“Paul
Ryan: Cruel, not courageous
…”“Ryan’s budget isn’t courageous — it’s just cruel. Three-fifths of the cuts he wants
would hit those with low incomes, while those who have the most
would continue getting more. It’s no wonder the former altar boy has had his knuckles rapped by a group of nuns for peddling a
budget that “rejects church teaching about solidarity, inequality, the choice
for the poor, and the common good.”
“Ryan’s claim to
courage — beating up on the poor notwithstanding — lies in his supposed
willingness to tackle tough fiscal issues without obfuscation or sugar-coating.
This would be admirable – if it were not utter nonsense. He
preaches the need for austerity while refusing to touch defense spending. He
doesn’t specify which tax loopholes would be eliminated to pay for massive tax
cuts. He voted against stimulus to help the whole country, but for the auto
bailout to help his own congressional district.
“Still, it’s true that on pages
44-47 of Ryan’s so-called “Path to Prosperity”
plan, you can read exactly what he intends to do with Medicare.
Pages 50-54 explain his plans for tax reform. There are giant gimmicks and
plenty is left unsaid, of course. But, yes, technically it is a plan, outlined
in black and white and illustrated with colorful graphs and charts.
“Is that
courageous? Not on the level of, say, our returning veterans, for whom Ryan’s
budget would slash support by 13 percent. No, he is remarkable only because — unlike the man at the top of the
ticket, who is a shameless cipher — Ryan isn’t hiding the ball.
Instead, he’s hitting struggling Americans in the face with it.
“But however courageous you consider
a congressman for actually revealing his policy preferences, Ryan’s blueprint —
now the blueprint for the entire Republican Party — is profoundly uncourageous in its implications for the vast majority
of the country.
“Under Ryan’s plan, the wealthiest
1 percent would get a massive tax break. Meanwhile, Medicare would be
privatized, leaving seniors with vouchers that could never keep up with rising
health-care costs. It would slash programs helping struggling families stay
afloat, such as food stamps and housing assistance, by nearly a trillion
dollars over the next decade. Education and employment training — vital to our
nation’s future — would be cut by a third. Ryan, whose great-grandfather
founded a large road construction company, would spend 25 percent less than
President Obama rebuilding our deteriorating infrastructure. And since gutting
Medicaid and Medicare isn’t enough, he would also repeal the president’s
health-care law, leaving tens of millions of people uninsured.
“Recently, voters in focus groups refused to believe
anyone would propose such a vicious plan. Back when the GOP retained a modicum
of humanity, even many Republicans were shocked by how far Ryan went. In polls,
people of both parties recoil from his proposal to end
Medicare as we know it.
“It is a plan, as
the recently departed Gore Vidal said of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that so influenced
Ryan, “nearly perfect in its immorality.” Ryan’s extremism bleeds into social
issues. He saluted the troops on the deck of the USS Wisconsin, but voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell.” He has repeatedly voted for defunding Planned Parenthood and
letting hospitals refuse emergency abortion care, even when a mother’s life is
in danger. The right to love whom you want or to make decisions about your own
body are not, apparently, among the rights that Ryan believes “nature and God” gave
us…”
Cassi Creek: There
it is the plan of attack for the Teavangelists to polish off the former middle
class. The 1%, the super wealthy, will
receive yet another tax cut which will be paid for by levying a tax increase on
the former working class and former middle class. The insult will be made all the greater by
privatizing Social Security and Medicare; increasing costs to those citizens
depending upon our social safety nets while funneling the profits from
privatization into the already well-lined pockets of Wall Street investment
bankers and financiers who maintain their personal accounts in secret offshore
banks.
Ryan voted to
undertake two un-funded foreign wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. The cost to our armed forces in injuries and
lives lost, WIA and KIA, seem to have evaded his thoughts then or now. He’s quite eager to cut veterans benefits by
13%, leaving an already under-funded Veterans Affairs agency to try to clean up
the mess that these wars have created for veterans.
He’s never
worn the uniform of our armed forces but is willing to send the troops out to
be chewed up and discarded. He’s well
off financially and has excellent health care provisions. To make certain he keeps that policy, he’s
willing to shove vouchers for insurance policies into the hands of retirees and
the working poor, knowing that the vouchers will buy little or nothing when
inflation and greed have rendered them of no value.
He speaks
about the sanctity of life while condemning women to die rather than allow them
to have a medically necessary abortion.
He plays the same evil game with women’s lives by trying to outlaw
contraception. He preaches about
religious freedom while doing his best to shove his brand of Roman Catholicism
down our throats and into civil law.
There’s
nothing brave about Congressman Ryan. He
has other people to suffer in his place, to fight in his place, and to die in
his place while he hides behind an economic policy gleaned from a work of
fiction written by an author who collected the Social Security payments and
Medicare benefits that she so viciously decried. Be careful which mob you stir up,
Congressman.
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