Even this conservative business site, is giving Paul props on his blunt assessment of Paul:
Paul Krugman Gets One Thing Exactly Right On The Ryan Plan
Joe Weisenthal, businessinsider.com -- Apr. 10, 2011
But on one area Krugman totally nails it. Ever since the plan was announced, members of the media have been tripping over each other to declare how "brave" and "bold" the Ryan plan is, despite the fact that it doesn't even spell out many of the cuts, and despite the fact that -- in all honesty -- most of these pundits haven't even read the plan.
They just read that the plan eliminate the debt, and then they declare how bold it is.
Pundits are funny that way -- they only get PAID -- to read scripts ...
And apparently NOT to Read Budget Plans.
Good thing there are still some who don't find that "below their pay grades" ...
Thankfully Paul Krugman can not only READ a Budget Plan -- he can call it "a Fraud" when need be:
A Word From Those Who
By PAUL KRUGMAN, nytimes.com -- April 10, 2011
[...] The [News] stories I have in mind say things like this: “There are those who criticize the Ryan plan, saying that it’s too radical/goes too far.”
As a card-carrying member of Those Who, I protest. This is just wrong.
People like me don’t say that the Ryan plan is too radical; we say that it’s a fraud. The spending cuts are largely fake, either because they’re just magic asterisks or because they wouldn’t survive politically; the revenue estimates are fake, because they combine huge tax cuts with vague assurances that extra revenue will be found by closing loopholes. There’s no there there -- except for big tax cuts for the rich and pain for the poor.
[...]
Anyway, no, I don’t think the plan goes too far. I think it’s disingenuous and fraudulent. And the reason I think that is that I have actually done the math.
Whoa! Someone who gets PhD Economics -- is saying Paul Ryan's latest Budget Plan is a Fraud. Who knew?
Apparently not many of the Pundits on the TV, heralding the Ryan Plan as pure gold; as Stone Tablets brought down from the Mountain ...
Well you see, this is NOT the first time Paul K has had a chance to crunch the numbers being put "out there" by GOP wunderkind, Paul R ... the man with the Media Midas touch ...
The Flimflam Man
By PAUL KRUGMAN, nytimes.com -- August 5, 2010
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan [Roadmap] plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.
[...] the [Paul Ryan] Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.
And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
[...]
So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense. And last but not least, there’s deference to power — the G.O.P. is a resurgent political force, so one mustn’t point out that its intellectual heroes have no clothes.
Wow! Krugman can do Macro-Economics Math -- and take a fawning Media to task -- all in the same article, to boot. I knew there was a reason I like this guy!
And this time around, Krugman is not alone in his deconstruction of the latest Ryan Talking Point Football. Ready ... Set ... Rugby!
It seems there are still a few other Reporters out there, willing to ignore the punditry adulations, and actually Check the Damn Facts.
That's refreshing. Here's a sampling of that Paul Ryan push-back:
---------------
Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare privatization plan increases costs, budget office says -- by Noam N. Levey, Washington Bureau, LATimes.com -- April 07, 2011
Flaws evident in Ryan’s plan. Doesn’t add up. -- by William Brighenti -- April 6, 2011
Right-Wing Media Tout Ryan's "Serious" Budget Plan As Economists Point Out Serious Flaws -- by mediamatters.org -- April 05, 2011
---------------
Yet, still I doubt we have heard the last of Paul Ryan ... some Media Darlings, just hang around and hang around, no matter how much, it's been proven "They are full of Bull!"
Sadly there is enough of a "Market for Bull" these days -- that keeps them booked as "a regular", on the Media's endless loop, otherwise known as that tit-for-tat Talking Point Theater.
A Zone, where ALL Opinions are deeded EQUAL -- a Zone where they have No Time for Actual Facts. ... Just Book the Guests, Dammit!