"But the “deficit hawk” congressman who voted for two unfunded wars, a budget-busting prescription drug plan that steered billions into the accounts of Big Pharma, and the bank bailout of 2008 made his choice long ago. He’s not going to level with the American people. He’s going to try to make them believe things that are not true.
The biggest Ryan fantasy is the austerity lie: the one that says the wealthiest country in the world is going broke because some children are educated, some sick people are cared for and most old people are afforded a measure of retirement security. As lies go, it’s an effective one. Most of the delegates to this year’s Republican National Convention certainly seem to believe it.
But the reality that Paul Ryan would do anything to avoid is this. If the Wall Street speculators, bankers and CEOs who have contributed millions to Paul Ryan’s congressional campaigns would simply pay their fair share of taxes, if American assets were not off-shored to tax havens, if American jobs were not sacrificed in a free-trade driven race to the bottom, the country’s fiscal fortunes would be entirely different.
The man who claims to offer “good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems” is just another fiscal fabulist.
That’s exactly what the delegates to this year’s Republican National Convention wanted. And that’s why Paul Ryan’s speech was such a hit.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t true."
