For Paul Ryan, it's not about actually imposing a budget, it's about repeating something that's outrageous enough times that it becomes accepted:
Quote:
On the front of immediate fiscal politics, Mr Ryan's budget "plan" is best seen as an elliptical statement about the future allocation of the GOP's bargaining power. It says that House Republicans are happy to concede Mr Obama's Medicare cuts, will seek to stymie at every turn the implementation of Obamacare, are going to fight like hell against further tax increases, and intend to demand a budget plan that balances the books sooner rather than later. The more fanciful the proposal, the stronger the commitment not to give ground to the White House.
On the front of big-picture public opinion, I hazard that Mr Ryan seeks to make his vision of government seem decreasingly radical and increasingly reasonable simply by repeating it. You can think of Mr Ryan's fantasy budget as a gambit in a diffuse cultural negotiation over the bounds of reasonable opinion in the ongoing negotiation over fiscal policy—a sort of ideological meta-negotiation. You may think that proclaiming the same "radical", "deeply unpopular" ideas again and again and yet again can't possibly make them more palatable and mainstream, but there's a queer phenomenon psychologists call the "mere exposure effect" that suggests otherwise.
|
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ.../fiscal-policy