Do I really have to treat this bozo as if he's some intellectual giant? In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, I suppose. Here's the Republican rebuttal, if you really want to torture yourself.
Here's my only-occasionally verbatim summation. But first, I want to point out that Rep. Ryan thinks the unemployed are lounging in a "hammock", and billionaire Pete Peterson thinks giving people the Social Security they paid for is "paying people to be on vacation." This is a family blog, so I can't say what I'd like. But you're probably right in whatever you're imagining.
Highlights:
The country's economic engine was seizing up, and the president insisted on pouring oil into the engine to get it going again. We only gave him enough oil to get the engine running, but not to fix it, and now we have to pay for all that oil! Damn him!
Health care is an expensive entitlement. I know, because Ayn Rand told me so.
The same party who put you behind the economic eight-ball is just the one you should double down on.
GOP: Since our thirty-year campaign to convince you that government is incompetent, everyone now agrees with us. Which proves we were right!
"We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship, upward mobility and individual responsibility" -- i.e. tax cuts and subsidies.
"We believe, as our founders did, that "the pursuit of happiness" depends upon individual liberty, and individual liberty requires limited government." Except when it comes to gay marriage, abortion rights and scientifically accurate depictions of evolution in your textbooks. Then, we know best.
"This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency." Yeah - BY ELECTING THEM TO CONGRESS. Maybe we can do something about that!
"Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness and wise consumer choices has never worked — and it won't work now." Except for funding the creation of the internet and R&D for Big Pharma, just to name a few.
"We need to reclaim our American system of limited government, low taxes, reasonable regulations and sound money, which has blessed us with unprecedented prosperity. And it has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed. That's the real secret to job creation — not borrowing and spending more money in Washington." Except tax cuts and corporate subsidies. That's not really spending, it's more like tithing!
Oh, go read it yourself. It's making my head hurt.
