Paul Ryan's Calls for Eliminating Almost the Entire Federal Government
Published on
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
by
Beat the Press
Paul Ryan's Calls for Eliminating Almost the Entire Federal Government
by
Dean Baker
Be not fooled. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), explains Baker, "has
made his career by arguing an extreme position that is far to the right of
even most of the Republican party. It is long past time that the media take
seriously the position he is advocating." (Photo: Getty)
No, that is not some new concession that the Speaker made to appease Donald
Trump, this is his budget wonkiness. According to the analysis of Ryan's
budget by the Congressional Budget Office, he would reduce the non-Social
Security, non-Medicare portion of the federal budget, shrinking it to 3.5
percent of GDP by 2050 (page 16).
This number is roughly equal to current spending on the military. Ryan has
indicated that he does not want to see the military budget cut to any
substantial degree. That leaves no money for the Food and Drug
Administration, the National Institutes of Health, The Justice Department,
infrastructure spending or anything else. Following Ryan's plan, in 35 years
we would have nothing left over after paying for the military.
As I have pointed out here in the past, this was not some offhanded gaffe
where Ryan might have misspoke. He supervised the CBO analysis. CBO doesn't
write-down numbers in a dark corner and then throw them up on their website
to embarrass powerful members of Congress. As the document makes clear, they
consulted with Ryan in writing the analysis to make sure that they were
accurately capturing his program.
For some reason, the media refuse to give Mr. Ryan credit for the position
he has openly embraced. The NYT followed this pattern in its editorial
implying that Mr. Ryan had compromised his respectable wonkiness in his
endorsement of Donald Trump. Ryan has made his career by arguing an extreme
position that is far to the right of even most of the Republican party. It
is long past time that the media take seriously the position he is
advocating.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License
Dean Baker
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR). He is the author of several books, including Getting Back to Full
Employment: A Better bargain for Working People, The End of Loser
Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive, The United States Since 1980, Social
Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot), and The Conservative Nanny
State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He
also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage
of economic issues.
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Paul Ryan's Calls for Eliminating Almost the Entire Federal Government
Published on
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
by
Beat the Press
Paul Ryan's Calls for Eliminating Almost the Entire Federal Government
by
Dean Baker
. 15 Comments
.
. Be not fooled. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), explains
Baker, "has made his career by arguing an extreme position that is far to
the right of even most of the Republican party. It is long past time that
the media take seriously the position he is advocating." (Photo: Getty)
. No, that is not some new concession that the Speaker made to appease
Donald Trump, this is his budget wonkiness. According to the analysis of
Ryan's budget by the Congressional Budget Office, he would reduce the
non-Social Security, non-Medicare portion of the federal budget, shrinking
it to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2050 (page 16).
. This number is roughly equal to current spending on the military.
Ryan has indicated that he does not want to see the military budget cut to
any substantial degree. That leaves no money for the Food and Drug
Administration, the National Institutes of Health, The Justice Department,
infrastructure spending or anything else. Following Ryan's plan, in 35 years
we would have nothing left over after paying for the military.
As I have pointed out here in the past, this was not some offhanded gaffe
where Ryan might have misspoke. He supervised the CBO analysis. CBO doesn't
write-down numbers in a dark corner and then throw them up on their website
to embarrass powerful members of Congress. As the document makes clear, they
consulted with Ryan in writing the analysis to make sure that they were
accurately capturing his program.
. For some reason, the media refuse to give Mr. Ryan credit for the
position he has openly embraced. The NYT followed this pattern in its
editorial implying that Mr. Ryan had compromised his respectable wonkiness
in his endorsement of Donald Trump. Ryan has made his career by arguing an
extreme position that is far to the right of even most of the Republican
party. It is long past time that the media take seriously the position he is
advocating.
. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License
/author/dean-baker
/author/dean-baker/author/dean-baker
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR). He is the author of several books, including Getting Back to Full
Employment: A Better bargain for Working People, The End of Loser
Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive, The United States Since 1980, Social
Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot), and The Conservative Nanny
State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He
also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage
of economic issues.
