Why Exactly Are We Supposed to Take This Guy Seriously?

 

I haz a plan?

I don't understand why Paul Ryan's budget plan is supposed to be one of the serious options that serious people need to take seriously. Forget for the moment that the plan includes destroying Medicare and Medicaid and whatnot. Just the fact that the plan to decrease the deficit includes lowering taxes on the top income group should automatically disqualify this little snake turd from being taken seriously.

If I'm going over the bills at home and I say to my wife "geez, schmoopie, we're running up some serious debt here. I think I may have to quit my job," she would have me committed. And rightly so. How in the hell does anyone think that you can decrease a deficit by taking in less money? Even if you believed this Milton Friedman voodoo economics prior to the 1980's, hasn't it been thoroughly disproven by the enormous debts the Gipper ran up?

And speaking of Reagan, even he wasn't as big a nut as the teabagger's mythologized version of Saint Ronnie. When he came into office, the first thing he did was slash taxes. (Technically the second thing after having the solar water heaters removed from the White House) But when he saw the deficit ballooning out of control, he realized that he had cut them too much and he raised them  a little. Yeah, Reagan RAISED taxes. Then he raised them again. And again. A total of 11 times. (source)

Heh? I did what, now?

He never did raise them enough to get the deficit under control, but that's not really the point. The point is, even Reagan realized that tax cuts aren't the answer to every problem. Today's wingnut Republicans seem to think that they are. "Oh, the economy is bad? Better cut taxes on the wealthy. Economy's doing better? Time to cut taxes on the wealthy! The deficit is spiraling out of control? I guess we haven't cut taxes enough yet. The last round of tax cuts made the deficit bigger? We'd better cut taxes!" It's ridiculous. Yet, for some reason, we as a society have apparently decided that we need to consider this nonsense as if it were a legitimate solution to our nation's problems. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall until I'm stupid enough to get it.