Surprise! Republicans' First Order Of Business: Go Far Right

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has several examples of why the Republican Congress, while talking "bipartisanship" and "governing" is the same old same old (and, once again, thank you to all the Democrats who couldn't be bothered to get off their asses last November):

One example: The new rules would provide for “dynamic scoring” of tax cuts, which sounds very cool and forward-looking but for the fact that they aim to assert tax cuts won’t cost what they’ll actually cost. This, in turn, will make it easier for the Republicans to shower money on their favored constituencies while pretending to be fiscally responsible. [snip] 

[T]he House leadership included another rule flatly designed to force cuts to Social Security’s disability program. If Republicans want to debate such cuts, fine, but don’t sneak them in through the fine print.  

Then there is the move by both House and Senate Republicans to change the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Currently, employers with 50 or more full-time workers have to provide health insurance to employees who work 30 hours or more, or pay a fine. Republicans want to limit the mandate to Americans who work 40 hours or more. In USA Today this week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wrote that the purpose of the change is “so more people can work full time.” 

But the change would have exactly the opposite effect.

Dionne doesn't even mention this culture war stinker:

On Tuesday, the very first day of the 114th Congress, two lawmakers introduced a measure to ban abortions after 20 weeks, in direct violation of the protections afforded under Roe v. Wade. Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the same legislation that successfully passed the House last year. 

Or this one:

Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans are planning to try to choke off President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action next week, according to multiple GOP leadership aides involved in the talks.

You may have noticed this emerging Republican-wired media narrative (or some variation):  the establishment Republicans are in charge now and are ready to govern, if only Obama will compromise!  To which we say, with exhibits A through E above as evidence, please extract your heads from your asses and report things as they are, not as you wish them to be.

More On Rep. Paul Ryan's "Stinkburger" Budget

The LA Times'  Michael Hiltzik discusses how the budget put forth by media darling (and a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like) Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (Ayn Rand-WI) is designed to short-change rob the poor and middle class of their rightful Social Security benefits:

As I've written before, when you hear people like Paul Ryan talk as though the country can't afford to pay back the money by redeeming the bonds in the trust fund, what you're hearing is the sound of the wealthy preparing to stiff the working class. If the income tax has to be raised to turn those T-bonds into cash for payment of benefits over the next couple of decades, that's how the rich will be made to repay the people who lent them the money. Some people love to claim that the government has "stolen" the trust fund. The correct reply to that is: "Not yet." 

But if Ryan has his way, yes, the money will be stolen. It's up to you and me to make sure that doesn't happen. 

So, to put all these pieces together, there's no "dubious government accounting" involved here--the dubious accounting is all Ryan's. The trust fund is indeed a real savings account, involving deposits and interest. Yes, the government borrowed the money, and it has paid interest on it every year (duly recorded and published, down to the last dollar, in the annual reports of the Social Security trustees). 

And yes, "the ability to redeem these securities is completely dependent on the Treasury’s ability to raise money through taxes or borrowing." What Ryan doesn't say is that the Treasury's ability to raise taxes and borrowing is effectively unlimited.  

The most important factor is the one that people like Ryan want you to forget: The money in the Social Security trust fund came directly or indirectly from the payroll taxes paid by millions of American workers--100% of it. It was paid by workers in the trust that the government would pay it back. Paul Ryan is hinting, pretty strongly, that he doesn't want to pay it back. 

As Hiltzik points out (and please take time to read his entire article), this part of Ryan's stinkburger budget repeats language in his FY 2012 budget proposal.  It's not "reform."  It's another foray in the far-right's war on the middle class, another stratagem in the fight to increase income inequality in this country.  As Hiltzik says, we have to make sure that doesn't happen.