Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is facing intense criticism for his cost-cutting schemes against the poor.
Paul Ryan: America’s Entitlements Fixer
By Hugh W. Wyatt
WASHINGTON--Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan was not born when African Americans and progressives were humiliated, beaten, jailed and killed during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Yet, Ryan, who may be arguably the most powerful man in the Congress, is crunching numbers that may destroy many gains made by blacks, the elderly and the poor —men and women who have endured the kind of discrimination he could not ever imagine.
Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio is the most powerful figure in the House of Representatives. But since he is always so busy looking for a hanker chief to wipe away his tears, he and other members of the House are relying more and more on Ryan to guide them over governmental budgets since he is supposed to be an expert on fiscal matters.
However, some of them may not agree with Boehner and company. Last month scores of conservative Republicans were running to the hills to disassociate with Ryan because polls have shown that the majority of American people—both liberal and conservative alike—believe his cost-cutting schemes would virtually destroy entitlements—America’s only true safety net.
Many of them maintain that if they go along with his proposal to drastically cut Medicare for seniors, for example, it would prevent these politicians from being re-elected. It appears that for many of them it was always about the vote and not about truly balancing budgets.
There are plen...Read More
The ganged-up assault on Medicaid, the only health care for millions of America’s poor and disabled by Republicans, Tea Partiers, state governors and the insurance industry, just got a “stop” order from President Obama, who has roused himself to action.
Medicaid, the only health care for a large part of the population of the working poor, people of color, impoverished women with kids, and now legions of the middle class who are unemployed, was targeted for disastrous cuts or destruction by deficit hawks who consider it a money matter instead of life or death.
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Hugh W. Wyatt
We consider a once lurid warning about overwhelming power taking over and controlling our lives, “It Can't Happen Here.” The comforting, cynical assurance meant, of course, that it was happening here.
The catch-phrase was the title of a blistering 1935 political novel by Sinclair Lewis, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize For Literature, and burst out in an American climate much like our own today—the Great Depression, war clouds overseas, and the rise of demagogues.
The demagogues of “It Can't Happen Here” were a power-made Southern ...Read More
