I loved Obama’s speech yesterday. It was a full-throated defense of the progressive vision of government and successfully tied Republicans to a pessimistic view of America. I know they’re all stewing angrily right now.
In the current Republican mood, however, precautions are for girlie-men. Republicans have succumbed to a strange mood of simultaneous euphoria and paranoia. Republicans have convinced themselves both that: (1) American freedom stands in imminent danger of disappearing into totalitarian night; and (2) that the vast majority of the great and good American people are yearning for a mighty rollback of big government, even at considerable personal sacrifice.
And so Republicans have united around Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal that for the first time in modern conservative history explicitly joins a big tax cut for the rich to big cuts in health care spending for virtually everybody else. If this were a tennis game, the Republicans would be placing the ball in exactly the spot on the court where it must never, ever go.
Exactly. Not only did Ryan’s plan end Medicare (that’s unpopular enough) but it ended Medicare to pay for more tax cuts for the rich. You can’t get any clearer than the Ryan budget that Republicans serve the rich at expense of everyone else. We haven’t even started talking yet about how Ryan’s plan actually increasesthe deficit.
It will be interesting to watch what happens to the Ryan budget in Congress. They may vote on it as soon as today. Will Republicans embrace the Ryan plan or will they run away from it?