Why are most fiscal conservatives ignoring Paul Ryan’s actual record?

By David McElroy · August 13, 2012

In the last 48 hours, Paul Ryan has been crowned the great hope of fiscal conservatives. If they honestly believe that, they’re more desperate than I thought, because the only way to see Ryan as fiscally conservative is to completely ignore his record.

It seems that the presumptive GOP vice presidential nominee is seen as a fiscal conservative simply because of his budget proposal in the House. His proposal would have balanced the budget without raising taxes, but it was an absolute fairy tale of a proposal, partly because it would have required decades of future presidents and Congresses to stick to it as laid out. Is there anybody in the world stupid enough to believe that’s even remotely possible?

Mainstream political reporters are painting the selection of Ryan as a turn to the “radical right” to placate the Tea Party’s supporters. A writer for Time magazine even said that Ryan was the choice of the “libertarians on the Wall Street Journal editorial board….” (I haven’t run into any actual libertarians yet who are excited about Ryan.)

There’s only one little problem with this narrative building him up as a fiscal conservative or even libertarian. Ryan’s voting record is full of support for things that no fiscal conservative could support, much less a libertarian. Anybody who believes that his candidacy is a win for libertarians or fiscal conservatives isn’t paying attention.

One of the most egregiously irresponsible spending measures of the last few years was the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which forced U.S. taxpayers to purchase the so-called “toxic assets” of big banks. Pure and simple, it was a bailout for banks to allow them to get loans off their books. Ryan not only voted for TARP, but he enthusiastically supported it. Take a look at the video from the House floor (at the end of this article) of Ryan begging the House to pass TARP and warning of dire consequences if it didn’t pass. Is that a fiscal conservative?

Ryan voted for the auto bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. Is that a fiscal conservative?

He’s voted for Medicare expansion, housing subsidies and extension of federal unemployment benefits. Are those things that actual fiscal conservative support?

In addition, he’s voted in favor of a national ID, making the PATRIOT Act permanent, surveillance without a warrant and No Child Left Behind. He favored keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely. Maybe worst of all, he voted for the so-called “stimulus” plan of 2008. That’s right. Ryan believes in the voodoo economics of John Maynard Keynes. Is any of this the mark of a fiscal conservative, much less a libertarian?

The idea that Ryan is a fiscal conservative or libertarian is puzzling. The facts don’t support the contention. (Read more about his record here.) So why are so many people saying it anyway?

For those on the progressive left, anybody who isn’t on their side is on the “radical right,” so their statements at least make a little bit of sense, even if paying attention to the record would force them to modify their statements. As for conservatives, though, I think it’s purely wishful thinking combined with the irrational belief that they have to support anything and anyone who they see as their only hope against Barack Obama.

Frankly, I don’t see a lot of difference between an Obama presidency and a Romney presidency. Obama has no interest in cutting any spending and Republicans are more interested in talking about it than doing it. Let’s be honest. Federal spending is not going to be cut. Period. It doesn’t matter who’s elected president in November. The runaway train of federal spending is impossible to stop. There’s not enough political support for the painful choices that would have to be made. It’s not going to happen.

Paul Ryan is marginally more fiscal conservative than the big spenders of the Obama administration, but I can’t see that he’s honestly any more responsible than Mitt Romney would be. All of the mainstream candidates support massive spending. There’s a tidal wave of debt that’s crashing its way toward us — and the Democrats and Republicans are arguing over whether stopping a gallon or two of spending is too draconian.

There’s no serious national discussion of anything approaching what’s necessary to stop the runaway train of debt. Any fiscal conservative or libertarian who tries to put any hope in Ryan as their savior on this issue is going to be badly disappointed, even if the Republicans win this year.

Note: This article has been edited to correct an error. The original article stated that Ryan supported the 2009 “stimulus” bill, but that’s incorrect. He voted for the 2008 “stimulus” bill, but not the one the following year.

Share on Social Networks

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

Related Posts