St. Paul is a City, Not a Speaker of the House

I have to credit Paul Ryan for one thing- compared to his party, he sounds sane. He says we should help the poor. He says we try to come together and solve problems. Paul Ryan really doesn't sound at all like Donald Trump, and he even admits that Trump says racist stuff. Paul seems like a fine fella'.

Not to burst everyone's bubble, but St. Paul is not our Speaker. Paul Ryan has indeed endorsed Donald Trump for President. He did indeed write budgets in the House that scrapped Medicaid and Medicare, privatized other programs, and cut funding for lots of need based programs. Paul won't even allow a vote on gun safety measures as Speaker of the House. While he may be "more" reasonable and sane than his colleagues, Paul Ryan is a Republican, firmly within his party's version of a "mainstream."

The 2012 Republican nominee for Vice-President is vastly overrated as an intellect too.

But Speaker Ryan’s reputation for wonkitude is not deserved. Indeed, his proposals typical follow a familiar pattern — a pattern Ryan repeated on Wednesday with a package of health reforms Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young described as a plan to “replace 20 million people’s health insurance with 37 pages of talking points.” Ryan offers sweeping, ambitious ideas that would radically transform the fundamentals of America’s social contract. Then, when genuine policy wonks point out that Ryan’s numbers don’t add up, or that his ideas would have absurd consequences, Ryan often responds with a new proposal that is just like the first — only vaguer.

If details enable Ryan’s opponents to discredit his ideas, then Ryan defends himself by refusing to offer details. As Tara Culp-Ressler notes, Ryan’s latest set of health care proposals “doesn’t include information about exactly how many people would be covered, exactly how much the proposal would cost, or exactly how much assistance Americans would receive in the form of tax credits to help them buy insurance.”

Paul Ryan’s ambition, in other words, is matched only by his innumeracy. He builds cathedrals to dyscalculia, and fills them with a worshipful press corps. But his is a false faith, resting upon ideas that do not withstand scrutiny.

Let's dispense with the pleasantries- Paul Ryan is a nice guy, but he's not some sort of Republican savior.