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Go Home Paul Ryan On The Impossibility Of A Grand Bargain

JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 17, 2011

Paul Ryan On The Impossibility Of A Grand Bargain

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Paul Ryan explains why there won't be a Grand Bargain on the deficit:

“I don’t think this committee is going to achieve a full fix to our problems, because Democrats have never wanted to put their health care bill on the table,” Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who leads the House Budget Committee and studiously avoided assignment to the new panel, said in a recent interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Of course, the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit by a substantial amount over the long term. So why would a refusal to partially or completely repeal that law be the fundamental impediment to a deficit deal -- as opposed to, say, the GOP's theological opposition to higher revenues even in return for a much greater amount of spending cuts?

To understand what Ryan's saying, you have to grasp a couple of his premises. Ryan lives in a world in which the Affordable Care Act dramatically worsens the deficit picture, and the Congressional Budget Office's score of the bill is totally inaccurate. Ryan's beliefs about this are based on a bunch of demonstrable fallacies, but that of course is part of the problem -- the CBO is going to score any deficit-reducing bill, which means it will be scored by CBO-math instead of by Ryan-math.

Now, it's true that by CBO math you could save money by keeping the budget savings in the Affordable Care Act and simply eliminating all the coverage expansions. That's what Ryan's budget does. And this, in turn, highlights another unbridgeable gap between the two parties. Democrats and Republicans both believe that the long-term deficit needs to come down. Democrats think this needs to be done in such a way as to impose greater sacrifice on those most able to bear it, while sparing the most vulnerable. Ryan and (apparently) most Republicans believe the exact opposite. His plan entails throwing thirty million Americans off of health care insurance and concentrating two-thirds of his budget cuts on the small slice of federal spending that benefits the poor.

All this is to say that Ryan defines "our problems" in completely different terms than Democrats do. Ryan sees the problem as a government that takes too much from the rich and gives too much to the poor and/or the sick. A bipartisan deficit panel is never going to "solve" that problem.

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16 comments

Well, maybe he will get voted out of office? It could happen:)

- Sophia

August 17, 2011 at 5:01pm

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Thank you for spelling out so clearly what has been gnawing in the back of my mind for some time. It's a battle of ideology, and the chance for compromise is inversely proportional to the level of zealotry.

- GSpinks

August 17, 2011 at 5:07pm

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if Ryan had a plan that got the economy back on track, I might think of him more kindly. But he's aiming a shrink ray at the economy. We've tried this trickle down sewage for 10 years and all we've got is a cess pool to show for it. The increased disparity in wealth is hurting the economy not helping it. Long term, our society is better off when everyone is better off. Ask a pack of wolves if they don't do better when they all thrive, instead of some struggling with nothing and some with so much it doesn't matter.

- Nusholtz

August 17, 2011 at 5:30pm

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if Ryan had a plan that got the economy back on track, I might think of him more kindly. But he's aiming a shrink ray at the economy. We've tried this trickle down sewage for 10 years and all we've got is a cess pool to show for it. The increased disparity in wealth is hurting the economy not helping it. Long term, our society is better off when everyone is better off. Ask a pack of wolves if they don't do better when they all thrive, instead of some struggling with nothing and some with so much it doesn't matter.

- Nusholtz

August 17, 2011 at 5:30pm

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GS. Economics has been a science with much data and testable hypotheses for over 60 years. The only theory and policies that fit the data are Keynesian. Hooverian economics do not. The budget and policy debates are no more a battle between two ideologies than is a debate between whether the solar system is geocentric versus heliocentric. Pope Urban the VIII and his many supporters had an ideology they strongly defended-- Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton had a science-based theory.

- drofnats1

August 17, 2011 at 5:34pm

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So, we have two parties, Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans are dedicated to dogmatic policies based on lower taxes and supply-side economics (and privatizing everything in sight) -- which have been proven over the last 30 years or so to not work. The Democrats are dedicated to maintaining the Social Safety Net, including Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and lowering costs through Obamacare. Since Social Security and the other programs have demonstrated success, and the public overwhelmingly supports them, you'd think the Democrats would have public support. But thanks to Republican propaganda and euphemisms, the public is confused about who to support, and why. So both sides are "intransigent". The Republicans won't compromise on their destructive dogma, and the Democrats (at some point) won't allow the Republicans to destroy the Social Safety Net. Obama MUST make this case for the American people.

- AllanL5

August 17, 2011 at 5:46pm

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Drofnats1, congratulations on catching up. We put faith in our science and reasoning, they put faith in their...faith.

- GSpinks

August 17, 2011 at 6:12pm

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Meanwhile, an Obama staffer has attacked Krugman and us other "firebaggers" (we need this?) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/new-mexico-ofa-firebagger-lefty-blogosphere_n_929231.html I'm really tired of having to defend this administration. They are wearing me out. If the Republicans weren't so obviously dedicated to taking this country apart....:( But Krugman's been consistently right about the economy has he not? So why attack him and other principled Americans?

- Sophia

August 17, 2011 at 6:25pm

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And given this reality, we want a Grand Bargain...why, exactly? I want no "grand bargain." I want no compromise. I want our government to start doing its best to make this country better. If some compromise turns out to be necessary to do so, that might be acceptable, but what good is it to start out aiming for less than what you really want?

- janus

August 17, 2011 at 7:12pm

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So Republicans are shameless hypocrites who have no real interest in tackling the deficit... What's news?

- AaronW

August 17, 2011 at 8:13pm

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"Ryan lives in a world in which the Affordable Care Act dramatically worsens the deficit picture..." Wrong. Ryan doesn't give a shit about the ACA's effect on the deficit picture. Ryan lives in a world where both the ACA and the deficit are useful props in his and his party's quest for power and nothing more. You catalogue all the ways in which the Republicans' understanding of policy is mistaken while failing to recognize that whether or not their policy prescriptions bear any relationship whatsoever to reality is completely beside the point. A professional bullshit artist like Ryan understands that the truth value of his utterances is immaterial; what matters is his rhetoric's political potency. Why can't you understand this obvious truth, Mr Chait?

- AaronW

August 17, 2011 at 8:29pm

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Economics is far less a science than the ideologues make it out to be. The tiny minds that tend to hover around here undoubtedly aren't even conversant with current economic debates. They just put up their side against supply-side economics, which no competent economist, even on the right, endorses. Dro is so ignorant that he doesn't even know that Herbert Hoover expanded the size of the federal government, which FDR ripped into him for in the 1932 campaign. Tyler Cowen wrote a few month back at his blog, Marginal Revolution, that economics is a science to the extent that a person doesn't care about the subject under discussion. This is a brilliant remark and it will soar over the heads of the likes of dro like the International Space Station over a cicada.

- liberalref

August 17, 2011 at 9:10pm

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Sophia. You are right on. Don't defend 'em replace 'em. BHO is better than Mittens or Perry?? Agreed. Don't you agree that Chamberlain was better than Franco or Mussolini?? But you ain't gonna' beat em with Neville-- or Barack.. If BHO is re-elected, do you REALLY think he will bring on his coattails a Progessive House or Senate?? Or Keynesian economic policies?? Talk about magical thinking, in the words of the magician Chait!! That's only one example.

- drofnats1

August 17, 2011 at 9:11pm

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As for libref. He's still defending Urban VIII and geocentric theories regarded as non-scientific by those dastardly Progressives like Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. And don't even think about Einstein or Bohr. Hell, they could't agree even on GUTS and TOES (Grand Unified Theories or Theories of Everything). Hooverian economics is what the Bible teaches and thats the end of the discussion. Maybe in his third reincarnation in 2311 he'll realize that Economics is a science.

- drofnats1

August 17, 2011 at 9:17pm

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You have to understand Ryan and the ACA and his views on government. He doesn't have a lot of macro-economic data or empiracal results for his views. They are moral issues to him ultimately. I remember watching him make an unintentionally great case for the Public Option. He said it would give care cheaper than private insurance because it was unfair advantage. But to him that was unfair to the John Galts. To Ryan any attempt to give subsidies to people who can not afford health care or balance the budget by increasing taxes on the rich is immoral. It is stealing. As he has said Ayn Rand showed the morality of capitalism. The trick this fraud has done is that he has taken his immature Ayn Rand vision of the world and presented himself as some kind of wonk who really is concerned on the budget. His only concern on the budget really is that the rich don't get taxed too much, because well that would be immoral!

- MikeB.

August 17, 2011 at 10:02pm

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"The tiny minds that tend to hover around here..." liberalref, you're a straight-up asshole.

- AaronW

August 17, 2011 at 10:31pm

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