Eclipsing Sarah Palin as the GOP’s go-to media figure, even securing himself a seat at the much coveted bi-partisan health reform summit, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has outdone his party this time.

The budget of legend, released shortly after Obama’s State of the Union address, promised to eliminate deficits, lower the national debt and “rescue and strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,”. It even came with a cool interactive graphic showing just how wonderfully awesome this shadow budget is and just how miserable the Obama administration’s budget is.

The problem though, as was alluded to a month ago by a host of news sources and bloggers, is that Ryan himself provided the numbers upon which the CBO estimate of the long term effects of the budget was be scored and these numbers were just assumed to be 100% correct by the CBO. It is worth noting that the whole composition of this budget basically exists as a manifestation of all the extremely unpopular conservative pet policies of the past decade including, but not limited to privatizing social security, privatizing and raising the eligibility age and premiums of Medicare, all while simultaneously freezing discretionary spending for a decade. Oh, and don’t forget that in tackling this tough problem of debt and deficit, Ryan elected to eliminate the Childrens Health Insurance Program and Medicaid in favor of “vouchers” and “credits” to force low-income people buy the same private insurance that these children and families aren’t being offered.  So despite Ryan’s valiant effort to take radical GOP policy projects and implant them into the mainstream of 2010, we find now that indeed Ryan’s budget proposal wouldn’t even fulfill the outlandish promises it holds so dear – not raising taxes and decreasing deficits and debt.

[The Tax Policy Center] estimates that even with its middle-class tax increases, the plan would reduce federal revenues to 16 percent of GDP in 2014. Because the tax cuts for the wealthy would dwarf the tax increases for the middle class, the Ryan plan would allow the federal debt to continue growing for a number of decades to come, despite its steep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Compare these deviously disparate charts showing (1) projected government spending as a percentage of GDP (as crafted by Ryan after blindly assuming what revenues would be) and (2) projected debt as a share of GDP (as crafted by the Tax Policy Center after actually trying to calculate what revenues would be under the changed tax structures).

(1)

(2)

I’m all for trying to rectify our federal government’s long-term fiscal outlooks, but not at the cost of dishonesty in the way we consider our government’s responsibility to govern. As such, Ryan’s proposal undermines every substantial policy achievement in the last 100 years without just cause. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements need reform, that is without doubt, but the Republican supposition that reform in 2010 means elimination (think about what their health reform plans are…) is completely absurd. On top of that, the Ryan proposal seems to ignore the immense fiscal problems still facing most of our 50 states, problems that threaten to even further undermine the structures upon which our nation has grown in the past, including unprecedented cuts to public education. When looking at the graph created by Ryan, it seems so wonderful to see that red line just magically drop away from the rampant spending of the Democrats as represented by the blue line, but you can’t have that magic diversion without completely ignoring the fact that we haven’t fixed the problems that led to or resolved the consequences that ensued from this, the largest depression since the one we call “Great”.

As just one example of precisely how cavalier the Ryan budget’s attitude toward pragmatic governance in the face of economic realities is, take the potential consequences of his Social Security privatization:

Under the Ryan plan, individuals who divert a portion of their payroll tax contributions to private
accounts would be guaranteed that they would receive back in retirement at least as much as they
contributed, plus an adjustment for inflation.  In essence, they would be given a federal guarantee against
stock-market losses. The chief actuary of the Social Security system has estimated that, on average and
adjusting for market risk, an earlier version of the Ryan plan’s guarantee would cost the government
$2.9 trillion in present-value terms (although the actual cost could turn out to be higher or lower,
depending on actual bond and stock returns).25

This guarantee could require a major federal bailout of private accounts during periods when the stock market
performs poorly. The cost of this guarantee, unlike that of traditional Social Security, could escalate
rapidly and add suddenly and unpredictably to the federal deficit.  Providing a federal guarantee for
stock-market investments also could encourage risky investment decisions by individuals, as well as
misguided attempts by policymakers to shore up weak or falling stock prices in response to pressures
from constituents who are relying on these accounts to support them in old age.  [emphasis original]

Yet, Ryan claims in his response to the TPC’s rebuke of his budget’s infallibility that he is not privatizing social security:

“The Roadmap makes no change for those 55 and older. It provides future retirees with the option to either stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts. Neither option is privatized. In the personal-accounts system, the accounts are owned by the individual, and managed and overseen by a government board — not a stockbroker or private investment firm.” (3/11/10)

But he chooses to not answer the concerns of guaranteeing the personal accounts which are encouraged with high incentives in Ryan’s budget, specifically for those with the most to lose from allowing their Social Security contributions to be taxed (the rich), which are the overriding issue of concern. It isn’t a question of correct terminology, “privatization” or “guaranteeing of personal accounts” result in the same forlorn conclusion about the solvency of Social Security and its effect on future governance.

Rep. Ryan’s plan would provide a further incentive for upper-income beneficiaries to divert their
Social Security contributions into private accounts.  Most of their traditional Social Security benefits
would continue to be counted as part of their taxable income, as they are today.  But benefits
generated from their personal accounts would be entirely exempt from the income tax.

The result would be a system in which Social Security is very unattractive to affluent people. (CBPP 3/10/10)

The result would also be a system in which all the radical changes to tax structures (which pass burden from producers to the consumers),  and social benefits such as Social Security and Medicare (ie their outright disenfranchisement from government responsibility in favor of private, tax-exempt, guaranteed account and “vouchers” for some other service respectively) that ends up continuing to cost the tax-payer and government more than it promised and in return the tax-payer gets hit with heavier taxes and diminished social returns. That is, the disenfranchisement of the tax-payer from the incentive to encourage good governance.

This budget, if enacted, would prove to the taxpayer and average American that our country in ungovernable. Unrest would ensue from the slashing of Medicare benefits and rising of premiums, from the uncertainty involved in upending the Social Security system with no potential benefits for those who pay into the system, and future administrations would be bound by arbitrary “spending freezes” while dealing with the consequences of a permanently diminished tax revenue.

It is a Republican ideologue’s dream though, is it not? I mean, they’ve been saying all along that the government simply can’t solve the country’s problems, so why not just let everyone fend for themselves in an even more embattled century?