Paul Ryan’s Bizarre Reasoning

March 13, 2013 by 17 Comments

Rep. Paul Ryan went on Fox News on Sunday morning to talk about his new budget proposal with Chris Wallace. That proposal includes repealing the Affordable Care Act, which Wallace pointed out simply is not going to happen. And that led to this very weird argument from Ryan:

WALLACE: Are you saying that as part of your budget you would repeal — you assume the repeal of Obamacare?

RYAN: Yes.

WALLACE: Well that’s not going to happen.

RYAN: Well, we believe it should. […]

WALLACE: This was a big issue in the campaign between Romney-Ryan vs. Obama-Biden. They think they won and they think that’s one of the reasons they won, and there are, Congressman, a lot of independent studies that say if you put this into effect, the net effect will be that seniors will end up having to pay more of the share of their healthcare cost. […]

RYAN: I would argue against your premise that we lost this issue in the campaign. We won the senior vote.

Which has nothing to do with what Wallace said. The Affordable Care Act does not affect primarily the elderly. Quite the opposite, in fact. The elderly were already covered by Medicare. The AFA applies primarily to those who were not eligible for Medicare and lacked health insurance.

Filed Under: Politics 17 Comments

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About Ed Brayton

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

  • http://festeringscabofrealityblogspot.com fifthdentist

    To be fair, I think he should also have pointed out that they won the crazy vote in that election. As well as the “too stupid to dress themselves” vote.

  • doublereed

    I’m always impressed with how dumb Ryan comes across in interviews. For such a con man, you’d think he’d be better at dazzling and lying. But somehow he comes across as stupid and not knowing what he’s talking about. He just needs to lie and be clear with his lies.

  • Scientismist

    They won the votes of those who agree that good medical care is properly reserved for the classes who can afford it. It is just as wrong for Obama to try to provide better health care for the less moneyed classes here in America, as it is for Bill gates to provide vaccines for the poor in Africa. Having collected more money is the sign that it is God’s will that you get to use modern medicine to live longer. Gates and Obama are just trying to thwart the will of God. Maybe we should call it the “Mother Theresa Effect”.

    Sarcasm? Or a realistic assessment of the motives of religious conservatives? You be the judge.

  • iknklast

    And the only reason they won the elderly is that the elderly believed they wouldn’t touch Medicare. Which they are ready to torch.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    They think they won

    Um yeah. Because they did win.

  • glodson

    How did they win that issue? Not only does he not answer question, he blindly asserts they won that issue by wining the senior vote? What about all the other voters? Does he provide polling data?

    Of course not. He just lives in his own deluded world.

  • cry4turtles

    Affordable healthcare destroys everything we know about freedom. Right?

  • raven

    I’ve never seen any indication that Ryan has a working brain.

    During the campaign, I thought to analyze their economic plans. There weren’t any.

    Ryan was going to close tax loopholes and balance the budget. Which is impossible. And closing tax loopholes doesn’t decrease taxes. It just redistributes them or actually raises them.

    I’m guessing that if Romney and Ryan had disclosed their economic plans, no one sane or intelligent would have voted for them. Which means they would have gotten something like…47% of the vote.

  • oranje

    Hey, let them stick to their guns. And continue down the road to being the junior party. Forever.

  • http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

    Now, look, Ed Brayton. He did win the senior vote, and he did so with his plan. Not the Ryan plan (which saves Medicare by not attempting to control present costs or future growth, paying for it by not paying for it), but the “Obama cut Medicare by eleventy-jillion dollars and he just gave it to sick illegals and slutty vaginas, and our plan is mumble mumble strengthen mumble mumble Medicare mumble mumble tax cuts” plan.

  • http://www.facebook.com/den.wilson d.c.wilson

    Ever notice that for the guy who is supposedly the GOP’s genius numbers guy, Ryan never talks specifics in interviews? He just goes on with vague talk about closing loopholes (don’t ask which ones), replacing Obamacare with a “better plan” (don’t ask what kind of plan), cutting taxes. When pressed on details, he refuses to explain the math just insists that we take his word for it that it’s “revenue neutral”. And if you cite a report that says his plan will actually increase the deficit, he just waves it off without ever explaining why he thinks they’re wrong.

    Sometimes, he acts like he hasn’t even read his own plan. Again, if he’s supposed to be the “numbers guy”, why is he so reluctant to talk about the numbers?

  • frog

    Would some lovely young woman or man please go seduce Ryan and take pictures? It would be great to have a scandal dump him on his butt.

  • marcus

    raven@ 8. And every time they come up with thi “new” idea of “closing loopholes (and I remember at least 4 times) I want to rip out (the rest) of my fucking hair. Not to mention the fact that raising tax revenue is still raising tax revenue! Whether you do it by raising the percentage or closing loopholes, it is the same goddamn thing! I’m certain that the loopholes closed would be those used by the poor and middle classes, but since those are the people they would target for raising the percentages on, it is still the same goddamn thing! Wash, rinse, repeat.

    /rant

  • iangould

    Does it also assume that US corporations will repatriate all their offshore untaxed earnings and start paying income tax at something approaching the nominal rate?

    Because “we believe they should”.

  • Ichthyic

    wait, wasn’t the GoP playing Ryan up as “The smart one” in the run up to the last election?

    yeesh.

  • http://stochasticscientist.blogspot.com KathyO

    Ryan: Well, we believe Obamacare should be repealed. Also, we believe we should have gotten more people to vote for us. And if they had, we believe it would have been because they agreed with us.

  • dingojack

    d.c. Wilson : “Ever notice that for the guy who is supposedly the GOP’s genius numbers guy, Ryan never talks specifics in interviews? He just goes on with vague talk about closing loopholes (don’t ask which ones), replacing Obamacare with a “better plan” (don’t ask what kind of plan), cutting taxes. When pressed on details, he refuses to explain the math just insists that we take his word for it that it’s “revenue neutral”.”

    I just watched ‘ENRON: the Smartest Guys in the Room.’

    With a few minor tweaks in the quoted text (replacing ‘Ryan’ with ‘Lay’, ‘Skilling’, Fastow’ and etc. and ‘GOP’ with ‘Enron’ and so on), the description would still fit snugly.

    I guess the moral is: ‘always “ask why, asshole“‘.

    :( Dingo


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