Paul Ryan -- Still Lyin'

Here's what Ayn Rand acolyte and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (!) Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch) had to say about the poverty rate on "Face the Nation" last weekend:

After a 50-year war on poverty and trillions of dollars spent, we still have the same poverty rates.

Here's what Vox's Dylan Matthews had to say about that (apologies, but the lengthy excerpt is necessary):

This sentence suggests that either Paul Ryan has absolutely no clue how poverty rates work, or he does know and is actively deceiving viewers. First of all, the specific claim in question isn't even technically accurate. The poverty rate was 19 percent in 1964, when the War on Poverty was announced. In 2013, it was 14.5 percent. We do not have the same poverty rates we did then. Ryan is just wrong.

But even that dramatically understates the progress that has been made. The official poverty rate is a travesty of a statistic, and using it at all in this context is irresponsible. It's literally based on food prices in 1955. But more relevantly for these purposes, it excludes the very anti-poverty programs Ryan is talking about. It excludes in-kind transfers like Medicaid, food stamps, and housing vouchers, as well as tax-based programs like the EITC. Blasting those programs because they don't show up in the poverty rate is like arguing that Netflix shows have zero viewers by pointing to cable ratings.

A much better metric, which takes anti-poverty programs fully into account and is based on more recent data, is known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure. The SPM factors in government programs, and is based on current data about spending on food and other necessities. It's the poverty rate people like Ryan should be referencing. While the federal government has only been using the SPM for a short while, a group of researchers centered at Columbia — Christopher Wimer, Liana Fox, Irv Garfinkel, Neeraj Kaushal, and Jane Waldfogel — went back and calculated SPM numbers for every year since 1967. To distinguish from the government-issued SPM metric, they call this "anchored SPM."

The researchers found that anchored SPM (the blue line below) has fallen dramatically in recent decades. But if you take out government programs, you get the green line below, which doesn't fall at all. Poverty — measured accurately, in a way that includes the government programs Ryan is trying to evaluate — fell, and it fell entirely because of government programs:

(click on image to enlarge)

Wimer, et al (via Vox)

 So, in other words, the poverty rate was reduced by about 40 percent by the anti-poverty programs initiated in the 1960's, which is a little different from "the same."  But all Ryan has to do is convince a few "journamalists" in the media that he's a straight-shootin', wonky "reformer" who knows his stuff, and Mission Accomplished!  He's a Very Serious Person with Serious Ideas. That there will be no push-back except in progressive blogs to Ryan's "focus on poverty" is a given, so we will translate the gist of Ryan's "poverty proposals" for the policy-challenged in the media and elsewhere as "reverse Robin Hood."

(h/t Steve Benen/ Maddow Blog)

Paul Ryan, Anti-Poverty Warrior

Ayn Rand devotee and what passes for a right-wing "policy wonk," Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (Galt-WI) has a shiny new plan to combat poverty in America, if by "policy wonk" you mean "con man" and if by "combat poverty" you mean stick it to the poor.  Everyone's been all over it since Ryan released the plan on Thursday.  Here are a few sample takes:

Laura Clawson decodes Ryan's plan:

Ryan wants to consolidate as many as 11 anti-poverty programs into one block of funding that states could do with as they wished, provided they instituted work requirements, limited the duration of benefits, and provided what Ryan refers to as accountability. Ryan insists that this isn't about cutting benefits but about using them differently, but here's a clue to what he's envisioning: elderly and disabled people, as "two especially vulnerable groups" which "need specific kinds of care," would get a host of special protections. In other words, the people Ryan classifies as deserving poor would be protected from what he plans to do do all the other poor people.  (our emphasis)

Charles P. Pierce takes a long look back at the historical roots of the plan and Ryan's track record, then concludes:

One must never forget when discussing anything Paul Ryan says about economics that he fundamentally does not believe that the care of the poor and the sick is a legitimate function of government. This belief is theological. It is the basis for his entire political career. And it has not changed. This is a philosophy he developed while going to high school and college on my dime and yours through Social Security survivor benefits, and you're welcome again, dickhead. Anybody who thinks Paul Ryan has "changed" in any substantive way should not be allowed out in public without a minder. In this recent scam, the tells are scattered everywhere, and they are obvious, and you don't even have to know that the more "compassionate" of his proposals don't have fk all chance of getting through the monkeyhouse Congress in which he is a leader. He knows that, too.  (our emphasis)

Paul Krugman piles on more reasons not to trust what Ryan is selling (unlike certain credulous bloggers who should know better =cough= Ezra Klein =cough=):

In case you want the longer answer, however, there are multiple reasons to distrust Ryan. It’s not just that this plan is completely inconsistent with his budget proposals, and that he has given no indication of how he would resolve this inconsistency. It’s not just that the methods he proposes, especially block-granting, have in the past simply been back-door ways to slash aid to the poor — which is what his budgets involve, after all. And it’s not just that everything he has said about the causes of and cures for poverty is all wrong. 

You have to read each of the posts to get the full flavor of Ryan's mendacity (as well as links to other critiques).  The Beltway kool kids don't seem to be over their crush on this con man, so expect this stinking mess to be mulled over by people who, as Charles Pierce says, "should not be allowed out in public without a minder."

(Image:  Would you buy an anti-poverty plan from this dudebro'?)