People hate the Ryan budget (you know, the one that would, among other things, replace Medicare with vouchers for senior citizens to buy health insurance on the private market), so Mitt Romney is probably gonna tap the architect of that budget as his running mate?

Why? So we’ll stop asking him about his taxes?

A) We won’t stop asking him about his taxes until he releases them (not likely).

B) We’ll start talking about a budget that guts Medicare, raises taxes on the lower and middle class, and actually inflates the deficit Republicans are (allegedly) so worried about.

Bobby Jindal would’ve been a safer choice. So would Chris Christie. Hell, I think Bob McDonnell would be a safer pick than Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican might be young, he might be smart, but his budget will be every bit the albatross Romney’s taxes and tenure at Bain have become.

For the second straight presidential election, a VP pick could swing the race — and not in the way Republicans like.

A thorough (and sometimes hard-to-read) piece from Vanity Fair’s Nicholas Shaxston about Mitt Romney’s wealth problem (specifically, how little taxes he pays on that wealth, all his tax havens, and his history with Bain Capital). If you can get through the more technical, dry finance stuff, you’ll get a good idea of why this sort of thing matters as Romney tries to win the presidency in November.