The details of Gardner’s love for Ryan are left unexplained in radio interview
If you’ve been soaking up the sound waves from talk radio the past month, you know that Rep. Cory Gardner has been talking a lot about the horribleness of President Obama and the greatness of Romney vice presidential selection Paul Ryan.
For example, here’s Gardner on KFKA’s AM Colorado Aug. 23:
HOST TOM LUCERO: So, Cory, give us your thoughts on the selection of your colleague, Paul Ryan—vice presidential pick by Mitt Romney.
GARDNER: I think it’s a brilliant selection. This is a guy who understands the budget and the economy perhaps better than anybody other than Mitt Romney. This is a person who actually knows the numbers. He has –I’ve seen him personally, I’ve witnessed him personally explain to the president of the United States why his policies have been such a disaster, and why the policies we have pushed forward would actually get this country back on track, [and] do so in a way that was simple for everybody to understand across the country. I’m not sure the president understood it because he continues with his failed policies. But the fact is, Paul Ryan adds a level of excitement and certainly a level of solutions that we were missing. [Listen to the audio here.]
It would be nice if AM Colorado’s co-hosts, Lucero and Devon Lentz, aired out a couple of the controversial issues dogging Ryan.
A good one for Gardner would be personhood, because Gardner, like Ryan, supports it, and has left no doubt about it in the past.
Gardner didn’t co-sponsor it federal personhood legislation, like Ryan did, but he’s been a full-on endorser of personhood amendments in Colorado.
This means both Gardner and Ryan oppose common forms of birth control, as well as all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.
So, is this part of the reason Gardner thinks Ryan is a brilliant selection?
Or does the brilliance emanate from Ryan’s proposal to partially privatize Medicare? Is Gardner worried that a disproportionate number of healthy retirees would use their Medicare vouchers to buy health insurance from private companies, leaving Medicare to serve the less healthy population, which, in turn, could cause Medicare costs and Medicare premiums to rise, sending even more of the healthier retirees to the private sector as Medicare costs spiral out of control?
A report from the liberal Center on Policy and Budget Priorities concluded in March:
The budget resolution developed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) would make significant changes to Medicare. It would replace Medicare’s current guarantee of coverage with a premium-support voucher, raise the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, and reopen the “doughnut hole” in Medicare’s coverage of prescription drugs. Together, these changes would shift substantial costs to Medicare beneficiaries and (with the simultaneous repeal of health reform) leave many 65- and 66-year olds without any health coverage at all. The plan also would likely lead to the gradual demise of traditional Medicare by making its pool of beneficiaries smaller, older, and sicker — and increasingly costly to cover.
How about Ryan’s votes against the Dream Act, which would allow the best and brightest undocumented teenagers, brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, to become productive members of our society?
Why is that so brilliant?
The list of interesting topics goes on and on, and it’s more interesting to debate it than to hear Gardner’s platitudes about Ryan.
As it happens, I’ll be discussing “media bias” tomorrow morning at 7:40 on KFKA’s “AM Colorado,” with Lucero and Lentz.
Maybe I’ll be able to convince them to bring in more viewpoints on their show more often, or at least bring back Lynn Bartels, who was on their program weekly during the legislative session.