Does Paul Ryan know where his Roadmap leads?

The fact that Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Social Security might ultimately lead to a federal bailout caught our eye nearly two years ago. And it caught the CBPP's as well ... and Ryan's response suggests the celebrated wonk has no idea of the implications of his bill.

Cost of the Social Security Guarantee

Ryan’s Assertion : Ryan challenges our statement that his requirement that the Treasury bail out private-account holders for stock-market losses could cost $2.9 trillion and that this cost is not reflected in the CBO report on his plan. He claims that CBO explicitly estimated this cost and included it in its projections of his plan.

Our Response : Once again, Rep. Ryan is mistaken and our statements are accurate. We wrote, “These potential bailout costs — like the cost of the plan’s very large tax cuts — are not reflected in the CBO estimates that Rep. Ryan cites when touting the plan’s fiscal responsibility.” We confirmed the accuracy of this statement with CBO before issuing our report. CBO conducted separate analyses of the proposed benefit guarantee, but CBO’s budget estimates reported in Appendix II of the Ryan plan do not include the cost of the guarantee. Moreover, the $2.9 trillion cost estimate does not come from us, as Rep. Ryan implies. Our report clearly states that it is the estimate of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, based on an earlier version of Rep. Ryan’s plan and taking stock-market risk into account.

Why oh why do people take Paul Ryan seriously?

Paul Ryan, admit you want to privatize Social Security already

Krugman explains why.

"Collectivist" Social Security helped Paul Ryan pay for college

One of Paul Ryan's hobby horses is that the country is in danger of becoming a European-style welfare state, apparently terrible thing.

Which is odd given that he is the beneficiary of the "collectivist system of Social Security." From a US News & World Report snapshot:

Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1992.

Now, it is obviously a sad and terrible thing that Paul Ryan's father died when he was so young. But the benefits Paul received are exactly the kind of thing doled out by the "welfare state" he loves to demonize as a tyrannizing force.

Paul Ryan wants to shift risk -- to you

When Paul Ryan talks about empowering individuals and individual choice, reach for your wallets.

Mother Jones lays it out:

The biggest problem with Ryan's plan is that it doesn't actually control health care costs. It simply shifts the burden of paying for them from the public sector to individuals. Instead of the government going bankrupt trying to pay for medical care, it'll be individuals. That's all well and good for the rich, who might be able to pay for their own health care. But people who would have relied on Medicare are going to be out of luck. Medical costs wil rise much faster than the value of the voucher will. Ryan's plan seems to pretend that the problem isn't medical costs—it's just that the government is trying to pay for them. James Kwak is good on this:

The implicit premise [of Ryan's plan] is that we have to screw ordinary people–or at least make them bear a high degree of risk–in order to save the government budget. But what is the government budget? It’s a pile of money that we contribute and that our representatives are supposed to spend on things we can’t buy for ourselves individually. I know that those representatives make mistakes, are borderline corrupt, etc. But Medicare is exactly the kind of program that we want government to provide–a program that shifts risk from individuals to the government, and thereby the country as a whole–and that’s why it’s so popular.

Other countries manage to keep their citizens healthy at a much lower cost than we do. They don't have to dismantle their social insurance programs to do it. Why should we?

Matthew Continetti is sad that Dems are being mean to Paul Ryan

Matthew Continetti writes for the Weekly Reader:

Key fact: Ryan's plan preserves the current entitlement system for everyone over the age of 55. The rest of us will see dramatic changes in the structure of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax code--changes the CBO says will solve the long-term budget problem, in ways that increase individual choice and limit government's scope. If nothing is done, America faces high interest rates, inflation, and economy-crushing tax rates. Is this the future Democrats prefer? After all, they have provided no alternative way to achieve the Roadmap's outcomes.

Key fact: Paul Ryan balances the budget on the backs of poor seniors. Then again, it's questionable whether Paul Ryan balances the budget at all given some of the assumptions in his Road Map to Ruin.

George Will hearts Paul Ryan

He focuses on the most important thing in Paul Ryan's Road Map to Perdition: Tax cuts!

Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world's second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive -- and more able and eager to hire.

Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent.

Will, however, fails to note how Paul Ryan will balance the budget on the backs of poor seniors.

Paul Ryan's plan is all pain, little gain

Jed Lewison:

Although Republicans have not formally embraced Ryan's plan, Ryan is the top House Republican on budget issues and is a rising star in the GOP. Nonetheless, the radical plan -- which effectively calls for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare -- seems to be exactly what the GOP's teabagging base is demanding.

The funny thing is that even though the plan endorses far-right ideas like privatization, it wouldn't bring the budget into balance until 2050 and it wouldn't put the budget on a sustainable path until 2080. In other words, it's almost all pain...and very little gain.

Paul Ryan "might as well just claim gremlins will devour the deficit"

No. 1 Oshkosh blogger The Chief lays out what's wrong with Paul Ryan:

I have the same problem with this year's edition of the Ryan budget that I did with last year's: he takes as givens policies that would require legislative miracles in order to become law. Privatize Medicare? That's the GOP equivalent of creating a single-payer health care system. Same thing with privatizing Social Security accounts. Ryan may as well just claim that Gremlins will devour the deficit.

The big news is that the math potentially works. If that's true, then I've been wrong about criticizing Ryan for relying on the retread GOP think tank ideas with out assembling them in a coherent order that can produce results. The big problem still remains, however, that much of Ryan's budget is still composed of retread GOP think tank ideas that are extremely controversial and don't just materialize with the wave of a wand.

"Good conservative boilerplate ... but it turns out that's all it is"

It's vaguely discomfiting to see people hail Paul Ryan for introducing an unworkable plan to "fix" the U.S. health care and retirement systems. So it's nice to see Kevin Drum cut to the chase:

It's good conservative boilerplate.

But it turns out that's all it is. Those things themselves don't really save any money. The real action comes from a collection of arbitrary spending limits, but these limits don't offer any clues about how we're going to meet them. There's a freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending from 2010-2019 — but saying you're going to freeze spending is easy. The hard part is figuring out what to cut. There's also a limit to the growth of Medicare payments — but saying you're going to limit growth is easy. The hard part is figuring out how to limit growth and deciding what you're going to cut to meet your caps. Medicaid is treated the same way: Ryan's plan simply sets a limit on growth rates without saying how those limits will be met.

In fairness, there are a few specifics. The eligibility age for Medicare would rise gradually to about age 70. Social Security payments would be reduced. All the money in the stimulus bill that hasn't been spent yet would be eliminated.

But those are nits. For the vast bulk of the savings, Ryan simply declares that they'll happen. His bill would cap growth rates, and that's that. Whatever happens, happens — and he carefully avoids actually saying what would happen. That's not serious, and it doesn't deserve praise.

Paul Ryan decides it's safe to privatize Social Security again

Back in April 2009, not long after he voted for one of the biggest intrusions of the federal government into the private economy ever to bail out his banker buddies (that'd be TARP), Paul Ryan submitted a "road map" that departed from his previous one in that it did not advocate privatizing Social Security.
But apparently Ryan now feels we've had enough distance from the second major Wall Street crash in a decade to advocate putting people's retirement in the hands of brokers.

Paul Ryan, the candidate for the "I got mine" generation

Matthew Yglesias highlights an interesting aspect of Paul Ryan's plan to shred the US safety net: it won't touch the key voting block of folks 55 years or older.

Thus when you look at Jeb Hensarling’s proposal for drastic cuts in Social Security benefits or Paul Ryan’s plan to pair drastic Social Security cuts with drastic Medicare cuts you’ll see that there’s a trick—none of it applies to anyone who’s 55 or older today. The basic idea is to take the GOP old white people base and insulate them from cuts. The under 55 crowd will still have to pay the taxes to finance their benefits, but we ourselves won’t get the benefits.

As you’ll recall from the health reform debate, somewhat paradoxically it’s the current beneficiaries of single-payer government-provided health insurance who evince the most opposition to universal health care. Basically, they’ve got theirs and don’t care about extending the benefits of universal health care to younger people. Ryan and Hensarling are proposing to institutionalize this version of the intergenerational bargain—culturally conservative oldsters still get paid, but the welfare state they enjoy and support will be phased out for Generations X and Y.

Based on my observation, 55+ seems to be the sweet spot of the teabagger demo.