Just two hours after the rollout of Romney-Ryan, The Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote that with the ascension of Paul Ryan to the number-two spot on the ticket, Mitt Romney--and the GOP--have embraced an economic package that is as far from the mainstream as you can get.
In picking Ryan, Romney is confirming his commitment to full-flown economic radicalism — something that he had kept well disguised until the Tax Policy Center study unmasked it. The central idea driving the GOP ticket is not just that tax hikes on the rich must be avoided at all costs. It’s that dramatically reducing the tax burden on the wealthy — coupled with deep cuts to social programs and a quasi-voucherizing of Medicare — is the route back to prosperity.
Call it the “Ryan/Romney vision.” Not the “Romney/Ryan vision.” The “Ryan/Romney vision.” The Ryan pick was urged upon Romney by conservatives who wanted him to “go bold,” i.e., to confirm beyond doubt that he will govern from the Ryan blueprint. “We want the Ryan budget,” Grover Norquist said recently, adding that the paramount requirement in the next president is that he have “enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign it. The Ryan pick is a triumph for this wing of the party.
This is all you need to know about Paul Ryan--the guy who wants to shrink government to the size of a bathtub wanted him on the ticket in some capacity.
Sargent also thinks a lot like most of us do--that Romney is playing right into Obama's hands by picking Ryan.
The Ryan pick is also a break with Romney’s previous theory of the race. He had previously intended to make the campaign about nothing more than a referendum on the economy and Obama’s stewardship of it. Now it will be a choice between two starkly different ideological visions, one that drags the race onto the turf of tax fairness and entitlements — which is much more in line with the debate Dems wanted.
We already knew that kind of debate is tilted in the blue team's favor. Just ask Kathy Hochul, who holds the reddest district in New York largely because the Ryan budget would turn Medicare into a casino.
Sargent thinks that Obama isn't the only one who should put Ryan's approach to governing under an electron microscope. The press needs to turn up the heat on him as well.
The press has done a great job pinning Romney down on the real implications of his tax plan, largely thanks to that unsparing Tax Policy Center study. Ryan, by contrast, has been widely accorded the presumption of fiscal “seriousness," mainly because he looks so earnest and genuinely despairing in those videos that show him stalking the halls of Congress in the grip of existential deficit angst.
But now that he is the vice presidential pick — confirming that his worldview will be the one that animates the approach to governing the GOP presidential ticket would adopt — here’s hoping the press gets equally serious about pinning down the true implications of his vision, too.
One can only hope WaPo's editorial side takes up Sargent on his advice. After all, there are a good number of swing voters in WaPo's coverage area that won't like the idea of having their taxes go up while the fat cats' taxes go down.