Paul Ryan wants to be Speaker of the House but he wants a coronation, not a contested election. Toward that end, he's orchestrating a campaign that makes him appear to be a bridge-builder between the so-called "establishment" and "Tea Party" wings of the Republican Party -- the only guy who can save the GOP from self-destruction. But only in the whacky world of today's Republican Party could Ryan be seen as a voice of reason or even, according to the party's Tea Party wing -- as
"too far left," as the
New York Times recently reported.
As part of his campaign to appear to be an honest broker within the party, Ryan has carefully cultivated the image of being a serious "thinker" and "policy wonk" and, for the most part, the mainstream media have taken the bait. When Mitt Romney introduced Ryan as his running mate in 2012, he described the Wisconsin Congressman as the
"intellectual leader of the Republican Party." In the conservative magazine
Commentary, James Pethokoukis
wrote that "It's probably safe to assume that no elected official in America understands the ins and outs of the labyrinthine U.S. budget the way Paul Ryan does." A McClatchey news story
described Ryan as a "policy wonk" and a "conservative thinker." The
Daily Beast called Ryan a
"number-crunching policy wonk." New York Times columnist Ross Douthat described Ryan as a
"moderate conservative."
But in any rational look at the spectrum of American political views, it is hard to imagine attaching the words "moderate" or "moderate conservative" to Ryan on any issue except perhaps his clothing preferences and his haircut.
Let's start with Ryan's outrageous hypocrisy. Ryan worships at the altar of novelist
Ayn Rand, the philosopher of you're-on-your-own selfishness, whose books have been required reading for his Congressional staffers. Like Rand, he consistently demonizes people who improve their lives with the help of government. Ryan seems to be unaware of how much his own family and his own financial success has been influenced by "big government."
In his
speech to the GOP convention in Tampa in 2012, where he accepted Romney's invitation to join the GOP ticket as its vice presidential candidate, Ryan told a story about how, after his father's death, his mother "got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison." Ryan said:
She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business. It wasn't just a new livelihood. It was a new life. And it transformed my Mom from a widow in grief to a small businesswoman whose happiness wasn't just in the past. Her work gave her hope. It made our family proud. And to this day, my Mom is my role model.
Ryan meant this as a celebration of his mother's lift-herself-by-her-own-bootstraps spirit. Ryan didn't seem to realize that the bus was a public service, that the road was built and maintained by government, and that the University of Wisconsin in Madison is a public institution.
Yet Ryan has released budget plans that would slash funding for public education, roads, and public services that are the investments we need to lift people out of poverty and strengthen our economy.
For too long, reporters have been bamboozled by Ryan, who claims to be a both a budget expert and something of a social philosopher. But he's just a slick talker who appears to have flunked basic math in high school or college, because his budget numbers never add up.
During the 2012 campaign, when he was Romney's running mate, reporters kept asking Ryan to explain his draconian budget, but he could never provide a coherent answer. His stump speech was little more than warmed-over babble about the evils of "big government," the importance of being "self sufficient" and the dangers of people becoming dependent on government instead of lifting oneself up by one's bootstraps.
Ryan has made his reputation demonizing poor people. His most popular metaphor was the anti-poverty programs had failed because instead of being a safety net they'd become a "hammock," robbing people of their self-esteem and initiative.
Not surprisingly, he wants to slash programs that help low-income families and children. In 2013, from his perch on the House budget committee, he came out in favor of $20 billion in cuts that will throw an estimated two million children, elderly, and disabled Americans off food stamps. He
pushed an amendment to eliminate food stamps for people who have $2,000 in savings, or a car worth more than $5,000. The CBO found that this would throw 1.8 million people off of the program.
The Hillreported,
"Most of these would be low-income seniors and working families with children. These families typically live paycheck to paycheck. Denying them the ability to save for emergencies, such as fixing a car, or unexpected expenses, such as buying a uniform for a new job, only makes them more dependent on government resources, not less."
The mainstream media routinely give Ryan credit for being a serious budget guru and social policy expert. This could be seen last year when he released a 205-page
reporton the history of anti-poverty programs, going back a half century to President Johnson's Great Society programs, which concluded that they had failed. The report examined eight types of federal anti-poverty programs: food aid, social services, housing, cash aid, education and job training, energy, health care, and veterans affairs.
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