ice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is a favorite of conservatives because he’s against government doing for people what they should do for themselves. He argues for self-reliance while he’s been living on taxpayer money for 34 out of his 42 years.
After his father died he received his father’s Social Security money and admits those payments and student loans helped pay for his education. He worked in the private sector for about two years altogether. One of those years he was a marketing consultant for his family’s construction firm, which made huge profits from government highway construction contracts. Soon after he graduated he became a speech writer and aide for Republican politicians, receiving his pay from — you guessed it — the taxpayers.
At age 28 he was elected to Congress, where he continues to receive his paycheck from the government. After he retires he’ll enjoy a generous, taxpayer-funded pension as well as full health care benefits for the rest of his life. All politicians take taxpayer money, but few of them are as rabid as he is against government programs that help the needy.
His estimated net worth is $7.7 million. How did a government employee accumulate that much money? First of all, he married a woman who recently inherited more than a million dollars; also, he takes a share of family business profits received from leasing lands to oil companies — oil companies he helps to reward by voting for billions in oil subsidies.
He further increased his wealth by taking advantage of the perk that, until this summer, allowed members of Congress to use insider information (illegal for the rest of us) when making stock trades. Is it a coincidence that, right before the financial collapse, he made a profit by selling his interests in companies that went under?
He voted against funding for energy conservation programs and against President Obama’s stimulus package, saying it wouldn’t create jobs and was a waste of taxpayer money. Months later he requested millions of that same stimulus money to fund energy conservation projects in the Janesville area, claiming they would "create or retain 7,600 new jobs." He publicly and consistently denied he’d asked for stimulus money until copies of his letters were recently made public by the
Boston Globe. When confronted with the copies, he said he probably hadn’t read the letters before he signed them. Would he also expect us to believe he didn’t notice when his district received $21 million in the stimulus funding he’d requested?
Ryan touts his Roman Catholic faith which advocates charity to the poor, yet credits novelist and atheist Ayn Rand for his economic philosophy that’s described in her book, "The Virtue of Selfishness." True to what she preaches, he rails against most taxpayer-funded programs except for the military. Several Catholic bishops soundly criticized his plan to cut most funding for programs that help the poor while lowering taxes on the wealthy.
What has the Republican’s golden boy accomplished after 14 years in Congress? According to several sources he passed exactly two bills — one to rename a Janesville post office, and one that changed the excise tax on the parts used to make arrows.
He voted for two unfunded wars (we still owe $4 trillion for the Iraq war), to drastically increase military spending, and to cut taxes on the rich. To pay for all this, his budget would make extreme cuts to Pell grants and food stamps, as well as other programs on which college students, the elderly, and the needy depend. When asked last week on Fox News how his plan would balance the budget he said he didn’t know, he hasn’t crunched the numbers yet.
His supporters call him "brilliant," yet he admitted he forgot to include on his 2010 tax return at least $1 million his wife, a former tax attorney, received in trust funds that year. He suddenly remembered that small detail as he was being vetted for the vice presidential spot.
Ryan shamelessly advocates self-sufficiency, yet for most of his life he’s been dependent on the government and his family’s wealth. He writes national budget plans without doing the numbers. He voted for every one of the Bush administration’s stimulus plans, yet loudly criticized Obama’s economic stimulus package only months before he asked for part of it. Does anyone see contradictions here?
Originally from Ohio, Pat Nash has lived in the Baraboo area, off and on, for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]
After his father died he received his father’s Social Security money and admits those payments and student loans helped pay for his education. He worked in the private sector for about two years altogether. One of those years he was a marketing consultant for his family’s construction firm, which made huge profits from government highway construction contracts. Soon after he graduated he became a speech writer and aide for Republican politicians, receiving his pay from — you guessed it — the taxpayers.
At age 28 he was elected to Congress, where he continues to receive his paycheck from the government. After he retires he’ll enjoy a generous, taxpayer-funded pension as well as full health care benefits for the rest of his life. All politicians take taxpayer money, but few of them are as rabid as he is against government programs that help the needy.
His estimated net worth is $7.7 million. How did a government employee accumulate that much money? First of all, he married a woman who recently inherited more than a million dollars; also, he takes a share of family business profits received from leasing lands to oil companies — oil companies he helps to reward by voting for billions in oil subsidies.
He further increased his wealth by taking advantage of the perk that, until this summer, allowed members of Congress to use insider information (illegal for the rest of us) when making stock trades. Is it a coincidence that, right before the financial collapse, he made a profit by selling his interests in companies that went under?
He voted against funding for energy conservation programs and against President Obama’s stimulus package, saying it wouldn’t create jobs and was a waste of taxpayer money. Months later he requested millions of that same stimulus money to fund energy conservation projects in the Janesville area, claiming they would "create or retain 7,600 new jobs." He publicly and consistently denied he’d asked for stimulus money until copies of his letters were recently made public by the
Boston Globe. When confronted with the copies, he said he probably hadn’t read the letters before he signed them. Would he also expect us to believe he didn’t notice when his district received $21 million in the stimulus funding he’d requested?
Ryan touts his Roman Catholic faith which advocates charity to the poor, yet credits novelist and atheist Ayn Rand for his economic philosophy that’s described in her book, "The Virtue of Selfishness." True to what she preaches, he rails against most taxpayer-funded programs except for the military. Several Catholic bishops soundly criticized his plan to cut most funding for programs that help the poor while lowering taxes on the wealthy.
What has the Republican’s golden boy accomplished after 14 years in Congress? According to several sources he passed exactly two bills — one to rename a Janesville post office, and one that changed the excise tax on the parts used to make arrows.
He voted for two unfunded wars (we still owe $4 trillion for the Iraq war), to drastically increase military spending, and to cut taxes on the rich. To pay for all this, his budget would make extreme cuts to Pell grants and food stamps, as well as other programs on which college students, the elderly, and the needy depend. When asked last week on Fox News how his plan would balance the budget he said he didn’t know, he hasn’t crunched the numbers yet.
His supporters call him "brilliant," yet he admitted he forgot to include on his 2010 tax return at least $1 million his wife, a former tax attorney, received in trust funds that year. He suddenly remembered that small detail as he was being vetted for the vice presidential spot.
Ryan shamelessly advocates self-sufficiency, yet for most of his life he’s been dependent on the government and his family’s wealth. He writes national budget plans without doing the numbers. He voted for every one of the Bush administration’s stimulus plans, yet loudly criticized Obama’s economic stimulus package only months before he asked for part of it. Does anyone see contradictions here?
Originally from Ohio, Pat Nash has lived in the Baraboo area, off and on, for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]