OUR OPINION: Paul Ryan’s Herbert Hoover budget
August 13, 2012 at 4:50 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The issue is not whether the big drivers of federal spending especially Medicare and Medicaid must be slowed.
The issue is whether that has to be accomplished by a cuts-only plan that axes much of the federal government, including the safety net. Continue Reading
Ryan comes from a privileged family background and has spent almost 14 years in Congress with a very thin, almost nonexistent, legislative record. During this time he has enjoyed the federal health care program with its generous provisions. Now he wants to eliminate our social safety net based on a theoretical understanding of social Darwinism. His hero is Ayn Rand whose philosophy would scare the beejeesus out of most Americans. This is an indication of how far to the right the Republican Party has gone. The Republican party has disappeared, and another radical group has emerged. I would predict an overwhelming Democratic victory in November.
Hot debate. What do you think?
56 
49
Come on now he has passed 2 bills in 14 years. While he was busy blasting Obama’s economic plan his hometown was spending millions of the money that the feds gave them. Which is where the funding to revitalize his town came from. Did the funds come from the “job creators”? Nope the tax payers.
Hot debate. What do you think?
44 
36
I truely hope you’re right, but then again people really thought Regan was a bit of a joke candidate that was out of touch with the rest of the country and because of circumstances out of his control Carter lost big time to Regan…..In otherwords…..You just never know what a fickle voting community might do…..The worse is if they just decide to stay home…That’s generally better for the Repos than the Dems
Hot debate. What do you think?
21 
22
This pretty much sets the stage for the Herald’s endorsement of Obama in November. Should be no surprise. Expect the same for Heitkamp.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
68 
5
The Herald promotes Obama’s lie. Ryan and the House of Reps PASSED the farm bill and sent it to the Senate where Democrats failed to pass it in their rush to go home. Your view of Ryan’s budget proposal is so slanted to Obama’s attacks that you are nothing more than one of his liberal media attack dogs. I spent 35 years in North Dakota and never saw the Herald on the right side of a political issue in all that time.
Hot debate. What do you think?
52 
46
Really? Never saw them on the right side of an issue? I believe you are a bit hazy in your recollections, unless your viewpoints are so outside the mainstream that no editor anywhere would satisfy you.
Hot debate. What do you think?
39 
38
Byline should read:
“— Tom Dennis for the Democratic Party”.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
40 
19
Shouldn’t be a surprise. Why do you think that in a predominantly Republican region, Herald circulation is in the toilet?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
35 
16
The Strib circulation is in the toilet too in a predominantly Dem. city. People don’t read they watch sitcoms.
Like or Dislike:
18 
11
The problem is that the Herald’s already small population area makes a falling circulation even more grave.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
25 
2
Because they give it away for free on line….Sort of like the old adage “Why pay for the cow if you can get the milk for free.” You do remeber that far back don’t you Gene? You know…..Mother daughter talks our dates used to get to discourage what they were about to do anyway….
Like or Dislike:
12 
14
Yes. I recall that advice being given to my sister.
Like or Dislike:
11 
1
Are people really that blind? There needs to be dramatic changes made to our Federal Government spending, and that means that people in all classes and ages are going to feel that to somepoint. Slashing all spending to 3.5% of GDP sounds like a good idea to me I would maybe change how we get there slightly but we have to stop over spending and start spending down our debt. I don’t understand why people don’t think that the Fed Gov needs to balance their accounts like every other red blooded American does, don’t spend more than you make and if you already have done that put a plan in place to get rid of the debt and start to balance your budget.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
42 
23
When you buy a house do you not spend money you don’t have now? The economy wouldn’t function without credit would it?
Hot debate. What do you think?
23 
31
You have a point, but then again we went into two wars and cut funding by giving a big tax cut to the wealthy….and have been fighting to get that back by letting it dissolve. That’s really at the heart of all this. To do that was akin to going out and purchasing thousands of dollars worth of items for your home and thendropping your full time job for a part time job just so you don’t have to work so many hours……Then wehn the bills come due you decide that you’ll pay the bills by making the kids only eat once a day, only get one set of new or maybe used clothes a year, and drop the insurance on them and just use the er if things get bad enough……That way you and the misses can still enjoy life, and have nice things while those little begger liabilities can do without……..That’s a basic sum of the Bush screw up and the Ryan solution…
Hot debate. What do you think?
34 
29
I’m perplexed by the title of your editorial, “Paul Ryan’s Herbert Hoover Budget.” There’s a lot more evidence of President Obama’s similarities with Herbert Hoover than Hoover with Paul Ryan.
Herbert Hoover became a household name during the Mississippi flood of 1927. As Commerce Secretary, President Coolidge sent him to see what what could be done to help. Hoover remarkably divergent and innovative interventions largely involved the private sector but it was federal government-directed. His role was one of the early seeds of transformation of Adam Smith blueprint of government’s role in the lives of it’s citizens from an ‘invisible hand’ into Hoover’s ‘beneficent hand,’ which sounds exactly like President Obama today.
Hoover was a policy wonk, the only similarity I see Hoover sharing with Ryan besides their affiliation with the Republican party. Hoover encouraged ever increasing federal government intervention in private business and was president during the 1929 stock market correction. His response was a federal one, to raise taxes, slap on an onerous tariff and federally mandate wage increases. These coupled with the extreme experimentation and massive infusions of federal government cash and antipathy of the private sector of the FDR administration, expanded that correction into the nation’s worst economic depression to date. We’ve been through this movie before and we certainly don’t want to see and live it again. For more info read, The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes and Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
Hot debate. What do you think?
33 
21
If Milton Freedman wasn’t dead…..I’d say he should have been hung for his well used plans to help ruin the working class in countries and even creat dictatorships……What we’re seeing in todays economy that’s been going on for well over a decade really reeks of that traitors formula of creating enough chaos and bring thing to enough dire conclusions that the people become willing to accept anything from someone who seems to be able to offer relief……..Then we all lose…..And that really seems to have all the markings of this new sever right that’s taken over the GOP
Hot debate. What do you think?
21 
29
Mr. Dennis; We’re still waiting for the Obama budget. The last one was rejected without a single Democrat supporting it. But don’t let facts get in the way of your opinion…….
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
43 
19
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
3 
16
AND… Not one word on the worlds largest “Defense Budget”. As big as the rest of the world combined!
Not one word, from either side, on the cost of all of our wars on innocent, defenseless 3rd world brown men, women and children, living their lives, being ambushed from the sky by billion dollar, remotely piloted killing machines.
Wanna save some real money? Stop our perpetual wars on terrorism. You know the wars that generate more terrorist for each one we kill.
Just the cost of air conditioning the tents in Afghanistan, exceeds the costs of many of the safety programs the war mongers want to to gut in this country.
Use that money saved by not wasting it on warring, to rebuild our still crumbling infrastructure, roads, bridges, clean up of inter city neighborhoods…
Start paying attention to the standard of living in this country, that is in an every downward spiral, instead of killing people, from out of the blue in other countries.
Hot debate. What do you think?
27 
30
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
18 
30
Actually, my bet is there’s an even split between people who see the Herald as too liberal or too conservative. I’ve heard both opinions depending on their own political stance. My gripe with the paper is its editorial policies.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
20 
3
I think you’re right……Personally…I actually think that other than a few personal articles by staff I think the Herald is basically in line with being unbiased in most of what they report, but then again there’s certain issues like the Fantasy’s issue that you could see a bit of a slant in both the tv and paper reporting……I think that had more to do with presnetation than being biased. They needed some “Ohhh’s” to make it sell better…
Like or Dislike:
12 
13
I thought the Fantasy’s was a gross example of the Herald attempting to form opinion. They printed an obviously staged photo of a young girl crossing Washington with the building in the backround. Don’t know if the photog waited for a kid to show up, or paid one to do it, but it was clear it was no coincidence.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
20 
0
The boards definitely seem to go to the right more than the left……Especially on issues like this, gun control! Religion, and such
Hot debate. What do you think?
14 
17
Although I’m sure I’m not alone in saying it’s nice to have some other articles to go over than many of the same we keep rehashing……We pretty much said much of what we’re saying here when he was first picked…..Since then there’s been several good articles that don’t even allow “Talk” boards……Like the little “Human trafficing” case……I mean that would have been a good discussion board, but someone decided is was too…..what?
Like or Dislike:
17 
8
After looking at the ryan budget plan again along with public response, all I have to say is wow! Ryan wants to attack every piece of the government budget except for defense and give all his buddies a huge tax cut. Boy this sounds familiar, um let’s see same policies of 2000 through 2008. How did that go for everyone? The “job creators” didn’t create jobs and didn’t trickle down anything. As matter of fact all the trickle down stayed in the 1 percents pockets. Why would we and why should we support anything that is only good for the wealthy. I propose tax increases by adding up all tthe tax cuts since 2000 and taking that percentage and make it effective for any person making a certain amount of money in 2013.
Hot debate. What do you think?
26 
26
Ron, the United States has the most progressive income tax system in the world. The top 1% earn 19.1% of the income, but pay 41% of the income tax. In my opinion, any income tax system that excludes fifty percent of the population and actually pays money to a third of the population is broken. Your predictable response is going to be that low income people pay a higher percentage of their income to “taxes”. While that is arguable, the vast majority of that tax is Social Security and Medicare, both of which will be returned in direct payments in amounts greater than paid into the system. In the case of Social Security, low income people still receive more than they pay into the system; middle income people just slipped to the pay more than is returned category and high income earners have been in the pay more than return category since 1990. As for Medicare, the average individual will receive $250,000 in benefits more than paid into the system. You have also failed to factor in the most significant tax law change, the reduction of capital gains tax rates which enacted during Clinton’s Presidency. Warren Buffet doesn’t pay low taxes because of the tax law changes during the Bush administration, he pays low tax rates because he has little income subject to income tax and huge amounts of capital gain income. You could raise the income tax rates to 100% and Warren Buffet’s tax bill would barely increase.
Hot debate. What do you think?
25 
12
Then again in a report out of England there’s 4 to 6 trillion dollars (Including Mittens) in off shore accounts that avoids the tax system altogether…….They can share the many aspects of the country that allows them to make billionaires, and they can and do find ways to bilk money from the government, but they can get away with hiding money in off shore accounts…..As though their money is not part of their citizenship…..Their corporations can be considered persons with the rights of a person. So then should their total earnings be considered all American wages if they claim this as their country
Hot debate. What do you think?
18 
17
Good point Tundra,
Your reasoning is exactly why this happened:
“Last week we reported that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin had renounced his U.S. citizenship and moved to Singapore.”
Now imagine if there were no taxes on billionaires in the United States….wouldn’t they all move here and operate their businesses? Wouldn’t it be great for the United States to claim that every billionaire in the world lived and worked in the US?
Envy is counter-productive.
“Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.”
(Aristotle)
Hot debate. What do you think?
19 
19
I see…So you enjoy picking up the bills for those who already have more than they could possibly spend in many life times? Because when they don’t pay their fair share….You and I pay it……That’s nothing to do with envy in the least…..Unless it’s you who envies the mega wealthy….I’m somewhat of a minimalist so great wealth really doesn’t impress me……When I see such great wealth I generally see a cup that can never get filled….
Like or Dislike:
14 
13
Preach on tundra preach on
Like or Dislike:
8 
12
Well joe, if people like warren buffet are hiding their money it is relativly simple we fix the loopholes and exemptions! I am paying my fair share to pay for the services the government provides to me and I hope the wealthy can pay their fair share also.
Like or Dislike:
13 
6
Tundra
Fair share?
I will bet some fieldworker picking grapes in 115 degree heat thinks you dont pay your “fair” share either.
You see….. Its all relative.
Like or Dislike:
9 
8
I don’t think there’s really much more to say if that’s your comparison. I’m much closer to the field worker because we’re both working class wage earners. Every wage earner is already set up to pay a fair share. That’s really not even close to a comparison
Like or Dislike:
3 
2
Always a field worker only makes enough to pay social security and medicare tax. They don’t make enough to pay income tax!
Like or Dislike:
6 
5
Furthermore, when it comes to grapes it is a mechanical harvest these days!
Like or Dislike:
3 
3
Gr…ap…es are h..ar..ves…ted mec..han..icall..y
Like or Dislike:
2 
3
I don’t know what about that statement had to be moderated but it was so I had to add a few periods.
Like or Dislike:
3 
3