Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Paul Ryan, "Conservative"? Who's Kidding Whom?

Generally speaking, Paul Ryan gets kid-glove treatment from the local radioboyzz.  Probably due to the fact that he's a home-boy-made-good, although he's also a nice guy to meet, greet, and chat with.

But characterizing Paul Ryan as a "Conservative" is simply a fail.

Ryan recently proposed a poverty-fighting policy.  The Daily Signal finds that it is rather impoverished.  *cough*

Their plan?

...While the anti-poverty plan released by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., lauds the two-decade old [Gingrich/Clinton] reform, it fails to apply its lessons today....

...Temporary Assistance to Needy Families work requirements should be strengthened to require that two-thirds of nonemployed recipients engage in training, perform community service, or at least search for a job under supervision in exchange for their benefits.  Food stamps should be similarly reformed....

....Developing sound welfare policy requires accurate information. Current government surveys exaggerate poverty and inequality because they dramatically undercount welfare benefits and actual earnings. Out of the $1 trillion in government welfare spending, only about 5 percent is counted as income for purposes of measuring poverty or inequality.

...There is a strong consensus that welfare programs should not penalize marriage, and the Ryan anti-poverty plan concurs but does not provide policy to do so....

...There are $22 billion in fraudulent and erroneous cash payments in the earned income tax credit and additional child tax credit welfare programs. Nearly all of this waste can be eliminated by requiring incomes and identities to be verified before cash payments are made and by limiting eligibility to adults with legal custody of a child....(I wish they were kidding, but then, when can you use "common sense" and "Government" in the same sentence?)

...Most low-income families receive benefits from multiple welfare programs. When these benefits are stacked on top of each other, the cost of the total benefit package can be excessive....

...Illegal immigrants receive over $4 billion per year in cash welfare payments from the additional child tax credit program. This abuse should be stopped by requiring recipients to have lawful Social Security numbers to receive aid....(That will NEVER happen on Ryan's watch, by the way.)

...The Ryan plan speaks for the principle of paying for outcomes but seems to envision this as a new layer of spending added on top of existing spending....

...The Ryan plan argues that states should have more “flexibility” in spending. The federal government pays nearly 90 percent of the costs of cash, food, and housing programs. Federalism does not mean collecting hundreds of billions in taxes at the federal level and dumping the money on state bureaucracies to spend as they will.  Real federalism requires state governments to contribute more of their own resources to state-directed welfare programs....(Yah, but then the Feds could not blackmail States, ya'know.  Won't happen until The Revolution occurs.)

That should give the local newsies/radio talkers something to ask Ryan next time he grip-and-grins them.

Don't hold your breath, though.

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