Mr. Paul Ryan is a Republican Representative from Wisconsin and Chair of the House Budget Committee. On April 5, 2011, he released The Path to Prosperity, a document that introduces and defends his proposed budget resolution for the US Federal government. Path selectively ignores the EBS “Extended-Baseline Scenario” of the CBO Congressional Budget Office. EBS, which allows the Bush tax cuts to expire, and which avoids drastic spending cuts, produces no significant future deficits.
With Path, Mr. Ryan plays a complex rhetorical shell game. Path assumes from the start that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will continue. That is, Path assumes that Path passes the Congress. If Path doesn’t pass,
