Some thoughts on Rep. Paul Ryan's supposed "courage" over at Greg's place:
When we call a person brave, what we usually mean is that his or her “bravery” is being employed towards an end we agree with. In this case, those who are hailing Ryan's proposal as brave are doing so because they agree with its goal, which — no matter how many times people insist otherwise — is not deficit reduction. It's destroying the social safety net. It just so happens that's a cause a lot of wealthy people with a disproportionate influence on our political discourse happen to believe in. So they think it's brave, even if the numbers are phony and even if it disproportionately punishes the poor. But there's nothing at all brave about it.
Jamelle Bouie makes a similar point:
All of this is to say that I'm tired of pundits lauding Paul Ryan for his “courage”/“boldness”/gutsiness in tackling Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan is a conservative Republican with an open hostility to entitlement programs; that he wants to slash Medicaid, privatize Medicare and cut taxes on the wealthy is par for the course. Indeed, given the irrelevance of poor people to the electoral fortunes of Republicans, and the plan's exemptions for current Medicare beneficiaries — who can remain on their coverage — it's more than clear that the “Path to Prosperity” is an exercise in political banality.
What's intolerable to liberals is that Ryan's plan shifts the rising cost of health care from the government to the elderly and the poor. For Republicans, this is great because they view the government spending necessary to ensure these people have medical care as the problem, rather than people being sick. To the extent that people can make the case that Ryan's proposal is "brave," it's that it cuts programs that are particularly popular. There's a funny curve everyone's grading Ryan on here, which is that Republicans, despite developing an elaborate internal mythology about the inherent conservatism of the American people, are astonished by Ryan's bravery in saying what Republicans actually think. Soft bigotry of low expectations anyone?
