Speaker Ryan

A prediction. For the record.

I'm a long-time reader, follower and admirer of Nobel-laureate economist, professor and New York Times columnist Dr. Paul Krugman. His blog, entitled "Conscience of a Liberal," is an on-going source of excellent information, savvy political commentary, and what I consider honest and brilliant insights into today's world of economics and politics.

For the five years or so that I have been reading Krugman's blog, a topic that has come up repeatedly is Paul Ryan. That is, of course, because Representative Ryan has been a leading voice among House Republicans in economic discussions.

Krugman has studied Ryan's budget / spending / tax proposals carefully, each time a new one has come out, and his overall judgment of Ryan is:

• con man
• flim-flam artist
• scammer

These are NOT my terms; they are Krugman's.

Krugman has made is abundantly clear, over and over again, that NONE of Ryan's proposals have ever passed the basic test for all economic matters--do they add up? NO, most emphatically, they do not. Krugman refers repeatedly to the "magic asterisks" inserted into all of Ryan's proposals to stand for "other and miscallenous savings" or "unspecified tax revenues." In other words, Ryan has--according to Krugman--consistently and persistently simply made up figures that showed what he wanted, and then used asterisks--i.e., lies--to make his figures appear reasonable.

So I'm going with Krugman on this one. And on my own initiative--Krugman hasn't yet commented on Ryan's new job as Speaker of the House--I will predict the worst House Speaker the Republicans have ever had, along with a (more) dysfunctional House of Representatives. The House is being led by a major, heavy-weight deceiver, and the results are likely to be disastrous.

Any other result will be surprising.