The defining characteristic of conservatives is their aversion to change and desire to preserve things as they are, or returning things the way they were thirty years ago. The concept of a Republican with big and bold new ideas is as counterintuitive to preserving the status quo as compassion is to conservatism, but the Republican establishment has nonetheless assigned both labels to Paul Ryan. This past week Ryan belied Republicans’ assertion he is compassionate towards any American who is not in the richest 1% of income earners, as well as failed as the GOP’s “big ideas guy.” Between Ryan’s incredibly disingenuous and negative criticism of America’s anti-poverty programs released Monday, and the speech he gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, it is glaringly obvious that Ryan’s profound antipathy and blatant contempt for poor Americans is only matched by his lack of any idea, bold or otherwise, Republicans have not proffered and enacted over the past thirty years.
Ryan’s “bold new ideas” in his CPAC speech were a reiteration of Republican talking points and agendas over the past three years that are as stale as his five-year-old criticisms of President Obama’s agenda. No Republican speech would be conservative enough without criticizing the left for talking about the devastating income inequality crushing the life out of 98% of the population, pushing school vouchers to “let every parent choose where their child goes to school,” or assert that Americans should be able to pick their own healthcare insurance plan. Ryan trotted out the tired GOP meme that under the Affordable Care Act, Washington assigns Americans government healthcare that must have surprised millions of Americans who chose a health insurance policy that met their needs through market-based exchanges. The big ideas guy also endorsed Eric Cantor’s year-old legislation abolishing overtime pay, and promoted Reagan’s trickle down economic theory that demonstrated his compassion is reserved for the rich and their corporations.
Ryan really belied his “big ideas guy” label when he parroted Romney-Ryan campaign rhetoric that Democrats did not believe in incentivizing work and were more concerned that hungry Americans in poverty-wage jobs “had a full stomach” which is the definition of compassion. Ryan said liberals promoted the idea that Americans should not work and claimed they only offer Americans “an empty soul” whatever that means. He said, “We believe in this country, it should always pay to work; we believe in the dignity of work.” That line may have played well to conservatives at CPAC, but to any American with memory of the past three-and-a-half years it was sheer invention.
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Upon taking control of the House in 2011, Republicans immediately began passing Draconian spending cuts that killed jobs despite promising Americans their focus was creating jobs. In fact, Republicans who “believe in this country it should always pay to work” killed about a million jobs early in 2011 to which new Speaker of the House Boehner said “so be it.” Since 2011, Republicans have been on a job-killing spree without end whether it was the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, their vaunted sequester, government shutdown, severe public sector workforce cuts, food stamp cuts, or failing to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. Add to that Republicans rejecting every single one of the President’s job creation measures, including for returning Veterans, and the idea of Republicans believing in the dignity of work is hilarious if it were not so tragic. As far as Ryan and Republicans staunch belief in “the dignity of work;” where is the dignity for tens-of-millions of hard-working Americans barely surviving on poverty-wages that forces them to use food stamps; including active-duty service-men and women?
Ryan’s suspiciously specious story of a “young boy from a very poor family” who received free lunches at school “from a government program” demonstrated the lack of dignity inherent in families with parents holding down minimum wage jobs. Ryan said this “boy from a very poor family didn’t want a free lunch,” he wanted his own lunch, one in a brown paper bag, just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand.” First, as an educator who has been involved with children for 20 years, Ryan’s anecdote does not ring true because although a young boy may have wanted his lunch in a brown paper bag, it was certainly not because he thought his parents’ did not care for him.
What the “left” that Ryan derides and over 47-million Americans, many working at poverty-wage jobs, understand is the liberal concept that all Americans deserve a stable, dignified living wage job and should not be forced to depend on government assistance to survive. Ryan’s vision of working poor Americans, or the 47% he holds in contempt, is that they love struggling to survive and do not care about their children. The truth is that Ryan’s “young boy from a very poor family,” like the boy’s parents, did not want to go through the embarrassment of standing in a cafeteria line to get a “free lunch from a government program” any more than his parents like paying for groceries with food stamps. Despite Republican’s belief in the dignity of work, there is no dignity in poverty-wage jobs that force Americans to rely on government programs just to keep their families from going hungry.
For the past five days Americans have seen a fairly representative display of Ryan’s compassion and big, bold new ideas that Reagan-conservatives offered as America’s salvation thirty years ago. Whether it was supply side economics (trickle down) and unsustainable tax cuts for the rich and corporations, eviscerating social safety nets, or “getting government out of the way,” Republican “big ideas guy and compassionate conservative” Ryan still promotes failed policies and expects Americans to fall for them again. Ryan’s CPAC speech was 13-minutes of 30-year-old conservative economic sophistry and dispassionate bovine excrement revealing that Republicans still love the rich and hate the rest of America. Ryan’s speech may have energized the CPAC crowd, but it should serve as a warning that Republicans’ only way forward is returning to Bush-Republican economic policies that put this country in the position it finds itself.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
