Lest you think Paul Ryan's impending retirement has caused him to reflect upon aging with dignity, please think again. He may be leaving Congress, but his quest to see elderly people die penniless and hungry has not abated.
Chuck Todd specifically asked him about the tax cuts and how they impact the deficit and then let Ryan slide away from it by pointing his finger at the Baby Boomer generation, which is retiring and which funded their benefits along with the benefits of their parents. Those same retirees are caregivers for their parents after raising their kids, too. But shhhh, don't let Paul Ryan know that.
"The one thing that obviously I care a great deal about is entitlement reform, and in particular health care entitlement reform," Ryan said. Let me translate that: "Health care entitlement reform" is a complete end to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. We can all die in the streets, and Paul Damn Ryan won't care until the stench of rotting bodies wafts in his living room window.
Ryan then launched into a litany of things he has tried and failed to do because no one but Paul Ryan and his Billionaires wants them. He wrote a balanced budget that paid down the debt. Whee!
"One person will not solve all of those things," he conceded. "But I feel like I've done a lot to advance that debate."
Paul Ryan has done a lot to make everyone aware of why he should never, ever be in any position of power that would give him a way to rob people of the benefits they paid for, and that's about it.
Chuck Todd came back with Bob Corker's pronouncement that the current Congress and administration "will go down as one of the most fiscally irresponsible administrations that we've had."
"He's referring to the fact that this tax bill -- despite the deficit -- It's higher than even what was projected and you walk away with trillion-dollar deficits," Todd pointed out.
Paul Ryan was not going to own that. No way, no how, not right now, not ever.
"The baby boomers retiring was going do that," Ryan declared.
He went on to rapid-fire some meaningless but official-sounding numbers about discretionary spending and tax revenues before circling back to the current generation of retirees.
"The boomer generation is retiring and we have not prepared these programs," Ryan claimed, referring to Social Security and Medicare. Of course, Ryan ignored the fact that Social Security has a surplus of $2.9 Trillion dollars, funded by the very same people who are now retiring and expecting the benefits they paid for. Someone should tell Paul Ryan things happened while he was collecting his survivors' benefits to make sure the money would be here for the people WHO PAID FOR IT.
"I think the most irresponsible Congress is the one that created a brand-new entitlement and that to me is the big mistake and we can fix these programs and still meet the mission for them, but the way they've been designed in the 20th century doesn't work," he continued.
"That's the one thing that I really wish we'd done sooner rather than later and I'm convinced it will happen, why? Because it's got to happen," Ryan concluded.
No. What should happen is that the tax bill should be rolled back, people who paid for their benefits should receive them, and in fact Social Security should be expanded, not eliminated.
As relieved as I am to see this guy out of Congress and out as Speaker of the House, I am also convinced the Kochs will create a nice nonprofit for him with a fat salary where he can churn out nonsense like this and call it policy. Beware. Paul Ryan is not at all finished trying to destroy the social safety net. Not by a long shot.
