On Saturday night, we noticed that HBO was showing a movie called GAME CHANGE (I think that was the title) which documented the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate in 2008. Now I'm sure that HBO has a bit of an agenda, just as I'm sure a lot of conservative media and businesses do, so I think it's likely they exaggerated in some parts when painting the picture they did of Palin.

(BTW, it was a well acted movie, I thought. Woody Harrelson plays "angry" as well as anyone. The slow burn just comes through in every expression and action...)

On the same day, I think, the Romney campaign announced Paul Ryan as the choice for vice president. I was comparing and contrasting loosely these two choices in my head. Both were chosen for their youth and their photogenic appearance (though some might disagree with Ryan being particularly good looking). But the similarities end there...Palin, even if you accept that the HBO movie was exaggerating, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's been well known that she couldn't answer simple questions about geography and didn't really bother to read anything that disagreed with her points of view, or even informed her.

Ryan, on the other hand, is a serious guy. He's smart and honest, I think. Who but an honest man would put forth the social security/medicare plan that he put forth earlier? I admired him for speaking at least a part of the truth on that issue - that in order to fix things for future generations, cuts would be needed (accepting as a "given" that higher taxes would play no part of any solution...).

I like the selection. I don't agree with that "given", however. I don't think the President does, either. Anyone responsible for a budget knows that there are two sides to the equation; lowering spending is just one side. Increasing revenues is the other.

Most of the time when I go to a presentation on business and management, one part of their recommendations for practices is to raise fees. Coupling fee increases with smarter spending habits (lower spending is not always a good thing - for example, if you decide that you need to lower lab costs you might have to seek a cheaper lab, and too often "cheaper" means lower quality, and it's the same with the materials we purchase from our suppliers) can lower overhead expense as a percentage of gross revenues.

Seems obvious, doesn't it?

Then again, when someone can't afford to pay those higher fees, you make adjustments. When you consider this with respect to tax rates, you have to think in terms of groups of people. Someone paying an effective tax rate of 10% on an income of 50K a year can afford that tax far less than someone paying an effective tax rate of 30% on an income of 500K a year. When you do the math, you see that the person making 50K only has 45K left, and the person making 500K still has 350K left.

Assuming they both have the same basic needs (food, shelter, health care, education, etc etc), the person with 45K is going to spend a much higher percentage of that money to get those needs met. The person with 350K is going to have a really nice house, nice cars (plural there), the ability to afford good health care, to get a better education...and all while paying an effective tax rate that is 20 points higher.

Which would you rather be: The person paying the 10% or the person paying the 30%? I know which one I aspire to be, tax rate be darned.

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand, Ryan, a tea party favorite, is in favor of cutting spending with no corresponding tax rate increases for ANYONE, especially the rich. No matter that most of the people who consider themselves to be tea partiers will be the ones hurt by his plan. They've been told that this is the way to go and this is the way they're going to go, by golly!

I don't make as much as a lot of my peers do, but I will be just fine. Whether you increase my taxes or lower them, I'll do okay. So will my kids. I'll make sure of that. But as much as I respect the choice of Paul Ryan as Mitt's running mate, I can't support their ideas any more than our current President can.

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