Letters: VP pick sets up clear choice for voters

The selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as the GOP vice presidential candidate presents the voters with a clear contrast between the welfare state promoted by President Obama and a return to our core values of hard work bringing rewards, which outweigh any standard of living provided by government handouts ("Editorial: Romney-Ryan a bold ticket").

Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Campaign rally: Paul Ryan hands the microphone to Mitt Romney on Saturday in Ashland, Va.

Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Campaign rally: Paul Ryan hands the microphone to Mitt Romney on Saturday in Ashland, Va.

The Democratic Party has created a voting bloc that depends on the party's programs. Ryan will articulate how Americans can return to the economic greatness that was the foundation of our country before we became mired in the Great Society and Obama's "hope and change" policies.

Whether USA TODAY will report the facts and not try to spin Ryan's message will be interesting to watch. Please remember that, contrary to popular conceptions, it is not Ryan who is attempting to throw old ladies over a cliff. Ryan is trying to prevent Obama from throwing America into a chasm from which it cannot recover.

Dave Kennett; Dayton, Ohio

Ohio lawmaker a better choice

Rep. Paul Ryan, 42, touts the virtue of private enterprise but has worked most of his adult life in the public sector. He briefly was a marketing consultant for his family's construction business.

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Mitt Romney should have chosen a more seasoned person to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, such as Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio.

Gary Wesley; Mountain View, Calif.

Next GOP president?

In announcing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney introduced Ryan as "the next president of the United States," later correcting himself. Mistake aside, Romney's statement might very well turn out to be an accurate prediction.

If President Obama beats Romney this November, Ryan's star could continue to rise nonetheless, and he might run for and win the presidency in 2016.

Constantinos E. Scaros; Newmanstown, Pa.

'Empty promises,' indeed

Paul Ryan's speech Saturday would have been terrific, if only it had made more sense ("Romney taps Ryan as his running mate").

He started by declaring that President Obama "passed nearly every item on his agenda," and then complained that "politicians from both parties have made empty promises." But how could the president's promises be "empty" if he passed "nearly every item on his agenda"? Then Ryan patted himself on the back: "I believe my record of getting things done in Congress will be a very helpful complement to Gov. Romney's executive and private-sector success." Never mind that his major claim to fame — the Ryan budget plan — is dead in the water in Congress, an "empty promise" if you will.

Finally, he stated: "We won't blame others. We will take responsibility!" But his entire speech contained not one single specific proposal and blamed Obama for nearly everything. It's really hard to see what Ryan brings to this ticket.

Joan Jacobson; Lakewood, Colo.

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Opinionline: Paul Ryan for VP an 'inspired choice'

John Tamny, on Forbes: "After weeks and months of rumors and speculation about whom Mitt Romney would pick as his Election 2012 vice presidential running mate, the suspense ended this morning with the announcement that Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan would fill the role. Media accounts will suggest that the Ryan pick had a bold, go-for-broke quality to it, but in truth Ryan was the safest selection of all. He was the safest because in an election all about the U.S. economy, Ryan is the most suited among the names floated to make a strong case for removing the barriers to economic growth erected by Republican (George W. Bush) and Democratic (Barack Obama) administrations over the last 12 years. Romney himself, though a smashing success as a businessman, has struggled to make a coherent economic argument; his 59 point economic plan all the evidence one needs that the GOP presidential nominee needs help tightening up what should be a very simple economic message. Paul Ryan could make the above arguments in his sleep, and for being able to, he was the only — and once again the safest — choice for Romney."

By Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

New running partners Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney on Saturday in Ashland, Va.

By Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

New running partners Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney on Saturday in Ashland, Va.

Fred Barnes, on The Weekly Standard: "Romney, the cautious candidate, wary of being specific, and counting on the bad economy to defeat President Obama— forget all that! The Romney who picked Ryan as his vice presidential running mate is an entirely different person. He's prepared to take the fight to Obama on the biggest bundle of issues — spending, debt, the deficit, taxes, entitlements, and the reversing of America's accelerating decline under Obama. Specifics? There will be plenty. … Romney understands that. Otherwise he wouldn't have chosen Ryan, whose budget is the plan Romney lacks. Sure, Democrats will attack it furiously, especially its reform of Medicare. But where's their plan? Obama doesn't have one; instead, he pretends the country isn't facing a fiscal and economic crisis."

Erick Erickson, on RedState: "Picking Ryan must be the beginning of a campaign shakeup, not the end. Consider that in all the polling in August, from Gallup to CNN to Fox News, Obama is ahead. … Part of it is Romney not having a lot of money to spend until officially accepting the Republican nomination. But a good part of it is Romney's team. Several of them have been touting themselves and how awesome they are instead of the candidate. … The Romney camp sent out a talking-points sheet claiming that while picking Ryan, Romney had his own budget plans. This is delusional and not credible spin. You pick Ryan, you defend his budget. It is that simple. That one bullet point sums up a summer of dysfunction. The Romney team seems to be believing its own spin, which can often lead to disaster. Team Romney-Ryan has the chance for a real reboot. But it is one they need to take it. While I am not yet worried, I am concerned by the consistent propensity of Team Romney to not capitalize on Obama's missteps and to trip over their own feet when they get ahead. Ryan is not enough. Romney does need to prune and fertilizer his campaign team."

Guy Benson, on Town Hall: "(In his speech introducing Ryan,) Romney emphasized that Obama has slashed more than half a trillion from the program (to fund a new and unpopular entitlement program), and that the Republican plan is geared toward saving and preserving Medicare and Social Security. Expect to hear this theme a lot. Ryan echoed it during his speech, telling the audience that the Romney/Ryan ticket will have the courage to tell voters the truth. This will be the heart of the 2012 campaign, in my opinion. Romney and Ryan will assess America's fiscal picture with clear-eyed realism, then make their very best pitch to the American public about why the status quo is utterly unsustainable. Unsustainable on growth, unsustainable on jobs, unsustainable on debt. They will present their solutions to the public, explain their reasoning and trust the people to make the right choice."

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Nick Gillespie, on Reason: "Commentators will line up quickly to praise or damn the Ryan selection, but it strikes me operationally as a smart choice, especially if Ryan plays the traditional attack-dog role that vice presidential candidates are supposed to. He is in a good, knowledgeable position to rebut claims that capitalism is always at fault. Then again, from a small-government libertarian perspective, he voted for Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, TARP, auto bailouts, and all the wars waged by George W. Bush. So even as he makes the 2012 election race more interesting and hotly contested, he underscores the fact that today's GOP is offering an echo of the Democratic Party, not a real alternative."

National Review, in an editorial: "Romney has made an inspired choice. Ryan will make an excellent running mate and, if elected, vice president. What is most gratifying about the decision is, however, what it says about Romney himself. Romney could have decided to run a vague and vacuous campaign based on the idea that the public would default to the out party in a bad economy. By selecting Ryan, he has ensured that the campaign will instead to a significant degree be about a conservative governing agenda. … The first question any vice presidential pick must answer is whether he is ready to become president should disaster strike. Fiscal disaster is striking. A mark of statesmanship is to face mathematical reality and make hard choices in its light. Romney has chosen a running mate who is more presidential than the incumbent."

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GO BIG OR GO HOME: THE CHOICE FOR THE DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER - American Reporter

by Randolph T. Holhut
Chief of AR Correspondents
Dummerston, Vt. Back to home page Printable version of this story

DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Politics is all about salesmanship and getting your message across to voters.

In this regard, President Obama and the Democrats have failed miserably.

According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, about one-third of voters believe that the Obama Administration has raised taxes for most Americans, compared to only 8 percent who believe - correctly! - that he has lowered them.

Mr. Obama's stimulus package lowered taxes for most working Americans and put an extra $400 into their pockets. But you'd never know that fact from reading or listening to the news.

That's why allowing the Bush Administration's tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, while extending them for those who earn less than $250,000 a year is the ultimate political no-brainer for Democrats.

It's also an economic no-brainer. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office looked at 11 different policy options for stimulating the economy. The CBO found that the least effective option was cutting taxes for the wealthy, since they are likely to save their money than spend it.

As the CBO put it, "tax cuts, though difficult for politicians to resist in an election season, have limited ability to bolster the flagging economy because they are essentially a supply-side remedy for a problem caused by a lack of demand."

That was echoed by Moody's, which found that when the top tax rate on the wealthy was increased from 31 to 39 percent by President Clinton in 1993, the saving rate dropped while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index increased. By comparison, when President Bush cut the top tax rate to 35 percent in 2001, the saving rate increased while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index decreased.

Study after study shows that increases in the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest in our society does not weaken the economy or significantly decrease consumption. At the same time, when more money is put into workers' pockets, it creates more spending, which creates more demand, which creates more jobs, which creates prosperity.

And forget this week's proclamation that the recession is officially ended last year. For most Americans, times are still hard. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate surged to 14.3 percent in 2009, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. There are now 43.6 million Americans living in poverty, the highest number in the five decades that the Census Bureau has been keeping those statistics.

The official federal poverty level for a family of four is $21,756 a year, which is not nearly enough to pay for food, shelter, transportation or health care. Even at 200 percent of the poverty level - roughly $43,000 a year -it's difficult. Yet the Census Bureau found 1 in 3 Americans not even earning that level of income, and that ratio is steadily rising.

Many Democrats are afraid to make the following statements out of fear of being branded as engaging in "class warfare." But these numbers say it all. The share of income going to the wealthiest 10 percent of American households - those earning more than $100,000 - has risen from 34.6 percent in 1980 to 48.2 percent in 2008, while incomes for those who earn under $40,000 a year have been essentially flat for nearly 40 years.

Even before the current recession, working Americans had been squeezed hard. Now, with 29 million Americans either out of work or forced into part-time work, we're seeing class warfare waged by the wealthy and powerful against the rest of us - and the rich are winning big time. The disparity between rich and poor has reached the levels of the late 1920s, just before the Great Depression, while the number of long-term jobless is the highest its been since the 1930s.

So where are the Democrats? Why aren't they defending the interests of working Americans? Because the party sold them out long ago. They allowed the financial sector to be deregulated and let the markets become one giant casino. They allowed our manufacturing sector to wither and allowed jobs to be shipped overseas. They allowed labor unions to be destroyed and the social safety net to be slashed. They allowed corporate power to grow unchecked, and for more wealth to be concentrated into fewer hands.

Yes, Republicans have also been responsible for all this. But we expect Republicans to behave like this. That's what their party stands for, and we'll get a lot more of it if Republicans regain control of Congress in November.

But Democrats once stood for the opposite of these policies, and the result was a fair, just economy and a prosperous nation in the 1950s and 1960s. But the Democrats slowly backed away from these principles, and are now as much blame for the death spiral that our nation is in as the Republicans.

Being less worse than the crazy Tea Partiers who have taken over the Republican Party is not enough for the Democrats. They need to regain the trust of working Americans, and to do that, the Democrats need to stand again for the common good and fight against the expansion of corporate power into every aspect of our lives.

Unfortunately, the Democrats won't do this. Yes, President Obama has nibbled around the edges of the many problems facing our nation. Yes, he inherited a mess the Bush Administration that will take many more years to clean up. But even with a robust majority in Congress and a groundswell of popular support, he squandered so many chances to make his presidency a truly transformative one.

In an economy with near double-digit unemployment, it is imperative that we create jobs. We also know there's also no shortage of public infrastructure that needs rebuilding. A revival of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps could solve both problems.

In the longer term, we need to shift our economy to a cleaner and more energy-efficient path, we need to really overhaul our health care system and we need to re-regulate the financial markets to prevent a replay of the recklessness and fraud that brought our economy to the brink of collapse.

In other words, the Democrats need to go big or go home. In the six weeks left before Election Day, they must either offer a positive and ambitious agenda that will help create an economy that works for all of us, or get thumped at the polls in November.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 30 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2011 Joe Shea The American Reporter. All Rights Reserved.

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