Trump's Big CON: He's Not the Only Republi-CON

Paul "Ryan's reputation as a policy expert is under renewed assault.

“It’s hard to make a case that his efforts have been all that serious,” said Jared Bernstein, who was chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “His numbers never add up.”

The New York Times editorial board this week wrote an even harsher assessment of the House speaker: 'If he is the policy wonk of the Republican Party, then the Republican Party has no policy.'

To critics, Ryan's health-care failure is proof of what they've said all along: Ryan always presented himself as a serious thinker, but his ideas are half-baked at best. To his defenders, Ryan's failure on health care has more to do with a fractious Republican caucus that wasn't ready to unite behind any measure, let alone a bill that President Trump wanted to move through Congress in a matter of weeks.

A look at Ryan's record reveals that although he demonstrated far more expertise than the typical lawmaker, he has yet to confront fully the difficult compromises involved in making federal policy with a comprehensive plan that can achieve conservative goals on a major issue. . .

Paul Krugman, a liberal economist and Nobel laureate who is perhaps the most prominent of Ryan's skeptics, disparaged Ryan's work, saying it relied on a set of unfounded assumptions about a booming economy and inexplicably falling health-care costs.

'Swooning' commentators 'lavished praise on Mr. Ryan, asserting that his plan set a new standard of fiscal seriousness,' Krugman wrote in 2011. 'In short, this plan isn’t remotely serious; on the contrary, it’s ludicrous.'"

Read the Washington Post, Is Paul Ryan a policy guy, or does he just play one on TV?