Ryan wants to replace government safety nets with fund raising car washes and neighbor handouts. Feel good now?

I'll bet nothing warms the hearts of conservatives everywhere than to see a community pull together and hold a car wash to help pay for a child's cancer, or heart surgery. That's where true democracy belongs, at the local level, assisting those who need help, and keeping them out of the dependent clutches of big government.

As screwy as that sounds, we've been hearing that for years from our Republican Dickensian's. If they say it enough, maybe someone will believe them...like every tea party and base conservative voter.

The video here show's Paul Ryan saying just that. Sen. Tom Coburn said as much to a woman with breast cancer at a town hall during the health care debate. Maybe they're onto something.

Ask your local pastors, see if they have the funds to take care of a lifetime of insulin, or months of chemotherapy, for one, two or ten residents in their community. Ask them also to help pay their mortgage, or buy food for their families when times get tough. That's what our local communities are all about aren't they?

The following high minded diatribe by Ryan is enough to make me sick. Get ready folks, for a world you've only read about in 19th century novels. Think freedom, think breaking the chains of big government dependence. That's Ryan's path.....

WP: “To me, the [Catholic] principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism, meaning government closest to the people governs best, having a civil society of the principle of solidarity where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good.

“By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities. Those principles are very very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out into a life of independence.”

Rep. Paul Ryan, in an interview with the CBN on how his Catholic beliefs influenced his budget plan.

Paul Ryan Gets one well deserved Cold Shoulder for attending MLK Awards at Gateway College..

The title of the YouTube video read, “Al Levie refuses award from Paul Ryan.

Al Levie walked away from Paul Ryan. Levie refused to go along with Ryan's hypocritical side show on stage, after he received the MLK Humanitarian Award.

Al Levie is one of three recipients of Gateway Technical College's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Awards bestowed Monday and made these remarks in his acceptance speech. Levie is a social studies teacher at Horlick High School and is on the state executive board of Voces de la Frontera and the Racine chapter of the NAACP. He is an advisor to the student youth group Youth Empowered in the Struggle.

Here's a part of Levie's speech:

Lincoln saw the rights of workers superseding the rights of capital. He said labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

The struggle for equality is not only a civil rights struggle; it is an economic justice struggle. There is no wealth problem in this country only a distribution problem. Our society needs to reorder its priorities and meet human need instead of fostering individual human greed.

As a recipient of Gateway Technical College's Humanitarian Award, I pledge to redouble my efforts in the struggle for social and economic justice. Concretely, that means fighting to roll back the power of the corporate elite in our society, making the ultra-rich pay their fair share in taxes, fighting for adequate funding for our public schools, restoring collective bargaining for public employees, fair and humane immigration reform, and restoring the voting rights for all people living within our state and country. That is what democracy looks like.

Paul Ryan's "It's not just a budget, it's a cause" is a lousy Christian Value.

The Paul Ryan budgets cuts drew a lot of criticism from religious leaders and citizens, who were stunned by the targeted recipients; the poor and middle class. The "look, our books are balanced" dystopian future has awakened many conservative religious voters as well, who don't like what they're seeing.

The fact that the unemployed, poor and middle class, who didn't get us into this mess, are the ones asked to sacrifice everything now has outraged many Christian followers. They find this agenda antithetical to the teachings of their religion. From Religion & Ethics Newsweekly:

Sister Simone Campbell: "It's so chilly to us to watch what's going on in congress about the budget. It's the very safety net that the current budget fight is targeting. And to me this is wrong, it quite frankly is immoral."

Ryan's response, tax cuts encourage investors to create new jobs:

Sister Simone Campbell: "That's just wrong. The wealthy have recovered to pre-recession levels, are they investing in jobs, no."

Paul Ryan's admiration of Ayn Rand is starting, and only starting, to open the religious communities eyes, even those libertarians and small government conservatives. Her anti-religion message, "I'm against God," "yes, I am the creator," everyone for themselves rugged individualism has called into question the end game envisioned by Ryan. Will it be enough to prevent the private takeover of the America? At this point, it's not looking good.

Ryan's budget abandons pro-life values, ad says

From CNN's Belief Blog:

The pro-life label isn’t just for abortion opponents anymore.

On Wednesday, 70 professors, priests and nuns at Catholic universities criticized House Speaker John Boehner for a legislative record on the poor that was, in their words “among the worst in Congress.” His “anti-life” budget, they wrote, ignores the “most ancient moral teachings” of the Catholic Church on the duty of the powerful to care for the powerless.

A similar scolding is now being meted out to Rep. Paul Ryan, who spearheaded that GOP budget. In a pro-life ad that will greet Ryan as he returns to Wisconsin this weekend for a congressional recess, Father Thomas Kelley of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, blasts Ryan for proposing a budget that “abandons pro-life values.”

“I’m pro-life because God calls us to protect life at all stages,” Kelly says in the ad, which was paid for by a pair of Catholic and evangelical groups, before arguing that the proposed GOP federal budget offers no such protections.

The budget “makes huge, irresponsible cuts hurts families who are struggling to find jobs and put food on the table, but provides big tax breaks for millionaires and large corporations whose profits are soaring,” Kelly says.

“Saying you're pro-life isn't enough,” the ad concludes. “Congressman Ryan, actions speak louder than words."

Read the rest.

Report: House GOP budget would leave 40+ million Americans uninsured

According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute, the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan would leave up to 44 million more low-income people uninsured as the federal government cuts states' Medicaid funding by about one-third over the next 10 years. The study concluded that Medicaid's role as the nation's safety net health care program for low-income individuals and families would be "significantly compromised ... with no obvious alternative to take its place," if the House GOP budget is implemented.

Under the budget plan authored by Rep. Ryan, Medicaid would be converted from an open-ended program in which the federal government pays about 60% of the cost of services into a block grant program that would give each state a fixed sum of money, while also eliminating the right to Medicaid benefits that exists under current federal law.

Originally posted at Blogging Blue.

Paul Ryan: Shooting Star To Flame-Out

A prediction from Jim Rowen of The Political Environment:

Paul Ryan: Shooting Star To Flame-Out

By the end of the federal budget debate, colleagues and voters will have abandoned supposed fiscal wizard Paul Ryan, with the next victims of the Republicans' draconian Medicare/Medicaid program cuts being the reputation of their House leader, John Boehner and their party's chances in November, 2012.

44 million could lose Medicaid coverage under Ryan Plan

PBS NewsHour reports:

A new study released Tuesday by two nonpartisan organizations added new fuel to the debate over debt and spending when the report found that debt reduction proposals by House Republicans lawmakers [Paul Ryan] could leave up to 44 million more low-income and disabled Americans without health insurance. Currently, about 45 million Americans are uninsured.

That Ryan plan just keeps on giving.