(cc photo: Gage Skidmore)
Let’s say you’re a star Republican politician looking to reboot your public profile after a big loss. You’re perhaps best known for coming up with a federal budget blueprint that slashed tax rates for the wealthy and proposed big cuts to anti-poverty safety net programs.
But now you want to be known as a guy who really cares about fighting poverty. Good luck with that makeover, right?
Lucky for you, the Washington Post is here to help.
“Paul Ryan, GOP’s Budget Architect, Sets His Sights on Fighting Poverty and Winning Minds,” was the November 19 headline. Reporter Lori Montgomery told Post readers that Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s former running mate, was “quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods” and ready to roll out an anti-poverty plan to rival his budgetary Roadmap for America’s Future in scope and ambition.”
Ryan’s plan, apparently, is to
advance an expanded agenda that combines an overhaul of the tax code and federal health and retirement programs with kinder, gentler policies to encourage work and upward mobility.
The Post press release article is especially convincing because it discounts the critics of Paul’s ideas that could weigh in on his actual record. Instead we get analysis from “Bill Bennett, a conservative political theorist,” Ryan adviser Pete Wehner, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie, Scott Winship of the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, and two poverty activists who apparently have influenced Paul (Bob Woodson and Bishop Shirley Holloway). The only critic comes from within the party, courtesy of Bruce Bartlett, who says Republicans like Paul “want to care.”
It’s not that Montgomery is unaware of Ryan’s record–she refers to Ryan’s famous budget as “sharply slowing federal spending on the poor.”
So what is this all about? Montgomery notes in passing that “Ryan’s interest in poverty dovetails with a larger effort to revamp the GOP.” What would help with that “larger effort”? A story like this.
Earlier this year (3/14/13), New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that Ryan’s spell over the elite media seemed to have been fading:
The good news is that Mr. Ryan’s thoroughly unconvincing policy-wonk act seems, finally, to have worn out its welcome.
Well, maybe not.
The Republican Party, with majorities on the Supreme Court and in the House of Representatives and control of the Senate via its insane filibuster rules, has destroyed the American democracy. Ryan’s efforts to slash taxes on the rich and gut anti-poverty programs are merely lessor included offenses. Since anyone who henceforth votes for a Republican candidate at the national level is a fool, Ryan’s vague, fact-free positions are hardly worth mentioning.
Oh … I get it.
Cutting tens of billions from SNAP (the Dems only want to cut billions – thank god for liberals) is simply designed to kindly, gently “encourage work and upward mobility”.
Nothing motivates folks like not eating, does it?
So Marie Antoinette was tragically misunderstood in her time.
She only wanted the masses to take personal responsibility
For their own good.
“Paul Ryan, GOP’s Budget Architect, Sets His Sights on Fighting Poverty – The article
I think it is straightforward and clear; he wasn’t fighting ON the side of poverty; he was “fighting poverty” as in he thought it an enemy to be eradicated. Take enough money away and the poor die off; problem solved in his eyes. He is fighting a war to wipe out the enemy, the lower class power structures known as “Proles” and “the 47%”…
Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney’s twim brother when it comes to dealing with America’s 1% elites.
Noam Neusner, Dubya Bush’s former Jewish speechwriter, in an Op-Ed in Jewish daily Forward (August 29, 2012), claimed that ‘Mitt Romney is Real Tikkum Olam Candidate’. Therefore, he suggests that Jews who care for their Jewish values; individual freedom and prosperity (big banks and bailouts), should vote for GOP candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, whom Jewish editor Mark Ames of the Exile magazine calls The Curse of Joseph Smith.
http://rehmat1.com/2012/09/10/mitt-romney-embodies-jewish-values/
Ryan, the little worm fighting poverty? That will be the day. He is part and parcel of the kind of government that has infiltrated Capitol Hill. One having the intentions of nourishing the rich and starving the poor. Unless the American people wake up, they’ll be successful.
Padremellyrn: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at your comment!
Hum” what inner city neighborhoods did he visit?why doesn’t he have meetings in East Oakland Calif, or Midtown Detroit, Camden New Jersey,Stockton Calif,Philadelphia, or heck several blocks from the capitol in DC even
“image is everything”
wapo knows, politicians know, williambanzai7 knows.
at flickr, William banzai, former wallst professional, I believe,
has quite a set of image-smashing political artwork. hold on to your
hats a little, *he* holds nothing back. here are two of many of mr ryan. “a picture’s worth a thousand words.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/8078821040/in/set-72157627924239709/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/8077602435/in/set-72157627924239709
i kinda love the beginning where you say “trying to recover from a big loss”.Well yes…and no.In a huge sense he won.Everything that he said would happen….all his night mare scenarios ,have more than been vindicated.As hard as this is for you libs to hear it…..he was right.And if he was right……then you dolts picked the wrong horse.Again!And all for political gain.
Well Andy Im one of those people who thought that Ryan did not care so much about the job.The win.He is a wonk.I think he was always enamored with the broad idea,and its validity.About warning people that they were being lied to and he had the facts and numbers to prove it.See Obama is a political animal.If he looses all his theories go up in smoke,if he has not the power to force them on you.Because in the end they make no sense.So a win or loss to him is all about whether he is heard -or completely invisible.I think Ryan just went right back to work on his numbers.Water off a ducks back.He knows he is right and that has been proven.Listen to his speeches on Obama care where he prognosticates what the reality will be.Then listen to Obama Biden.Night and day.And he was right.And they were wrong.Remember when Biden just laughed and laughed like a madman during their debate?Ryan seemed to not notice.Can you imagine if it were Christie?He probably would of thrown water in the veeps face and said “snap out of it…are you ok”?Yeah I never thought Ryan wanted the job.So yeah I think in the end….he won.