FAIR
The budget proposal released last week by Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) includes tax cuts for the wealthy, tax hikes for the middle class, drastic cuts in spending and a radical restructuring of Medicare that would shift most of the cost of healthcare to seniors. Its dubious claims of deficit reduction rely on fatally flawed assumptions and inexplicable projections (Center for Budget & Policy Priorities, 4/7/11; CEPR, 4/11).
But much of the media coverage about the plan has presented Ryan’s proposal as a serious solution to long-term budget problems, or at least the starting point of a serious conversation about the topic.
In Time magazine (4/18/11), readers learned that Paul Ryan–described as having “jet black hair and a touch of Eagle Scout to him”–has
unveiled an ambitious package of huge budget cuts designed to dig the country out of its crippling debt crisis. For Ryan, reining in spending is nothing less than an act of patriotic valor.
The magazine also declared that he is “a PowerPoint fanatic with an almost unsettling fluency in the fine print of massive budget documents.”
Deep into the article, readers get this parenthetical warning:
(He’s also been criticized for peddling fuzzy math and rosy projections. A Washington Post factcheck deemed his budget full of “dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures.”)
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