The Self-Delusion of Paul Ryan

As he heads for the exit, his tenure in the leadership an unmitigated disaster, Paul Ryan is apparently taking to Twitter to begin his public rehabilitation campaign. Seems a bit early for that nonsense.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Ryan was lousy as a pretend wonk, lousy as a pretend leader, and lousy as Speaker. Hopefully we've seen the end of his public career.

The Self-Delusion of Paul Ryan

Over the past 24 hours, the @SpeakerRyan Twitter account has blasted to 3.6 million followers a startlingly self-congratulatory sequence of images and videos, detailing his career over the past 20 years. Their theme: Ryan is a man of destiny, committed to reform, steeled in his “wilderness years” (yes, the sequence actually applies that Churchillian label), to deliver a triumphant victory for the American people over grubby-minded special interests.

It’s hard to reconcile this story with the world we see out our windows: a world of soaring deficits even at the top of the business cycle; a world of corporate tax cuts that have failed to deliver the promised investment boom; a world of trade wars and crashing financial markets—the worst December for U.S. equities since 1931, at the end of a year in which not one of the 15 asset classes measured by JP Morgan outperformed the consumer price index.

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The fiscal conservatives out there will ask, “Hey, whatever happened to that update of the entitlement system?” Short answer: As soon as the Republicans regained the presidency in 2017, it was jettisoned entirely. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security continue unchanged.

Paul Ryan became speaker of the House of Representatives in October 2015, the first month of the 2016 fiscal year. In the last fiscal year before Ryan’s speakership, the federal government ran a deficit of $438 billion. In the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2018, the last of his speakership and a year of general prosperity, that deficit rose to $779 billion. In the current fiscal year, the deficit is expected to amount to $981 billion. In fiscal 2020, the deficit will exceed $1 trillion—even assuming there is no recession that year.

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Nearly half of recent economic growth has been driven by higher levels of government spending in the Trump years—the very opposite of the promise of Ryan’s tax reform.

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Maybe he stored his spine in a locker while he was a public servant; maybe he’ll remember to pick it up on his way out the door.......

Rexedgar said:

Maybe he stored his spine in a locker while he was a public servant; maybe he’ll remember to pick it up on his way out the door.......

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It's always in the last place you look! Too bad he never went looking.

It seems that he need not work any longer.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/04/as-paul-ryan-retires/

Ryan and McConnell -- major Trump enablers.

History should have nothing kind to say about either.

I do not see how Paul Ryan can recover from his actions. One of the first things he did as speaker was broker the 'everyone gets all the spending they want' deal and ever since has proved himself to be the spend for a vote "conservative" we all expected.

Supporting Trump, then changing his mind and not supporting Trump. Being part of the umpteenth ACA repeal with no replacement offered knowing full well that while under Obama it was all for show and political advantage. Supporting military engagements, then not so much, then somewhat okay with it. Going along with massive deficits with Trump in office, and increases in the additions to Total Debt along the way. Suggesting California's election results from 2018 were fraudulent, with "irregularities." Total lack of ability to broker change in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security even with Republicans in solid control for Trump's first two years, total lack of ability to broker Immigration Reform during the same politically advantageous time to do so.

Then turning around and saying he was resigning because everything "is broken" up on the hill.

How does one politically recover from all this foolishness? I do not think his time as speaker has been something worthy of praise.

A useless impediment joined at the hip to his corporate bosses. Good riddance.

Greenbeard said:

As he heads for the exit, his tenure in the leadership an unmitigated disaster, Paul Ryan is apparently taking to Twitter to begin his public rehabilitation campaign. Seems a bit early for that nonsense.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Ryan was lousy as a pretend wonk, lousy as a pretend leader, and lousy as Speaker. Hopefully we've seen the end of his public career.

The Self-Delusion of Paul Ryan

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He'll be on 5 Koch boards and trying to peddle influence shortly.

ttwtt78640 said:

It seems that he need not work any longer.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/04/as-paul-ryan-retires/

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He's the poster child for "Useless Bureaucrat".

<alt>doxygen said:

He's the poster child for "Useless Bureaucrat".

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Not quite because most never have to re-apply every few years - many just get paid (better every year) to be able to fog a mirror untili they retire on a fat pension.

In farewell address, Paul Ryan sees solutions if ‘politics will allow it’

In excerpts provided to The Associated Press, Ryan calls the House “the most productive we have had in a generation,” citing passage of more than 1,000 bills, though most were minor. He predicts that the failed GOP effort to repeal and rewrite Obama’s health care law will be the framework for an ultimate solution, and said the party’s fruitless attempts to revamp immigration laws — both the House and Senate rejected bills — came closer than people realize.

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A feckless loser to the very last.