New House Speaker and ALEC Mouthpiece Paul Ryan this morning gave his first major speech at the Library of Congress setting out an agenda for what he said was a “more confident America.” But the problem is that it is more of the same tired old politics as usual that got us into Iraq and created the Great Recession.
It is ironic that, for all its purported emphasis on positivity, Mr. Ryan’s speech is so laden with negativity. First of all, he is actively scaremongering and pushing for more war in the Middle East, something that is being driven by negative fearmongering. We cannot live in fear every day of the Big Bad Russians or the Big Bad Terrorists every day and expect to reach our path of enlightenment. It is not any kind of salvation by grace or enlightenment that I can recognize. ISIS is not the big threat our society needs to deal with; manmade climate change is. Fueling more wars will simply add to our carbon footprint.
The other thing that is so negative about Paul Ryan is his own actions; specifically, his association with the American Legislative Exchange Council. They conduct their debates in secret and then hand out finished bills to friendly legislators to push through their legislatures. It is obvious that Paul Ryan does not trust the people of this country given that he does so much of his business in secret.
First of all, Ryan said that only government that sends power back to the people can make America confident again. His tacit endorsement of Donald Trump aside, we all agree on that concept. But if we really want to return power to the American people, let’s look at the facts. People are just as fed up with corporate control of their lives as they are with government control. My solution — give Americans a basic income they can live off of and leave the rest up to them so they can do what is best for them — not for some corporation. Give Americans single payer health insurance so that they are in charge of their healthcare, not some faceless insurance person in some far-off office with no medical training whatsoever. Identify industries that are both climate-friendly and have potential for growth so that all of us who want work can have work.
Ryan will push forward welfare reform as well, which is code for a new war against Blacks, Native Americans, and minorities. One of the common Republican complaints against President Obama is that he was responsible for the increased racial polarization since he took office. But the fact is, the continuation of the War on Drugs, the continued emphasis on “Welfare Reform,” and the continued emphasis on “Voter ID” are all dog whistles for continued closet racism as part of the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” brought to you by Richard Nixon in 1968. So, Paul Ryan’s “Make America Confident Again” speech does not include Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, or Muslims any more than Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” theme. If Paul Ryan is serious about “Welfare Reform,” then let him support basic income, single payer, and universal employment so that there will not be such a great need for welfare. The rest will be up to the American people, as it should be.
But instead, Paul Ryan goes on to call for a Pentagon on Steroids. Specifically, he would like to see “Advanced Missile Defense,” or “Directed Energy Weapons.” Ryan’s idea of “Advanced Missile Defense” is indefensible either on the home front or on the international front. On the home front, it is just more excuses for austerity, poverty, and gutting of the Social Safety Net that has prevented another Great Depression. On the international front, “Advanced Missile Defense” will simply piss off the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans, who will simply build more sophisticated weapons systems of their own like the Russians and Chinese did during Ronald Reagan’s Nuclear Arms Race. And Directed Energy Weapons are like Drone Warfare on Steroids, which would simply spawn more terrorists and more threats to our national security like our bombing of 1 million civilians in Iraq. If Paul Ryan is angling to position himself as a compromise candidate in the event of a brokered GOP convention (a good possibility), he would run up bigger deficits than all his predecessors combined, quite an accomplishment seeing that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did that.
We all agree with Paul Ryan that there can be progress on issues like rebuilding our roads and bridges or bringing certainty to the tax code. But given that Paul Ryan would continue to gut social welfare programs to create even more advanced weapons systems and have all of us live in perpetual fear, there would be little money left over for roads and bridges if he were in charge, even less than we do now.