I'm not sure this is worth a whole diary, but I think it needs to be said. The more the rhetoric of the GOP plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts to millionaires gets wrapped up in Paul Ryan, the more it lets the GOP as a whole potentially off the hook.
This plan is a stunning admission of the GOP's priorities; Paul Ryan is simply the one who wrote it down. Remember:
- Republicans only like Medicare when they can demagogue on it to scare old white people into voting for them.
- Republicans never like Medicaid.
- Republicans don't give two shits in a tornado about balancing the budget. The simply want to "starve the beast" and gut social programs.
- Republicans exist to transfer wealth to the top 5% of the population. That is their only governmental objective. Gutting social programs and cutting taxes is all they know how to do.
So, "Ryan's plan" is really just the "GOP plan" from the last fifteen years. Calling it Ryan's plan elevates this stenographer for the Far Right into something he's not: a leader, a budget "whiz", "courageous". It also obscures the fact that this proposal would - in a saner world than this - be the end of the GOP as a national party.
But not if they can weasel out of the blame in two months by throwing Paul Ryan under the bus.