Romney Endorses the Ryan Budget But is not Running on It

     Romney is still doing what he does best in the aftermath of choosing Ryan for his Veep. He is still trying to have it both ways.

     He started already at the very first press conference, handing out fliers to the media that argue that he is nevertheless still not running on the Ryan budget, that he has "his own plan."

     Watch for this, it will be one of his tricks. He's going to try to have it both ways just like he does in running on elimination of ACA after having passed it, of taking credit for jobs created at Bain after 1999 while insisting that he left in 1999, of claiming that he wasn't there after 1999 although he was the President, Director, CEO, Controlling Person, and sole stockholder.

     Or how he can argue that he's not responsible for Son of the Boss over at the Marriott Hotel even though he was the auditor at the time of their historical levels of tax evasion. So here's Romney's attempt to flip flop this one:

    "Romney spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said Saturday that the candidate “applauds” Ryan’s ideas, but intends to issue his own blueprint for reshaping the federal budget. After Romney’s speech introducing Ryan, advisers said the former Massachusetts governor has no intention of being handcuffed to all the specifics of Ryan’s plans — though he has said in the past that he’d sign Ryan’s budget if passed by Congress."
   Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79622.html#ixzz23S5rpjsf

   In what way shape or form can he claim to be working on his own budget when he says he'll sign the Ryan budget upon getting into office? Logistically speaking, the President doesn't write the budget anyway, Congress does.

  Ryan's budget has been passed repeatedly by the House Republicans. No matter how cute Romney tries to play this, understand this: A vote for Romney is a vote for the Romney budget. No more and no less.

  Actually the name of that link above, is terrific 'Romney hugs Ryan but not his budget/'

  There are a few different tactics that the Romney-Ryan team will take judging by the early going-shouldn't it really be Ryan-Romney in the sense that most of the ideas are Ryan's brainchild?

   One is this, to claim that Romney "admires" or "supports" and indeed, even "endorses" the Ryan budget but he is not "running on it"-see the big difference?-and will plan his own budget.

    Another is that he and Ryan are actually trying to save Medicare-they will try to push the idea that Obama is the one who wants to gut it. They'll do this first by pointing out that he cut $700 billion himself to fund Obamacare.

   Of course they won't point out that this was done on the provider end as opposed to Ryan who wants the same thing but he wants to cut on the recipient side. No recipients have lost any benefits under Obama's plan which after all is used to fund a benefit to all Americans in Obamacare.

   So that will be there too. I notice that Ryan and Romney are already split up and going about their own, separate business.

   There has of course been some talk about the original "game changer"-Palin in 2008. Certainly Ryan is not a Sara Palin-someone totally unqualified for the position-she's someone who needed to be briefed on which Korea is our ally and who the combatants were in WWII-if only I were joking.

   Still, Ryan has his own issues. It was interesting to see some Republicans yesterday on the Sunday shows embrace the "game changer" label eagerly. They understand that it's actually a dirty word after Palin. I mean she changed the game all right but not in the direction the McCain team wanted.

   Ryan's problems are very different in kind than Palin's. Her problem as noted is she was simply unqualified and she was not adequately vetted.

   Ryan's problem is that he has, strange to say this, too much substance. Romney had not wanted to get tied down in details, Choosing Ryan is therefore a tactical retreat. I think you would argue that Romney needed to beef up on issues. However, he is going to find, I suspect, that he has gone from famine to feast here in way that may not serve him so well.

   Although he is still trying to play the game of distancing himself from Ryan even after selecting him. obviously this will be an up hill climb.

   Of course, it's up to us not to let him get away with it and every time he tries to play this game of "I admire the Ryan budget but it's not my budget" to call on it. Hopefully the Obama team is aware of this.

   The other thing will be to pretend that they want to "save Medicare" rather than block grant it out to the states-ie, abolish it.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/?hp=bh

    We'll look at this more in my next post.  For now remember our mantra: Romney=the Ryan budget=the end of Medicare. All attempts to obfuscate this fact must be fought. He must be endlessly called on this.