Rep. Ryan on Obamanomics

Rep. Paul Ryan continues to demonstrate his credentials as one of the good guys. He's far from perfect.* (See his Roadmap for America's Future, filled with suggestions that would improve on the status quo, but not really break away from it, fundamentally.) Still, all in all, he demonstrates a better grasp of reality, and better values, than most in Congress.

In any case, the following quote is worth mentioning:

"People in the economy are thinking about whether to invest or take risks when what they are seeing are early signs of Hugo Chávez economics," says Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan.

In today's political context, it constitutes a pretty bold statement, so good on him.


[Update: Here's an interesting paragraph from Matt Lewis' blog post on a few of Rep. Ryan's votes:

Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of about a year, Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district—are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property—if it doesn’t like you).

Ya gotta wonder why these guys can't vote the way they allegedly think...]