Ryan: End Oil Subsidies and Corporate Welfare
Via the Politico: Ryan calls for ending oil subsidies
“We’re talking about reforming the safety net, the welfare system; we also want to get rid of corporate welfare. And corporate welfare goes to agribusiness companies, energy companies, financial services companies, so we propose to repeal all that,” Ryan said in response to a question about oil subsidies.
Now the question is: where are the specifics and where is the bill? One would think that there is some serious savings to be had here and that, unlike the Ryan Plan on Medicare, that cuts to subsidies would pass the Senate.
He mentioned “agribusiness.”
Sounds like a guy who is a few years from a re-election cycle.
(I’d love to see this happen, but I don’t see a chance at all.)
@jp:
I don’t expect to see it either, to be honest.
This wouldn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell of passing either house. The companies affected by this would let the senators and representatives know exactly how this would affect their contributions in the next election.
Seriously, even discounting the fact that, in practice, it takes 60 votes to pass something in the Senate, why do you believe this?
Did he change his tune because of the brutal welcome he got in Wisconsin? Or has he always felt this way? Kudos to him for being consistent, if so.
I will confess to a bout of wide-eyed optimism.
In truth, I almost typed “would have a better chance of passing the Senate than the Medicare cuts” and I also almost wrote “a better chance of passing the Senate than the House” (which, at least on a straight vote is probably true.
But, no, I don’t actually think this will happen.
That’s a sideswipe at Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin,
senator from ADMsenior senator from Illinois.Ryan is a true believer, whether you agree with him or not. He’s sort of the ideologically-180- degree-different version of Russ Feingold. My vote and others’ like me could not save Feingold from the Obama/Reid/Pelosi backlash, even though he painted himself as a maverick. Key difference: Ryan is in a rock solid GOP district, just as Gwen Moore is in a guaranteed Democrat district next door. He (Ryan) doesn’t have to be reelected by the State of Wisconsin electorate as Feingold did; won by 68-30 over the Democrat in 2010.
If Ryan believes in something, or intends to act in a certain way, he says so. I will be surprised if he does any “walking back” from his stand on special interest tax breaks. Won’t need lobbyist contributions to be reelected, and probably won’t even have to campaign for that matter.
He is doing a service by putting chips on the table and forcing the overdue conversation we (the people) need to have. If his ideas are rejected via argument and data and sentiment, so be it. But it IS about time the American people had a real choice and robust discussion about a preferred forward direction for the country.
All nice but why wasn’t it in his “plan” in the first place?
I always thought the GOP mantra was “Enrich the donors, scorn the rest.” If Ryan is serious about this I will be shocked to the core. I hope T.O. is right.
Speaking of Ryan, leave it to Jack Germond to tell it like it is…
Is Paul Ryan Delusional?