Chicago music critic Jim DiRogatis questions Paul Ryan's reasoning skills in light of his views about Rage Against the Machine:
Beyond the hypocrisy of the representative from Wisconsin’s love for Rage Against the Machine is evidence of an even more troubling problem, however. Portrayed as the new driving force of the Republican party, intellectually and philosophically (and here, The New Yorker’s recent pre-announcement profile was amazingly prescient and full of insight), you have to question the actual analytical acumen of an alleged deep thinker who can so blithely ignore the very core of Rage Against the Machine. If he can’t get that right, why should we trust him about the budget?
And as Krugman says, Ryan is a Very Serious Person, with the same problem as other Very Serious People: he's flat wrong most of the time.