Ryan's real target

Here's a more detailed takedown of Paul Ryan's fairytale plan, courtesy of Robert Greenstein at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

This is the same kind of garbage we've seen here in Wisconsin.  The budget falls into deficit, and rather than ask those who have more to pay a little more, or even asking everyone to carry the load a bit more, instead the GOP just demands draconian cuts to programs that either help everyone (like education) or those most in need of assistance.  As Greenstein puts it,

The plan of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, established, as a basic principle, that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or inequality or hurt the disadvantaged. The Ryan plan, which the chairman unveiled in a news conference, speech, and Wall Street Journal op-ed today, charts a different course, turning its biggest cannons on these people.

Greenstein is even generous enough to provide methodology behind the numbers.  I won't waste space reprinting it here, but the piece is pretty thorough.

And remember that all of this is supported by economic projections that The Economist called "laughably overoptimistic."  Not that that matters to the Church of Cut My Taxes.