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PAUL RYAN ENERGISED Mitt Romney’s White House bid yesterday with a scathing take-down of Barack Obama’s economic record as he accepted the vice presidential nomination at the Republican convention.
Adding youthful vim and policy vigor to the Romney ticket, the 42-year-old rising star from small town Wisconsin received a standing ovation for his impassioned pitch to American voters 10 weeks from election day.
“I accept the duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity. And I know we can do this,” Ryan said, exhibiting little sign of nerves during his 35-minute speech, by far the biggest of his political life.
Policies
Ryan accused Obama of saddling the US economy with four years of failed big government policies and held up Romney, a 65-year-old former Massachusetts governor, as the man to turn things around with his business acumen.
After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney.
Romney will formally take up the nomination with his all-important acceptance speech to the convention in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, the climax of three days of rousing addresses by party grandees and rising stars.
He lies neck-and-neck with Obama in national polls ahead of a November 6 election.
Romney’s vice presidential pick was seen as crucial four years after John McCain electrified conservatives by choosing inexperienced Alaska governor Sarah Palin, only to see her wither in the national spotlight.
Democrats have portrayed Ryan as an extreme, budget-cutting friend of the rich who would gut beloved social programs.
But Republicans have used the selection of the seven-term congressman, whose budget plan is the party’s blueprint to fix the flagging US economy, to breathe fresh life into a race that had been in danger of drifting away from Romney.
Debt and joblessness
Ryan took his chance in the convention spotlight to assail the president’s record, saying Obama’s 2008 promises of hope and change had fallen flat after four years of fiscal recklessness, ballooning debt and joblessness.
It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. But now, “they’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left.
Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.
Ryan’s mother Betty, wife Janna, daughter Liza, and boys Charlie and Sam took the stage at the end of the speech to the apparent surprise of the vice presidential nominee, who hugged and kissed his family to furious applause.
His address, carried live on cable TV across America at prime time, contained a clear pitch to working class and middle class Americans who may find it hard to identify with Romney’s background of wealth and privilege.
“I live on the same block where I grew up,” Ryan said. “We belong to the same parish where I was baptised. Janesville is that kind of place.”
The Obama campaign had upped the pressure on Romney’s running mate in the hours leading up to the speech, releasing a new web video that asked why Americans are so nervous aboutPaul Ryan.
“Is it his commitment to the failed top-down economics of the past with tax cuts for the wealthiest?” it asked, accusing Ryan of seeking to end the Medicare system for the elderly by introducing a new voucher program.
Romney wasn’t in the Tampa auditorium to hear Ryan’s speech as he prepared for his own prime-time address on Thursday.
He took to the stage briefly on Tuesday’s storm-delayed opening night of the convention to give his wife Ann a kiss after her well-received speech, which sought to humanise a candidate often seen as stiff and awkward.
“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”
PJ O’Rourke
I’ve a pain in me hole with Barack Obama.
4 years no progress. He is starting to make George Bush look like an economic wizard.
Bush helped create the mess that Obama was left with, so Obama is dealing with Bush’s legacy.
Now of course if we look at the legacy of debt created by each president and specifically the party they represented we can see the the republicans created by farrrr the biggest debt each time
http://comingking.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/debt_chart_presidents.jpg
Still think the republicans are the best choice Popcorn?
Can’t understand how Obama hasn’t delivered progress given the golden chalice passed on Mr Bush Jr and the Republican party bending over backwards to help get the US working again … or maybe that is just some alternate reality and the facts really are that the Republican party would do anything to get the black man out of te White house. Including destroy the US economy.
Ryan says one thing and votes the opposite. Check his record.
He must be a politican.
If you like these guys you should see some of the policies they want to enforce including laws on porn & even worse than that. The US is becoming a fundamental christian state slowly but surely & they dictate to the muslim world.
Are they for or against the porn?
I think we have a right to know.
They want controls put on access to porn & being viewed in the likes of hotels & similar situations. The reason for this is they have link this private activity to child porn.
Ryan: “Our rights come from nature and God, not from government.”
Get a grip man. We get no rights from nature and there is no God!
Ryan is paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence. A now ancient concept advances the argument that certain basic rights are innate rather than conferred by rulers, monarchs or governments.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
US Declaration of Independence
Independent republic? Innate rights? Those crazy Americans! What will they think of next? ;-)
Was actually a great speech although where Ryan falters for me is that although he talks about cutting spending he will not touch defence. Still though, we’re a long, long way from Palin.
We’re?
I agree it was a great rousing speech. Obama better have something to pull out of the bag.
Irish shops spend a comparable amount of their budgets on DEFENCE, alarms, shutters, insurance, CCTV systems, door guards etc.
Emmet
Palin “…I know about Russia, I can see it from here…” isn’t much of a benchmark tho’, & Ryan is closer than you think.
In a 2005 speech, Ryan praised the nutjob author Ayn Rand’s selfishness & greed philosophy (same Ayn Rand that Alan Greenspan lauded his entire career, until it all fell apart in 2008). In the same speech, Ryan also said that he insisted ‘all his staff’ read Rand’s novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’. He’s been trying to distance himself from Rand lately, but his philosophy hasn’t changed.
Former US regulator & terror to the banking fraudsters (1990s) Prof William Black wrote a brilliant piece recently drawing the striking parallels between the speeches of the Irish Famine era elites & their neo-liberal selfish greed adherent counterparts today (like Ryan & Mr ‘offshore finance’ Romney. (Black quotes from the historical records of the time.)
“Why is Paul Ryan, an Irish Catholic, praising the dogmas that drove the Great Hunger?”
Note the pseudo-economics dogma similarities between then & now, like “…the government mustn’t buy food for the starving Irish – it would upset the operation of the ‘free market’….” (to paraphrase). Also, “…we mustn’t give them free food, as it would encourage a ‘dependency culture’ (or words to that effect).
Just to be clear, this is not about ‘the English’ or ‘the Germans’ of today, or any other ‘nationalities’ – it was then & is now entirely about the wealthy elites of the day versus ordinary citizens. The sooner we stop talking about ‘nationalities’ with regards to the callousness & mendacity of the world, the better. It’s just what the elites want – divide & rule.
Another I’ll-informed rant Mr Hall.
First of all, there was no such thing as neo-liberalism at the time of the potato famine.
Secondly, liberalism does not promote discrimination against Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters (the exclusive victims of the famine); In fact quite the opposite.
The circumstances that lead to the avoidable famine were sectarian policies enforced by an authoritarian regime.
Sorry to tell you Ryan is no Fiscal Conservative… He is all Fur and no Knickers…
Paul Ryan on Bailouts and Government Stimuli
-Voted YES on TARP (2008)
-Voted YES on Economic Stimulus HR 5140 (2008)
-Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008)
-Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009)
Paul Ryan on Entitlement Programs
-Voted YES on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. (Nov 2003)
-Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers. (Jun 2006)
-Voted YES on extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008)
-Voted YES on Head Start Act (2007)
Paul Ryan on Education
Rep. Ryan went along with the Bush Administration in supporting more federal involvement in education. This is contrary to the traditional Republican position, which included support for abolition of the Department of Education and decreasing federal involvement in education.
-Voted YES on No Child Left Behind Act (2001)
Paul Ryan on Civil Liberties
-Voted YES on federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists. (Feb 2005)
-Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
-Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Paul Ryan on War and Intervention Abroad
-Voted YES on authorizing military force in Iraq. (Oct 2002)
-Voted YES on emergency $78B for war in Iraq & Afghanistan. (Apr 2003)
-Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date. (Jun 2006)
-Voted NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days. (May 2007)
Sean, if you look into the speeches made at the time you will plenty of neo-liberal economic thinking. Mr Hall is in fact correct. There was definitely sectarianism involved, but the principal motivator seems to have exactly this – as described in the article which he linked.
Colin Farrell and Sean Bean are currently shooting a film about Turkish aid delivered to the Irish during the famine. Whether this episode will be included, I don’t know.
“Legend has it that the sultan had pledged the considerable sum of 10,000 pounds to the cause, but the ruling monarch of the time, Queen Victoria, laid down the law, requesting that he send only a 10th of this because she herself had only donated 2,000 pounds. Abdullah Aymaz noted in an article in The Fountain magazine in 2007 that despite the fact that the British administration did not give permission for the three ships to enter the ports of Belfast or Dublin, the vessels managed to secretly discharge their load in the tranquil town of Drogheda, approximately 70 miles north of Dublin.
An act of kindness which remained largely unknown for many years, the episode entered the wider public consciousness when Irish President Mary McAleese sang the praises of Sultan Abdülmecid on a state visit to Turkey in March 2010, relating how, “at the insistence of the people, the star and crescent of Turkey forms part of the town’s coat of arms.”
As well as the Turks, Quakers attempting to deliver aid to fellow Irishmen complained at being prevented doing so by the authorities.
William Black claims that a lack of government intervention exaserbated or motivated the Irish potato famine. Yet points out how the British authorities actively intervened to maximise suffering in Ireland. Then he claims that this is laissez faire/liberalism. It is not.
I say that without government intervention there would have been no famine in the first place.
Listed below are the 10 core principles of classical liberalism. The British government violated all of these before & during the famine.
Number one is that liberty is the primary political value. We all have lots of different values, we care about our family, our church, but when it comes to what to do politically – what should the government do – classical liberals have one clear standard: does this increase or does it reduce the freedom of the individual. The government should only act to prevent harm to others.
Second principle: Individualism – that the individual is more important than the collective. We should not sacrifice the interest of individuals for what some people argue is the ‘common good,’ this was a central feature of communism and fascism, that individuals didn’t matter. Every individual matters, every individual is worthy of respect.
Third principle: Skepticism About Power. Power is the ability to get other people to do what you want that otherwise they would not do. Government for example often claims: we are forcing you to do X because it is in your own interest to do so. Where very often when people with power do that, it’s really because it’s good for themselves. Classical liberals believe that the individual is the best judge of their own interests. We can plan recommend things, but in the end the individual is the best judge o their own interests. Other people should not force them to do things that they do not want them to do for them.
Fourth: The Rule of Law. This is the idea that there are some higher principles by which we should examine what government does. Laws that are passed, government actions. Just like the US Supreme Court will sometimes strike down pieces of legislation that Congress has passed and the President assigned, because it goes against certain principles embodied in the US Constitution. Classical liberals believe that certain principles of the rule of law should be applied to what every government does anywhere in the world. A classic example is equality before the law. People should be treated the same, regardless of their race or gender, or sexual orientation. That’s why classical liberalism always objected to the idea that there should be laws that treat say blacks and whites differently.
Five: Civil Society. Civil societies are those voluntary organizations that exist between the individual and the state. Classical liberals believe that most social problems can be more effectively dealt with through these voluntary organizations, like the family, like the church, like childhood organizations, because they have the knowledge about the individuals with which they are dealing with. Civil society is much more effective than government bureaucracies and inflexible rules, they can’t change depending on people’s individual circumstances. So the civil society can do many of the things that we now look to for the welfare state to do.
Six: Spontaneous Order. Order, it means existence of regularity and predictability in the world. When people are making decisions about what to do, they need to be able to predict what the results from making those decisions should be. Many people seem to assume that order requires some institutions, some body, to manipulate and organize things. Classical liberals don’t believe that. They believe that order can arise spontaneously. People through their voluntary interaction create the rules by which people can live by. Classic example is that of language. Nobody invented the English language, it arose in terms of people communicting with each other, and yet certain rules have applied through that process. We don’t need people to plan our lives.
Seven: Free Markets. That economic exchange should be left to voluntary activity between individuals. Governent should not tell people where to work, how to save, what to build, what to produce, this should be left to voluntary interaction by people. You need private property to be able to do that, and you need to ensure that when there is dispute, they can be peacefully resolved. But history shows us that leaving things to free market, rather than government planning or organization, increases prosperity, reduces poverty, increases jobs, provides goods that people want to buy.
Eight: Toleration. Toleration is the belief that one should not interfere with things of which one disapproves. Toleration does not mean that you allow people to do things because you agree with it, because you think it’s a good thing, it’s a question of having certain moral principles, i.e. I think this action is wrong, but I will not try enforce my opinions through example through government to stop the things that I disapprove of. A classic case of that for classical liberals is free speech, people should be allowed to say things of which we strongly disapprove. We are tolerating things even though we dislike and disapprove it.
Nine: Peace. Peace is a state where we can go about our business without violence or war. That’s best achieved according to classical liberals, is not by interfering in other countries, no, they favor a non-interventionist foreign policy. Their view in terms of our interaction with other nations, it should be based on what is commonly called the four freedoms: there should be free movement of capital and labor – people, goods, and services. I would add something as well, the free movement of ideas. If we have a World in which this free movement is embraced, then I think we’ll have a World as classical liberals believe, we would have a World based on peace.
And finally: Limited Government. There are very few things which the government should do. The goal of the government is simply to protect a life, liberty, and property. Anything beyond that is not justifiable. A strictly limited government.
People who identified themselves as liberals:
Daniel O’Connell
John Maynard Keynes (Influenced Paul Krugman allegedly)
Fredrick Douglass (Influenced by and befriended Daniel O’Connell, Influenced Barack Obama allegedly)
Sean O’Keefe
You say:
“….I say that without government intervention there would have been no (Irish) famine in the first place…..”
This is probably one of the the most ignorant, blinded by dogma (& your own self interest?) statements I’ve seeen on the Journal by a long stretch. Really, I’m laughing here :)
Who do you think ‘government’ was in 19th century Britain (& most evertwhere else) ?
Politics then (& not so different now) was entirely the domain of the wealthy elites, the capital owners. Only people with wealth could attain political power.
For a start, no women had the vote & vast numbers of the population couldn’t read or write. The labouring classes (the majority of citizens) didn’t get themselves organised until some 50 years after the famine period.
Anyhow, there’s clearly no point in ‘debating’ with you – you’re like someone from a religeous cult.
As for the rest of your post…lol, & you accused me of a ‘rant’. Hilarious. None of what you wrote has any meaning whatever until it is defined in practical terms.
But the ‘real’ world isn’t your forte Sean, is it? How is life in the oil rich, tax free middle east by the way? Are they treating ye well?
Mike, your ad hom rant aside, I appreciate you have some difficulty negotiating my comment.
Firstly, neo-liberalism did not emerge for over a century after the famine.
Secondly, William Black is clearly an intelligent man, but it is deeply disappointing that he would latch onto a, long since discredited, notion that liberalism was some how instrumental in causing the Irish famine. This fallacy is on occasion trotted out by conservatives and leftists too lazy to study the true causes of the famine.
It is unsurprising that Democrats and their supporters would deflect from the US economy ( given the continued decline into penury of it’s poor and the continued accumulation of wealth of the politically anointed) to rehash discredited notions as to the causes of the Irish famine.
One of the many recognised accomplishments of 19th century liberals was Catholic emancipation in 1829 (look it up). The ideals of emancipation were central to liberalism.
I appreciate you have some difficulty getting your head around the core principles of liberalism. To simplify these slightly the following:
-Central to liberal thinking is the innate rights to life, liberty and property. All three were denied to defined groups in Ireland before and during the famine
-The law may not discriminate against defined groups
-The use of force, coersion or threat of is universally inappropriate
Basically, rather than being iinformed by liberal ideals, the British authorities were illiberal in their treatment of the Irish. Sectarian and genocidal policies are profoundly illiberal.
As to my personal circumstances, I have never been to the Middle East. I have been unemployed for the past few months and I am married with three kids. Thanks for your concern.
He sounds like a typical Fine Gael man to me. He seems a bit more honest than the crowd over here though.
And there it is
they always do…..until they get elected
Reports already incoming of problems ranging from factual inaccuracies to outright lies
Also worth noting that Ryan’s budget which republicans have been heaping praise on as a model of fiscal responsibility specifies only $1.7 Trillion in spending cuts (largely on services to the underprivileged) to offset his $4.3 Trillion in tax cuts (largely for the wealthy).
His plans make the poor, poorer and the rich, richer are justified under the pretense of “eliminating the deficit” when in fact they significantly increase it, lies of staggering proportions coming out of the GOP camp.
Oops Ciaran….with that analysis my forecast may be right….within forty eight hours Mr Ryan and his penchant for wobbling on the truth will be found out. Why would his speech writers take so many short cuts with the facts when his speech was going to be parsed and parsed. Mr Ryan gives very impression of either being ignorant of the speech contents or a pathological liar.
A GOP campaign spokesperson when challenged on repeated factual inaccuracies in their ads said that they won’t let fact-checkers dictate their campaign.
For more of Ryan’s lies, see here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/paul-ryan-fails—-the-truth/2012/08/29/bbfe1eac-f254-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_blog.html
“That wasn’t the only bit of mendacity – lazy mendacity, incredibly lazy mendacity – in Ryan’s speech. Twitter lit up as soon as he started telling the story of the Janesville auto plant that Barack Obama didn’t save – a plant that, it turns out, closed before Obama was president”.
Any more of this and he’ll have to join FF/FG.
People watching the US presidential race unfold?
Let’s not be fooled folks – Ryan comes from the fundamentalist extreme Tea Party – Right Wing of the GOP / Republican Party.
Bear in mind also that the economic problems concerned were inherited ones – Bush’s light touch banking Policy – Lehmann’s , Merrill Lynch & add to that Bush propagating two hugely costly invasion/wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .
When Clinton retired as President – Bush took over an economy in good shape and over eight years ground into oblivion – we are all since living with the consequences of this misspending .
John McCains speech last night was even more dangerous as he now supports the Republican Right Wing policy of invading Iran & Syria !
Let’s not be fooled by these warmongering GOP people – Obama , in fairness , has succeeded at least in closing off on the Iraqi war and will be out of Afghanistan , he says , in two years time .
Ryan’s record to date is that of a loose cannon, where Romney’s record indicates that his only loyalty is to the rich.
The republicans have destroyed not only their own economy, but the world economy as we know it. It wasn’t Bush or Reagan who brought this about, but Richard Nixon.
Nixon was not just guilty of moral and legal corruption, but also the monetary corruption of the US and western economies. This has lead to the speculative and consumerist credit bubble that is now rupturing. Each US administration has overseen expotentially increasing debt. US government spending and debt now exceeds it’s peak of the twentieth century during WWII (relative to national income) as with most western economies.
Barach Obama will not reverse this continued accumulation of debt; Neither will Romney/Ryan.
What all nations need to plan for, including Ireland, is how to proceed when the bubble has finally burst.
The Finnish government has already stated that it is making it’s own plans for dealing with the collapse of the Euro.
I can’t take seriously a man who claims that his two greatest influences are Jesus Christ and……. Ayn Rand, a woman who defined altruism as an “evil force”, how on earth is that compatible with Christianity? And this man is being feted as one of the GOP’s ‘intellectual leaders’. His budgetary blueprint has been described as ‘mathematically impossible’ by the economist. The man casts himself as a fiscal conservative but in truth all he has managed to prescribe is an assault on soft targets – social programs for the poor and those on low incomes – and, surprise surprise, more tax cuts for the super rich. Deregulation and piss on the poor economics have proven to be an abject failure in the last decades, and this fiend advocates pursuing the same agenda with a new vigour, it would be comical of the potential consequences weren’t so serious.
The Republican Congress has been the real runaround merchant and master of obfuscation Mr Ryan!!!
Woe! What a speech! Will be tough for the media and the Obama campaign to twist and propagandise that.
Yeah..its hard to twist a corkscrew..
I have a genuine fear for the safety of Irish illegals if the Romney and the republicans win in November. Their policies will just make the case for granting them some sort of legal status even more difficult. Also there is a very bigoted (almost Klu Klux Klan) type element running thru some of the republican rhetoric. Down in the more southern states and in Kentucky and Georgia there is still a lot if overt discrimination going on. These are the areas where republicans pick up a lot of support. Note where 2 candidates at the convention were ejected for throwing peanuts at a black camera woman and shouting ” this is how we feed the animals”. Do decent Americans really want those sort in power? I’m Michael D Higgins in this one.
It’s very unsporting of the republicans to tear the mantle of the Ku Klux Klan from the democrats really.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_kkk.html
There was an interesting article in the Economist last week on two studies concerning racism, that showed that whether you are Republican or Democrat has very little impact on whether you engage in racist behaviour or not. Many Democrats are lower paid workers and can have views of Hispanic and Chinese workers which are significantly at odds with the Democratic elite. So the stereotype of the redkneck Republican racist can often be wrong.
And what is surely going to be a boon to the economy of some small village or parish is he’s Irish-American, so he’ll surely be over to the ‘Old Country’ to talk about how his heritage influenced his politics or some shite like that…this country is trying to move forward and the last thing we need is to be associated/blamed for the right wing Christian fundamentalist nut job being, in theory, the second most powerful man in the world.
If you step back from whatever he’s going to try and do for the economy of his country, the fact remains that his fundamentalist beliefs are extreme and he would have no problem raining ‘fire and brimstone’ down on anyone even remotely liberal. He could very well be one of these neo-cons in the US who literally think they are gods gift. A very dangerous man.
Haven’t been a big fan of the corporate tax cutting done in Canada. As it’s largely only benifitted a few industries such as oil and gas. And for the most part hasn’t created the jobs promissed. As the savings only go to boost their share values rather then job creation.
No, you’re better off with a combination of tax credits for small and medium businesses, business entrepreneurs. Tax cuts to payroll taxes (which benifts all companies large and small), and a small corporate tax cut coupled with an equal amount of subsity cuts to some sectors that are profitable enough without them.
Especially when you look at the fact that 90% or more of the jobs in a country are with small and medium independent companies. And not with big corporations or governments.
It’s like a bus going over a cliff , with the democrats driving your going 40mph with the republicans your going 80mph …. Your going to get there eventually it just how fast do you want to go ??. The GM plan Ryan spoke about in his hometown was earmarked for closure before Obama got into office but sure we’ll blame him for that … He’s now known as “lying Ryan “
The biggest issue with the next president of the United States of America……….when will it be time for another war
have your say