a burden and a free-loader.

The GOP’s betrayal of the individual mandate they loved for two decades is worthy of John Edwards.

If the individual mandate had become law under President Bush or a President McCain, we all know Noonan would have been cheer-leading in a column that read “The ruling strikes me as very good for the atmosphere of personal responsibility in our country.”