Freddie DeBoer continues to label Paul Ryan's plan unserious:
I'd like to propose one litmus test for whether a Republican proposal represents toughness or seriousness, etc., in the way people mean it does: its orientation towards tax cuts on the wealthy. People keep saying, again and again, that this plan "touches the third rail" by proposing entitlement cuts. No it does not. The third rail for Republicans is raising taxes on the wealthy. And what does the Ryan budget do? It not only doesn't raise taxes on the rich, it cuts them. Among all the talk of shared sacrifice, with all the insistence that we've got to "get tough" and suffer together, on and on, it cuts taxes on the rich.
Agreed entirely. The sacrifices we are about to face because of the last decade of fiscal madness and the worst recession since the 1930s must be shared sacrifices. They must be shared because it's the moral and equitable thing to do, but also because it's the fiscally serious thing to do. And yet no Republican, apart from Mitch Daniels, has yet gone there.
The Dish 