Thursday night’s debate-watchers may have asked themselves an appropriate question: “Who would I rather see as president — Joe Biden or Paul Ryan?” The vice president of the United States is always a heartbeat away from the oval office.
A Ryan presidency would mean a vastly different United States. Biden promised to keep the current structure and spruce it up.
Ryan’s vision for the country can be seen most clearly in his plan to junk the current Medicare program and replace it with a defined benefit plan that would allocate a set amount of money for each beneficiary that would be used to buy coverage. The amount would increase very slightly each year, far less than health care costs have increased and can be expected to increase. The difference would be paid by the individual.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculates that seniors would be faced with a $6,400 supplemental health insurance bill within a few years. As the plan stands now, those who could not afford the premiums would lose coverage.
Ryan also backs the 20 percent across the board reduction in income taxes which Mitt Romney promises. It would be paid for, both men say, by eliminating loopholes — but Ryan refused to say what loopholes he has in mind when asked that direct question. Romney has been equally evasive. Independent analysts have said that even doing away with the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for donations to churches and other charities and the deduction for college expenses would not balance the loss of revenue from the tax reductions.
A Ryan presidency would mean the end of the Medicare program that Lyndon Johnson created and replace it with a new, smaller, less comprehensive program that would be partly funded by the elderly. It would mean a stripped down Social Security. It would mean continued tax breaks for the very rich, widening the gap between the rich and the rest of the population still further. While calling for more spending on the military, Ryan seemed to be saying that all of the rest of the federal government should be cut back or eliminated entirely.
Thursday night’s debate also focused on the difference between the Barack Obama administration and a Romney-Ryan regime on foreign affairs. Ryan accused Obama of being weak in its handling of Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and the terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya. A Romney administration, Ryan averred, would be much tougher.
How tough?
“The last thing we need is another war,” Biden said. Well, Ryan backed away from sending troops to Syria. He also stopped short of advocating going to war with Iran to stop its nuclear bomb program. He insisted that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a bomb — which is the oft-repeated Obama position — without offering any new initiative.
We should have had troops in place to protect the embassy in Libya, he said. But he offered no defense when Biden pointed out that Ryan, as chairman of the House budget committee, had cut millions out of the defense budget put there to defend embassies.
Biden pointed out repeatedly the United States is working closely with its allies, Israel included, in dealing with the Middle East. Ryan responded by advocating more “toughness.”
SPEAKING AS one member of the senior generation, I am comfortable with Joe Biden as backup president.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
Biden-Ryan vie as backups for the top spot
