Oct 21, 2015

Paul Ryan as House Speaker Would Destroy Social Security, Medicare

Republicans want to kill Social Security. The Democratic
Party nominee for the presidency all but guarantees victory
by standing up for Social Security against GOP attack, which
would be led by prospective House Speaker Paul Ryan.
- Image from August 15 Email from the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Updated - Paul Ryan—Six Reasons Why He's Everything That’s Wrong With the GOP

"I cannot and will not give up my family time," demands Speaker-in-waiting Paul Ryan.

Too bad Ryan is not a supporter of expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, and works avidly against working parents.

Other Americans want to spend time with their families as well.

"Ryan seeks to preserve his own balance between his work and his family, he’s pushed policies that would make doing so more difficult for others, particularly poor parents," notes Bryce Covert in ThinkProgress.

Ryan gets to take off from the office, courtesy of the tax payers, whenever he wants, so his demands ring a bit shrill. As does Ryan's war against Social Security and Medicare.

"Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and 'shareholder value' the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one. If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be 'forced' to make 'hard choices' - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked," wrote Mike Lofgren, who retired on June 17, 2011 after 28 years as a Republican Congressional staffer. (TruthOut)

Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House would launch an epic battle against Social Security and Medicare, citing the the long list of Republican lies.

Ryan's Congressional pension is already set, so why not, and Ryan rakes in a lot of campaign cash this way.

"Paul Ryan (R-Wis) rank[ed] first in the House with an estimated [campaign] net worth of $5,531,036 in 2013," notes Open Secrets.

No facts needed on policy from Paul Ryan and the Republicans (Krugman, New York Times) (Krugman, New York Times).

GOP arguments about urgency for action are still fallacious, kill Medicare and Social Security to save them, and stop allowing Americans who pay into Medicare and Social Security to become "dependent" (to quote Ryan) on their earned benefits from Medicare and Social Security.

As Paul Krugman notes last August, "[N]o, Social Security does not face a financial crisis; its long-term funding shortfall could easily be closed with modest increases in revenue," (New York Times).

Ryan like his friend, Scott Walker, does not like it when constituents publicly challenge him, no matter Ryan's obsession with phasing out Medicare and Social Security (Mal Contends).

Paul Ryan is lifelong politician, immediately becoming a GOP aide after college in 1992, and then serving in Congress beginning in 1999 (Ballotpedia), all health and pension benefits and salary paid by the American tax payers, and Paul Ryan is living large.

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