Paul Ryan

Mining for Votes In Coal States: Paul Ryan On Climate Change

Whatever you think of his budget proposals, his climate views are irresponsible.

For years, Paul Krugman has been decrying Paul Ryan’s reputation as a reputable analyst of budget issues.  That’s not my area of expertise, and I’m agnostic on that issue.  But Ryan’s views about climate change don’t bespeak serious thought about the issues. The Christian Science Monitor reports that last Ryan spoke about climate change in …

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The Los Angeles River and GOP Ideology: Everybody Wins!

A few years ago, I heard Bruce Babbitt here at UCLA describe the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as “just a terrible agency.” Then he repeated it, just to make sure that we all heard him. When a politician does something like that, you know that he’s reached the end of his rope. The Los …

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Niall Ferguson, Climate Smear Artist

Big kerfluffle over the weekend concerning remarks by right-wing Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson, who claimed that Keynesian economics is not concerned about the future because Keynes himself was gay and didn’t have children.  Now, not only is this bigoted, but it is untrue on its own terms: Keynes was married, he was childless because his …

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Paul Ryan and the National Carbon Debt

Climate  denialists applauded Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan for what they call Ryan’s “awesome energy & climate record.” That’s not surprising: Ryan does have a clear record on climate change.   As ThinkProgress has documented: Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to …

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The Ryan Consumption Tax and the Environment

One of the interesting elements of Paul Ryan’s budget plan is the proposal for an 8.5% consumption tax to replace the corporate income tax.  Consumption taxes, like the European VAT, have well-known pluses and minuses, described in a Brookings discussion. They are appealing to economists because they encourage saving.  As the European example shows, they …

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Paul Ryan, Big Oil, and the Environment

Now that Romney has announced his choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, I thought it would be worth taking a quick look at his environmental positions.  Environment and energy haven’t been signature issues for him, but he’s consistently been a good friend of the oil industry. On general environmental issues, apart from his …

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Can We Convince 500 People That Climate Change Is Important?

You might have noticed that in this election year, climate change has vanished from the national agenda.  There are lots of reasons for that, but in his superb takedown of Ayn Rand-acolyte and pathological liar Paul Ryan, Jonathan Chait may have stumbled on a way out. Chait observes that Ryan’s budget plan does not reduce …

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Superman and the Rational Actor Model

Via Jeff Weintraub.  Contrary to popular belief on the right, this version of Superman does not resemble Paul Ryan physically.  Only morally….

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Pathway to Farm Subsidies

Paul Ryan is one of the great intellectual and political frauds of our time.  You don’t need to do much more than read through Paul Krugman’s and Jonathan Chait’s work eviscerating his budget proposal, which carries the Orwellian name of “Pathway to Prosperity.”  But Legal Planet readers should be aware of something else. If there …

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