Congress

Who’s Shrugging Now?: A Post about Rep. Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the GOP Path to Prosperity

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin claims he has a “knack for numbers.” Not long ago, he unveiled his GOP budget proposal titled “Path to Prosperity.” Rachel Maddow criticized members of the media for their fawning coverage of Ryan and his financial “magnum opus.” Said Maddow: “If the Beltway media could stop making out with Paul Ryan for long enough to look at what’s actually in his budget proposal, they might notice that some of the important numbers in it appear to be made up.” She added: “I doubt that actual numerically based fact based information will penetrate the smoochy smoochy love bubble surrounding Paul Ryan right now…there’s this cult of him being brave and bold and doing this difficult workout every morning. What he’s just introduced is not a feature on grit versus glamour in today’s GOP. It is not a pinup. It is not the brave story of a strong boy in a tough environment. It’s the official Republican Party budget for 2012, and the numbers in it are so wrong they are occasionally funny.”



Anne Lowrey summarizes Ryan’s proposal in an article in Slate titled Model Misbehavior: Why Paul Ryan’s budget numbers don’t add up: “Tax cuts to wealthy Americans foster prosperity that moves millions of (less wealthy) Americans back to work, with increasing wages. High earnings and employment bolster tax revenue. When combined with huge cuts in domestic spending and radical changes to Medicaid and Medicare, the budget balances out in about 20 years.” Lowrey goes on to explain, however, that Ryan’s plan relied on numbers provided by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis—which have been exposed “as a bit fantastical.”

Harold Meyerson wrote the following about Ryan’s budget proposal: “The cover under which Ryan and other Republicans operate is their concern for the deficit and national debt. But Ryan blows that cover by proposing to reduce the top income tax rate to just 25 percent. He imposes the burden for reducing our debt not on the bankers who forced our government to spend trillions averting a collapse but on seniors and the poor. The reductions in aid to the poor, says the budget blueprint that Ryan released, will be made ‘to ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.’ That’s a pretty good description of America’s top bankers, but Ryan’s budget showers them with tax cuts.”

Ryan claims his budget proposal is a “compassionate” one—but Pat Garofalo begs to differ. Garofalo says that the “Path to Prosperity” would “double health care costs for seniors, endanger vital Medicaid services, and likely increase taxes on the middle-class to finance tax cuts for the rich.”

E. D. Kain thinks that Ryan’s budget is not serious one. He says that it’s ideological—and suspects “that its intention is to shift the debate and make the Ryan budget the leaping off point for further budgets.”

There are many who would agree that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” is indeed based on ideology. One might ask what the ideological foundation of his thinking was when he prepared the 2012 GOP budget.

Jonathan Chait provides us with an explanation of why Ryan’s budget helps those at the very top while hurting the middle class and the less fortunate in his Newsweek article titled War on the Weak: How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers. In the article, Chait wrote about what has motivated both Paul Ryan and the Tea Party:

“In fact, the two streams—the furious Tea Party rebels and Ryan the earnest budget geek—both spring from the same source. And it is to that source that you must look if you want to understand what Ryan is really after, and what makes these activists so angry.

“The Tea Party began early in 2009 after an improvised rant by Rick Santelli, a CNBC commentator who called for an uprising to protest the Obama administration’s subsidizing the “losers’ mortgages.” Video of his diatribe rocketed around the country, and protesters quickly adopted both his call for a tea party and his general abhorrence of government that took from the virtuous and the successful and gave to the poor, the uninsured, the bankrupt—in short, the losers. It sounded harsh, Santelli quickly conceded, but “at the end of the day I’m an Ayn Rander.”

“Ayn Rand, of course, was a kind of politicized L. Ron Hubbard—a novelist-philosopher who inspired a cult of acolytes who deem her the greatest human being who ever lived. The enduring heart of Rand’s totalistic philosophy was Marxism flipped upside down. Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites.”

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Ashbrook moderated a discusson about Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan on his radio program On Point with Jonathan Chait, senior editor at The New Republic, Anne C. Heller, journalist and author of “Ayn Rand and the World She Made,” and Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. The program was titled Ayn Rand’s Resurgence. In his summary of the program, Ashbrook wrote: “The American budget battle so far is really a battle of ideals. And at the back of a vocal chorus on the Republican/Tea Party right sits the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand.” Ashbrook and his guests talked about “what it means to have “Atlas Shrugged” in the middle of the budget debate.”

Click here to listen to the program.

In an article for The New Republic, Jonathan Chait wrote more about Ryan, his budget, and Ayn Rand:

Ryan would retain some bare-bones subsidies for the poorest, but the overwhelming thrust in every way is to liberate the lucky and successful to enjoy their good fortune without burdening them with any responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens. This is the core of Ryan’s moral philosophy:
“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” …

At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand’s writings when he told his audience that, “Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill … is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict–individualism versus collectivism.”

The core of the Randian worldview, as absorbed by the modern GOP, is a belief that the natural market distribution of income is inherently moral, and the central struggle of politics is to free the successful from having the fruits of their superiority redistributed by looters and moochers.

There is no doubt that Ryan has been impressed by the words and works of novelist/philosopher Rand. He declared his admiration for her in Facebook videos that he posted in 2009.

Facebook Videos Posted by Paul Ryan
Ayn Rand’s Relevance in 2009
Ayn Rand & 2009 America, Part 2

The Truth about GOP Hero Ayn Rand (Think Progress)

So there you have it—a GOP budget proposal for 2012 brought to you by Rep. Paul Ryan, acolyte and admirer of Ayn Rand. It’s a “path to prosperity” for those who are already prosperous.

SOURCES
War on the Weak: How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers. (Newsweek)
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand (The New Republic)
Rachel Maddow Tears Into Beltway Media For Paul Ryan Budget Coverage (Huffington Post)
Who’s hurt by Paul Ryan’s budget proposal (Washington Post)
Model Misbehavior: Why Paul Ryan’s budget numbers don’t add up (Slate)
Paul Ryan’s ‘Compassionate’ Budget Would Gut The Food Safety Net (Think Progress)
Paul Ryan And The Republican Vision (The New Republic)
The Man Behind Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan Got the Tax Cuts Wrong, Too (The Atlantic)
Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal Would Increase Public Debt Relative To Extending Current Law (Think Progress)
Paul Ryan’s Multiple Unicorns (New York Times)
What’s wrong with Paul Ryan’s budget? (Washington Examiner)

Tea Party Embraces Ayn Rand (Frum Forum)

163 thoughts on “Who’s Shrugging Now?: A Post about Rep. Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the GOP Path to Prosperity”

  1. This is not surprising. Republicans have total control of state government in Texas. Hope they don’t get the presidency and the senate in 2012.

  2. This is a perfect example of the sort of legislation that gives the lie to those who profess to believe in free market capitalism.

  3. Off Topic:

    Texas GOP Rams Koch-Backed ‘Loser Pays’ Bill Through House, Making It Harder To Sue Corporations
    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/09/loser-pays-lawsuits/

    Excerpt:
    As ThinkProgress has reported, brothers Charles and David Koch and their corporate giant, Koch Industries, have played an extensive role in the corporate takeover of government, both at the state and federal level. This weekend, another of the Kochs’ projects surfaced in Texas, as the state’s Republican lawmakers rammed through a Koch-backed bill that would make it harder for consumers, workers, and small business owners to bring civil suits against corporations.

    House Bill 274 — dubbed the “Loser Pays” bill — passed the state House Saturday with no amendments and no debate after Gov. Rick Perry (R) deemed it “emergency legislation,” rushing it to the top of the legislative agenda. Under the bill, those who sue corporations could be held responsible for the defendants’ legal fees if they lose the case — and in some instances, even if they win. If the court sides with the plaintiff, but awards a smaller amount than the defendant offered in a potential settlement, the plaintiff could be forced to pay the defendant’s court costs, even if those costs exceed the amount awarded to the plaintiff. For this reason, state Rep. Craig Eiland (D) wanted to rename the bill the “loser-pays-but-sometimes-the-winner pays-too” bill.

    The law could intimidate potential plaintiffs into avoiding lawsuits against corporations, because they could be on the hook for massive legal fees if the court ultimately doesn’t side with them.

    Not surprisingly, among the bill’s biggest proponent are large corporations, including Koch Industries, Chevron, and G.E., which all lobbied on its behalf. Also backing the bill is the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit front group funded largely by corporations, including Koch Industries and three other Koch-owned companies: Georgia Pacific, Invista, and Flint Hills Resources.

    These companies stand to gain tremendously from the legislation, as it could both reduce their legal fees in specific cases and have a chilling effect on lawsuits more generally. And Koch’s business practices have made them a frequent target of expensive lawsuits. In Texas, for example, Koch’s refinery in Corpus Cristi has a history of leaking Benzene, a hazardous chemical linked to cancer, and was indicted in 2000 on 97 counts for violating EPA rules.

  4. Mike A. and Elaine,
    the teaching of history has been a failure because History is not on the test that the teachers are forced to teach to.
    Mike A.,
    I liked your last too lines the best from your post at 6:00pm. You are exactly correct that Obama has accepted too little!

  5. Jill:

    I believe that there are important sociological and psychological reasons for the strong support given to Barack Obama by people like Chomsky and Zinn. And it has to do with race, culture and the history of mid-20th century America.

    I graduated from college in 1969 and, like many of my classmates, entered law school full of idealism. After living through the assassinations, the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the beginnings of the feminist movement and the resistance to the war in Vietnam, I personally believed that society was undergoing fundamental and irreversible change for the better. Indeed, my law school class included the first significant numbers of women in American history.

    The Reagan years were filled with bitter disappointment, culminating in the disastrous presidency of George Bush. After Pres. Obama announced his candidacy, and I began to listen to his speeches, all of the cynicism which had been building up for years gave way to a renewed hope that, in retrospect, bordered on giddiness. I saw in him a recommitment to the values I had embraced many years before and saw the prospect of a black president in my lifetime as proof that society had absorbed those values, that we had matured as a nation and that the new century would see major victories for progressivism. It is hardly surprising that old warhorses like Chomsky and Zinn would see at least a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

    Now the old cynicism has returned. It is not that I have expected too much from Pres. Obama. It is that he has accepted too little.

  6. Mike A.

    “The view that the great industrial development of the 19th century was achieved through free market principles is a myth which cannot acquire veracity by constant repetition. It was instead a product of aggression, public and private corruption, graft, oppression of workers and the poor, fraud and outright theft, with the able assistance of the legislative and judicial branches of government. Had it been otherwise, there would never have been a need for anti-trust legislation, workers compensation, child labor laws and unions…”

    *****
    I agree.

  10. As a conservative Republican, I think Ayn Rand was an ugly woman with an even uglier ideology.

  11. fuguwriter:

    BTW. I have never heard of Mary MacLane. Have you read her?

  12. Check this out: “Published on Monday, May 9, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
    Republicans in Liberal Clothing
    by Rania Khalek

    I can’t understand why the GOP is always so angry at the President. After all, Obama has shown himself to be a committed conservative. What’s that? He is a Democrat you say? Well he had me fooled.

    With 2012 just around the corner, the election season for the GOP primary candidates is in full swing as evidenced by the recent South Carolina debate. Candidate after candidate, with a few minor exceptions, recycled the same old slogans to rally the troops. In short it was the typical calls for “smaller government, deregulation, lower taxes, blah blah blah.” As I watched on, I couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly distinguishes the policies these GOP candidates want to enact from those of the Democrats?

    While the GOP threatens to empower the IRS to audit rape victims, strip public workers of collective bargaining, and privatize medicare, it’s easy to forget that the Democratic party is just as culpable for the numerous crises facing America. GOP legislators around the country have been introducing absurd bills designed to enforce their ideology on the rest of us, which has galvanized liberals, progressives, and even some conservatives to unite and protest in their affected communities. From Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s “financial martial law” and Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s war on unions, to Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize medicare, the GOP establishment has proven that it is nothing more than a heartless group of rich and privileged scoundrels. And as a result, Democrats are gaining momentum as they speak in the populist language of liberalism against Republican assaults.

    A clear and familiar pattern has emerged with liberals. Destructive GOP policies energize the liberal base, just as happened during the Bush years, and then Democrats come along with populist rhetoric and swallow up the movement. President Bush’s eight year reign had liberals so outraged, that even credible and wise leftists like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn came out in support of candidate Obama’s “Change we can believe in” (with caution of course). Millions of progressives and liberals campaigned for Obama’s well marketed and emotionally appealing campaign, but once he was elected, they went home assuming the mission was accomplished.

    Some three years later, what has changed? Well, other than the President’s skin tone, not much.

    We’re still at war in Afghanistan, combat troops remain in Iraq, and Obama has declared war on Libya without a constitutionally required declaration from Congress. America, under the leadership of a Democrat, is brutally occupying two countries (three if you include the indirect occupation of Palestine) and bombing Libya, while unofficially waging war on Pakistan and Yemen, in addition to being the world’s number one arms dealer, in many cases arming some of the most brutal dictators and despots imaginable.

    During the Bush years, liberals were rightly outraged with the Bush administration for flushing the Bill of Rights down the toilet while expanding executive power more than any other president in history. This included such reprehensible acts as warrantless wiretapping, a suspension of habeas corpus, the excessive use of state secrets, etc. President Obama’s answer to crimes of such magnitude has been to look forward not backwards–essentially giving immunity to the previous administration for breaking the law and causing unquantifiable suffering—while punishing whistleblowers brave enough to shed light on some of the worst crimes imaginable. Under President Obama, it’s safer to be a war criminal than expose a war criminal.

    It’s no secret that President “constitutional law professor” Obama has created a formal system of indefinite detention for Guantanamo detainees, or that he punishes American citizens without trial. His administration has outlawed torture, but they still kidnap people from around the world, and ship them to other countries to be tortured (aka extraordinary rendition). Most dangerous of all, our “very liberal” President has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad, far from any battlefield, based exclusively on unchecked accusations by the Executive Branch that they’re involved in Terrorism, a power that Bush and Cheney could only fantasize about.

    On the surface, differences between Democrats and Republicans on budget cuts seem oceans apart. But in reality, Democrats are just as committed to austerity cuts as Republicans. It’s simply a matter of how much. The fierce budget-cut battles in congress mask the converging economic ideologies of two corporately-owned political parties. They agree on much more than they would like to admit. For this reason, we should not confuse the Democrats minor disagreements with Republicans, as them standing up for the little guy. Because standing up for the “people” would require a principled refusal to make draconian budget cuts to social programs during a recession with 9% unemployment

    Let’s not forget that it was a Democrat-controlled congress and white house that renewed the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy last year, while allowing for deregulation and CEO bonuses to continue unabated. It is a Democratic President that led the charge for a 5-year government spending freeze, cuts to heating assistance for low-income families, and cuts to block grants for community development and aid for students. Both Republicans and Democrats are trying to balance the budget on the backs of poor and working people. Both refuse to increase taxes on the wealthy. Both refuse to close tax loopholes, tackle tax havens, or hold Wall Street accountable for sinking the economy.

    The true difference lies in rhetoric. To justify budget cuts, Republicans argue condescendingly that welfare queens and the unemployed are lazy parasites draining the federal government’s coffers. Democrats, on the other hand, prefer to lecture the country about how, like a family in tough times, the government must tighten its belt, because that is what responsible households do. The Democrats’ rhetoric may be slightly less patronizing, but it is equally as appalling.

    At a time when millions of Americans are being thrown out of their homes, and 1 in 4 children are dependent on food stamps, Obama made it very clear where his priorities lie when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner prepared to unveil the administration’s plan to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 26%. Meanwhile corporations are making record profits, even as they layoff workers and pay next to nothing in Federal income taxes.

    The assault on unions is not isolated to the right either. The Democratic-led Massachusetts House passed a bill that restricts the rights of all municipal employee unions to collectively bargain health benefits. The state’s Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick praised the House for their “important” vote. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has clashed with his state’s powerful teachers’ unions over deep budget cuts to education. And in Detroit, Democratic Mayor Dave Bing has threatened to request an emergency financial manager if the city’s 48 employee unions don’t make healthcare concessions.

    It seems Democrats admire the Republican agenda so much, that they have decided to mirror right-wing campaign tactics as well. Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), head ofProgressives United and longtime opponent of corporately-funded elections, criticized Democrats for launching a new outside group to aid President Barack Obama’s re-election efforts in part by raising undisclosed funds. Democratic rhetoric has often emphasized fairness, accountability, and compassion, the language one expects from liberal politicians. But actions speak louder than words, and Democrats have proven time and again that they are willing to abandon their supposed principles for money and power.

    And with the killing of Osama Bin Laden, liberals who were awakening to rampant Democratic duplicity, have now renewed their faith in Obama’s party and presidency. Which demonstrates that Obama is perhaps, more dangerous than his predecessor, because he has systematically adopted some of the worst Republican policies as his own, and in turn, they have become accepted among both liberals and conservatives, and are unlikely to be reversed.

    My intention isn’t to bring about feelings of defeatism among progressives, but rather to highlight the many ways by which the Democratic party has proven itself beholden to the very same corporate interests as Republicans. While I sympathize with those on the left that feel they must vote for the lesser of two evils, voting is not a revolutionary act. For those who continue to vote Democrat, rather than chastise your decision, I dare you to go further. Organize, protest, call or write your representatives every day, hold them to their campaign promises, let them know that unless they stand up for the principles they claim to care about, they will lose your support.

    To be an engaged citizen is so much more than showing up to pick a candidate every 2-4 years. It requires the type of civic engagement that we are witnessing in Wisconsin, Michigan, California, and all around the country. We can either continue to support a party that is complicit in our destruction, or we can participate in the one and only proven vehicle to enacting real change: people power!

    In the meantime, remember that it’s easy to look like a progressive champion of the people when the guy next to you is making the case for cutting food aid to lazy infants and forcing women to submit to ultrasounds prior to receiving an abortion. An important lesson to take away from President Obama’s first term is this: have no illusions about the intentions of the Democratic establishment, for they are controlled by the same moneyed interests as their Republican rivals.” find at Common Dreams

    It’s often easier to look at the other, and difficult to look at the group one identifies with.

  13. fuguewriter:

    The view that the great industrial development of the 19th century was achieved through free market principles is a myth which cannot acquire veracity by constant repetition. It was instead a product of aggression, public and private corruption, graft, oppression of workers and the poor, fraud and outright theft, with the able assistance of the legislative and judicial branches of government. Had it been otherwise, there would never have been a need for anti-trust legislation, workers compensation, child labor laws and unions. The teaching of history in this country has been a dismal failure.

  16. This article fails to appreciate that the prosperity of the last 150 years is historically unprecedented and was only made possible by the free market. The poorest person in the U.S. today has access to medical wonders the richest man on earth could not access in 1945, 1955, 1965, or 1975. The problem is that the market has been so distorted by government interventions, beginning with the use of fiat currency, that its normal mechanisms are complete out of kilter. Observe the government’s futile attempts to fix the housing crisis with almost 25% of homeowners underwater, and the coming $103 trillion entitlement bomb. All of these, and many more of the phenomena that bedevil us today, come not from the free market, but from departures therefrom. As for income inequality, here’s an easy way to solve it: throw the assets of the rich into the ocean or into a volcano. All gone. Do we actually think that would improve things?

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