Remember the Bill Clinton nominating convention that played Fleetwood Mac's song, "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow?"
Maybe because Paul Ryan is a young man (age 40) and because he is a serious man. Perhaps that is why he is proposing a far-reaching plan that gets at some of this great country's systemic ills rather than temporary quick cures that don't work.
Democrats who profess to despise demagoguery when practiced against Barack Obama are practicing the evil art against Ryan for precisely that reason.
Borrowing today to "stimulate" the economy obviously has not worked. Not when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. Meanwhile, debt as a percentage of annual GDP has increased from 37.6% in 1970 to 94.3% today. Using Obama's budget estimates, that percentage will continue escalating to 102.6% of GDP by 2015.
That is not a policy for the future.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is worth quoting:
In the shorthand such debate generally gets, critics say a deficit reduction plan by Rep. Paul Ryan that has been getting a lot of attention will privatize both Social Security and Medicare, risking people's retirement and health in waning years.
Our question: Won't insolvency for both those programs even more effectively risk retiree well-being and bust the bank?
The fact is that Ryan's roadmap would not touch seniors Social Security but would give young people an option that many federal employees already avail themselves of.
George W. Will calls Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future, "a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America."
Funding entitlements -- especially medical care and pensions for the elderly -- requires reinvigorating the economy. Ryan's map connects three destinations -- economic vitality, diminished public debt, and health and retirement security. [George Will: Charting our way to solvency]
BTW: those stock market-based, personal retirement accounts Ryan proposes? You state employees call them "deferred compensation accounts."
Economist Robert Samuelson says:
President Obama recognized that when he called Ryan's plan a "serious proposal." ... If Democrats don't like Ryan's vision, the proper response is to design and defend their own plan. The fact that they don't have one is a national embarrassment. [02-12-10: Paul Ryan's Lonely Challenge]
Learn about Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future for yourself.
Whoa, Nelly!
This is what led Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers last week to initiate the process of withholding up to $175 million in federal dollars. There is 12 pages of this kind of malfeasance:
Milwaukee Public Schools has failed to fulfill multiple elements of its state-ordered educational improvement plan, ...over how MPS imposes remedies of an ongoing special education lawsuit, the new documents specify where MPS hasn't met other state orders, including literacy instruction, identifying students who need extra help or special services, and tracking newly hired, first-year teachers and teachers hired on emergency licenses. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: 02-12-10]
Free speech lives on the UW campus!
UW political science prof John Coleman gets it right:
Research consistently shows that more spending and more communication produce better informed voters. Moreover, no matter how supporters may try to sidestep it, the bottom line is that this reform aims to fix campaigns by limiting political speech. [Wis. State Journal: Two ways to truly improve Wisconsin elections.]
That is another reason why I say liberals are generally opposed to free speech. John Nichols, Mike McCabe, Ed Garvey, Barack Obama -- all support amending the First Amendment so as to deprive some citizens, organized as corporations, from expressing their political opinions while permitting others to do so (New York Times, Inc., et al).
Parental Responsibility
On the Parental Responsibility Ordinance being developed (Blaska's Blog had the story three days before the State Journal), Madison Central District Police Captain Mary Schauf says: "I agree that parents have a responsibility to provide a safe nurturing structured environment for their children. This includes consequences for behavioral infractions whether it be curfew, truancy, or minor ordinance/criminal behavior. ... (but) I believe that this type of an ordinance can have a disparate impact on single adult families and those struggling with financial constraints."
Blaska's Blog response: So what? It probably will have a disproportionate effect on neglectful parents, whatever their excuse. It will have an equal effect on all the parents of unruly children.
As to the meatheads who cry "Nanny state!" No one is telling anyone how to raise their children. Benjamin Spock, Montessori, Old Testament, whatever. But when those children violate existing laws by disturbing the peace or defacing property, the parents should be held responsible just as dog owners are held responsible.
Won't be fooled again
Minnesotans for Global Warming recycle The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" a week after their performance of it at the Super Bowl. Yes, the southlands received five inches of snow last weekend.
