Please keep your arms and legs inside the Daily Sausage at all times.
It’s not often I read something in the National Review I agree with. I’d use it for toilet paper, but frankly the toilet paper I do use is much, much nicer.
However, every so often, something comes along that I can’t help but agree with, albeit for completely different reasons than the author intended. Today is one of those days.
The National Review’s Jeffrey H. Anderson published an op-ed calling for Mitt Romney to choose Paul Ryan as his Vice President.
Anderson cites four main reasons why he wants Ryan on the ticket.
- “Picking Ryan would excite and unite the party.”
- “By putting Ryan on the ticket, Romney would add the party’s single best spokesman on three huge issues: Obamacare, the budget, and the debt. Imagine Ryan debating Joe Biden – or Hillary Clinton.”
- “By adding such a heavyweight to the ticket,Romney would convey to the electorate how high the stakes are in this historic election.”
- “The pick would also show strength. By making it, Romney would (rightfully) indicate that he’s not afraid of being overshadowed by anyone.”
These are exactly the same reasons I would choose to put Paul Ryan on the ticket, but for entirely different reasons.
- Paul Ryan would absolutely excite and unite the party: the Democratic Party. He’s the author of arguably the most divisive budget in history. He’s the zombie-eyed granny-starver. Ryan would get every Democrat and Independent off the bench and into a voting booth.
- Ryan would be the best person to articulate the GOP’s policies on Obamacare, the budget, and the debt. There’s no one in the Republican party that can articulate how destroying Medicare, Social Security, and the rest of the Federal government to pay for military spending increases and a massive tax cut for the 1% is in anyone but Mitt Romney and his friends’ best interests. I am imagining Paul Ryan debating Joe Biden, and I have a mental boner just thinking about it.
- Ryan’s selection would absolutely indicate how high the stakes are. On one hand, we have a future where the rich pay no taxes and the social safety net is nonexistent. On the other hand, we have a future where the rich pay their fair share and the social safety net is intact. I don’t know how much higher the stakes get than that.
- A Ryan pick would absolutely show strength. It would finally force Mitt to embrace the Ryan budget in all it’s granny-starving, right wing social engineering glory. It would tie him to a set of policies so utterly unpopular it might cause him to lose 48 states in November, but at least he would stand for something, which so far he’s assiduously avoided doing.
Now, beyond a complete and utter lack of discernible policy positions other than “fuck the poor”, Mitt Romney has some other problems. Namely, the fact that people are starting to catch on to his notable lack of personal financial transparency. Mitt Romney has made hundreds of millions of dollars and has much of his investments tucked away outside of the country or in tax- free vehicles for retirement. As Paul Krugman notes, there are legitimate reasons for these things, but you have to actually acknowledge them to explain them.
Part of Mitt’s campaign is that he claims to have been a tremendous job creator during his time as governor. From Wonkblog, if he’s going to claim that, he’s going to have to give the President a ton of credit for doing a much better job.
In other economic news, Former Duke Energy CEO Bill Johnson resigned his post on the first day, and is set to receive a $44 million payout, via Rebecca Leber on ThinkProgress. Nice work if you can get it. In related news, it takes someone making minimum wage working a half hour to buy a gallon of milk.
And finally, George “Effing” Will has said the reason it’s so hot is “It’s summer”.
I’ve lived in Indiana most of my life. I know what summer used to feel like. Sure, it’s hot. It’s always hot. But it was 106 degrees outside this past week with 80%+ humidity. That’s not Indiana summer weather. That’s Death Valley summer weather. Global warming is real, it’s happening, and we’re rapidly reaching the tipping point where even dramatic societal changes may be unable to reverse the trend.
