down the deficit. under president bush, ryan didn't have a budgetary care in the world. he said aye to the medicare prescription drug benefit and voted in favor of the bush tax cuts and voted for the war in iraq and afghanistan. that's right. he votes in favor of the policies that are now the main causes of our national deficit. but when a democrat was voted into the white house, ryan suddenly became the pitch man for budget cuts. joining me now is father thomas reed, a senior fellow at woodstock theological center. he joined others in speaking out against drastic gop cuts against the poor. and ezra klein, a washington post columnist and msnbc policy analyst. thank you both for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> ezra, let me start with you. there's so much talk about the