but president obama also wants to cut it. i wish we had a different choice, but my job is to be do if he wins re-election. [♪ theme music ♪] good evening, i'm eliot spitzer, and this "viewpoint." after months of waiting, weeks of speculation, mitt romney has named a running mate. >> join me in welcoming the next president of the united states paul ryan. >> at least romney got the name right, but with marco rubio and several other on list. why paul ryan? >> we share the same values, and

that i have the kinds of experiences that complement his skills, that complement his experience, to help him govern to execute a vision to get this country back on the right track. >> not to mention getting the tea party and other hard-right conservatives fired up for november. but who's vision will be executed if they get elected, ryan or romney? >> i have my budget plan that i -- i have put out, and that's the budget plan we are going to run on. >> it is a trojan horse. disguised as deficit reduction plans, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. >> a vision that would see medicare drop by a third by

mid-century and medicaid my even more. while ryan insists his medicare plan will extent the program's life in part by offering seniors alternatives david axelrod says it's a killer. >> medicare itself will be in a death spiral because it will be dissipated by healthy seniors going into the private system leaving sick seniors in the existing medicare program. >> as ryan discovered at the iowa state flair today, some hecklers agreed. >> i -- i -- >> are you going to cut medicare! [ inaudible ] >> like i said she must not be from iowa! [ cheers and applause ] >> hey, all right! >> actually she probably is. it's the congressman who is not. many adults out there are

already hesitant about ryan's candidacy, just 39% called him an excellent to pretty good choice compared to 42%. ryan insists his budget is essential, because, and i quote, we can't keep doing everything for everybody in this country. so i guess we'll keep doing everything to the rich. welcome to the world of mitt romney. for more let's go to david catanese. >> good evening. >> it has been about 48 hours, a lot of theories explanations. best as you can, why did mitt romney pick paul ryan and why is it working? >> i think he needed to shake up his race he saw an economy that has been a drag on this president, not necessarily propping up his own candidacy.

romney was going to go into his own convention with high unfavorable and trailing the president. so i think he wanted to do more of a game-changing pick and that's why he went with ryan. but it is fascinating to me that he is going to try to run a race and say this guy is the bold courageous pick but not embrace the reason why he is which is the ryan plan. you heard him last night on 60 minutes say, i have got my own budget plan and that's going to be interesting to see if that is sustainable through the conventions, through the debates, and vice president debate debates, where the democrats are tag the ryan plan on romney. >> i think you are asking precisely the right question. i don't think romney will be able to distance himself from the ryan plan.

but even before we get to that capacity on romney's part it seems to me you are right. he needed a game-changing defining moment, but now instead of talking about jobs jobs jobs, he is getting us to talk about a ryan budget budget budget, which is not a winning argument, so he has changed the game to the wrong piece of the economy, and was there no way for them to choose somebody who would permit them to talk about jobs rather than medicaid and medicare. >> well, i thought tim pawlenty didn't have as much baggage as ryan but didn't excite the pace. rob portman from ohio pawlenty would have allowed romney to go with someone outside of washington. he grew up here as a staffer,

has been a congressman for more than a decade but this is a guy who likes detail you know loves policy, but i think, in doing so as you said in your intro, he has a nice face people see him as a family man, as someone who is serious. even his opponents respect him. but the question is, does the country really know the guts and the details of the ryan plan? i saw one poll today that a third of the respondents had no idea who the guy was. so i think he provides a jolt to the base but it will be incumbent on the democrats to crystallize and frame that narrative. and they are going to try to rain it around the ryan budget around romney's bet. >> he is a nice charming guy, but his numbers don't add up.

they are full of holes, they simply don't add up and some what he pretends they do. that's issue number 1. issue number 2, the 270 of the electorate doesn't help him get there. it strikes me this is a play for passion over persuasion. he is trying to big down deeper into the 48 to 47% of the public that are we him than to focus on the swing vote in the middle the 2% or less that is undecided. i think he is hoping this is a turnout play rather than an independent-swing voter play. >> yeah i think there's no bout it. romney said he made the choice last sunday but it was the national review saying pick him, rich laurie the "wall street

journal" very up front. these are very conservative entities who wanted him. and romney i think it is still in his head whether conservatives really really like him? do they trust him? when he with a conservative entity or more of a moderate? i think this signals to the base i'm with you all the way. this sort of is -- you know when you pick paul ryan especially on these fiscal issues it doesn't leave any question. i do believe to your other point they don't think there are other undecided voters left. you got to have your base. and some pol the republicans are more fired up to turn out this year so on the romney calculation, you pick one of their favorites, one of their messiahs, that juices up the turnout, so they hope.

remember john mccain was ahead at one point. will that be sustainable is the real question. >> i think the 3% who still say they are undecided are less likely to turn out than the 15 to 20% who are passionate conservatives. they are the ones that romney said i will let them don't worry about the 2 to 3%. any way, david catanese in things for some of your time tonight. >> thank you. >> now i'm joined by sam seder, sam, as always thank you for your wisdom. your quick take paul ryan. does this make sense to you? is this a smart electoral play? >> i don't see the electoral play here. i see a guy who was looking at perhaps a devastating loss. i think there are a lot more

revelations to come about his taxes, and i think this was a hedge -- i think this was a hedge against losing and i think he wanted to bring the conservative base into the election and basically say everybody in the barrel we're going to go off of this cliff together, so he doesn't end up years from now as essential i will the republican dukakis. >> so he inoculated himself from the tack from the right saying if you had only been a true believer we would have won? >> i think that's exactly it. i think he was trying to establish at least some type of legacy on the right. we just talked about within two days the guy is running away from the main reason why you would pick paul ryan anyway. >> he is an etch-a-sketch, he is

a weather vain so now we finally have paul ryan who is resolute in his views. mitt romney becomes paul ryan. he can't run away from those views. >> right. and i don't think he'll be successful in doing that. they were talking about the etch-a-sketch candidate a couple of months ago. it's a question -- it has really now become a very brood and -- and acute question between ideology. do you believe the government should have some role in people's lives or serve as a pass through for the wealthy to accumulate more wealth. >> let's pick through the points in the ryan budget. will the public be sympathetic to what paul ryan wants to medicare? >> they will not be sympathetic. there was a focus test that

didn't believe that a politician would promote such a plan. we're talking about cutting medicare cutting medicaid -- essentially destroying medicare for all intents and purposes, cutting medicaid decimating infrastructure investment not achieving any deficit reduction and cutting taxes on the wealthy. >> look, you and i look at the numbers, and you heard me say, the numbers simply don't add up. >> right. >> it is worse than swiss cheese. if you submitted this to the sec, you would be accused to fraud. >> the vows to bring down the budget. >> he never really balances the budget if you look at the numbers. >> that's right. >> but the media has embraced paul ryan as some sort of sleuth

sayer. >> yeah, i think the real fight will be over medicare. when you say we're going to gut medicare and simply replace it with small coupon program, vouchers, if you want to call it it's not medicare anymore, and they give out pin oakcos for that. you can call it a car, but it's not a car with pontoons. >> here is the $700 billion ryan and romney are saying ad nauseam. does this make sense? what are the facts? and how does this really play out? >> the facts are it was really the majority of those supposed cuts were cuts to medicare advantage, which is a quasi privatized part of medicare and what the government found is

they were overpaying for the same services that they provide under medicare. there have been no cuts for any recipients of medicare and any other cuts that took place rolled into the affordable care act, so there is going to be an expansion of benefits. under ryan it just goes into tax cuts for millionaires. so it's disenagainous they endorse those cuts -- >> let me make one point. what you just articulated is exactly right as a policy matter. the length of time it took you to explain that is 15 times longer than it takes for paul ryan say they -- >> right. the american people trust democrats on medicare more than they trust republicans. there is a reason why paul ryan

will not go to florida. >> i think you are right. i will just close on this notion mitt romney tax's plan paul ryan budget the cuts they imagine, and this is the worst form of social darwinism we have discussed since the 1880s. >> yes, and they expand defense spending. >> go figure. sam seder as always great to have you on the program. > (applause) the best political insight leads to the best political foresight. first pick, i'm going to shock the world and pick, paul ryan. brillant. okay... with the number that just came out he's more inclined to throw long. in which case, i think the long one is paul ryan because the risks are higher. here in the obama war room... putting satire aside, i agree paul ryan would be great for democrats. for us it would fame the intellectual debate. see the future "live" weeknights starting at 7pm.

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is a must. paul ryan has received a lot of attention for his tax plans and budget ideas, and he has sponsor and cosponsored hundreds of bills and amendments but perhaps a better measure of his skills are the number of proposals that actually became law. which brings us to our number of the day. two. that's how many of ryan's bills actually passed after 13 years in congress. these are both crucial laws. the first one renamed the wisconsin post office after the late congressman, and the second one which passed years later changed the excise taxes on arrow shafts. that's arrows as in bows and arrows. apparently ryan is a big bow

hunter. kevin madden explained it today on the today show. >> not only does he know how washington works, but he also knows what washington doesn't work. >> i agree mainly with the second part, how washington doesn't work. we have a slater who has our conversation is with you the viewer because we're independent. >>here's how you can connect with "viewpoint with eliot spitzer." >>questions, of course, need to be answered. >>we will not settle for the easy answers.

empathy vessel for the past year. the etch candidate has now embraced paul ryan and after the momentary excitement wears off, there will be one small of good news for romney. the good news is that we will

finally have the intellectual intellectual engagement that the and good news for romney is because his taxes and work at bain capital will drop off of the table for some time. he will now be held accountable for the ryan perspective on the entire raft of issues on my the vp nominee has spoken. and romney will soon find out that the voters are nowhere near as radical as paul ryan. ryan is not the social moderate fiscal conservative, who might have appealed to the general public. the swing voters in the swing states will soon discovery that the new romney republican party has veered to the right, indeed to the fringes and is now irrelevant to the main stream. he believes life begins the

moment a fetus is conceived and there is no right to abortion even cases of rape and incest. he toes the nra line on all second amendment gun issues. on fiscal issues the ryan plan is supply all over again, a perfect model of the failure of the buscher are. and tax policies that will endanger all go spending, other than defense spending. from education to r&d in critical sectors the investments that the government providers that are necessary for the economy are simply not part of paul ryan's world view. he is pleasant and knowledgeable enough but his policies would be a disaster for the nation and will spell electoral defeat for

romney once they are understand. paul ryan will be left standing of a smaller and even more limited

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weakest members. food stamps and medicare is now a rallying cry for the nuns who comprise network, who organized the 2,700 tour nuns on the bus tour to protest romney's plan. they invited romney to join them on a tour writing . . . as of now romney has not responded. with me now is sister simone campbell, who lead the nuns on the bus tour through nine states. we appreciate your time tonight. >> glad to be with you. >> does former governor -- excuse me paul ryan misunderstood his faith? >> i think paul ryan has a very limited understanding of his

faith. he gets one part about individual responsibility, but he misses two other key parts, one is that responsibility only works when you are in strong solidarity understanding the whole of society, and the second piece that catholic social teaching says the roll of government is to offset the excesses of any culture. and what paul ryan misses is that his faith calls him to balance that individualism and community. >> what you just articulated is a very different conception of community that i and many others think is completely based biblical teachings, and yet paul ryan sees it very differently. how to you engage him to show him a more powerful notion of

the bible. >> we had a chance to have a conversation a few weeks ago, and i tried to engage him on those issues and basically he said you have your understanding and i have mine and we agreed to disagree. i think the only way that he'll be touched is to meet some of the people that we met on our bus trip to meet tia in de beque, iowa and others that can show him what communities are about. >> individuals with their own stories in the sense of everyone pathy. the numbers are terrifying in terms of the percentage of our population living in poverty, and yet those are the programs he wants to cut. can you appeal to a sense of

justice, empathy and sympathy? and what is his response. >> his response is we have to cut these programs now so we will have these programs later. billy and his family in milwaukee, they use food stamps to get by. billy had a full-time job, was doing okay but in this recession his job was cut, so he is working part-time. his family has enough money to put either a roof over their head or food on the table. and his employer is benefiting also, because the employer has a worker who can work who is not so hungry so the only way that i can really see forward is that if businesses begin to speak up about the needs of their workers, and how these programs are not for, quote, lazy people

as the romney people wanted us to think, but rather hard-working folks. >> right. you just hit it on the head. the image that is protected of that's in need is that it is their fault. they are lazy. rather than society isn't always fair there is inequity imposed on even those folks that want to do their best. >> i think we have so isolated in our society, and we got this idea that the u.s. myth is that we're supposed to do it on our own. and that's really unpatriotic to continue with the myth. it's we the people. we the people are together in forming this more perfect union, and that means we have to know each other, talk to each other, go to different parts of our town or state, and find out how

we all are doing. only together can difference in this. >> i think it comes back to the phrase that president obama used which is you didn't build that. we as a collective as contributed toward the capacity of any one individual to succeed. that somehow is missing in this individualism that you talked about just a moment ago that seems to run through everything that mitt romney talks about. >> right. and as congressman ryan points out is that we who see the communal side don't often talk about individual responsibility. so i'm trying to say each of us is responsible for building up national catholic social justice lobby, who led the nuns on the bus tour through nine states. thank you for your time. you're going to hang around and we'll do