The Condescension of Representative Ryan

Well, if you are very wealthy, you are for Ryan’s grand plan. Looking at his figures and listening to him and his cohorts speak, clearly, he has total disdain for most of us and believes that we are all very thick-headed indeed to not understand that his social agenda is driving him more than his desire to rein in any deficit. After all, Ryan voted for two wars we could not pay for; he was quite enthusiastic for Bush’s senior drug bill, a massive expenditure that none of the sponsors gave a thought to how it would be paid for, and so it went. In other words, Ryan himself, like the rest of his party, has had no care for the deficit at all until now.

But the problem is that the current Republican focus on the deficit is also a sham in terms of serious deficit-cutting because the game is still to give more to the rich, and have the elderly and the poor pay for it. The fact is that there is no way the deficit could be managed that way even if all the poor and elderly walked out into the sunset, never to return because they will have completely lost their medical care―unless they’re rich, that is.

Taxes on the wealthiest in our country must be raised, and it would be no hardship whatsoever considering that their taxes are at the lowest in memory. If you want to talk about sharing the pain, that would be sharing, and there wouldn’t even be pain. Yes, cutting is needed as well, but a good place to start would be the defense budget, which Secretary Gates has already indicated as a go. But Republicans have never seen a weapon they didn’t like, and are too hesitant to do what could and should be done. There are many areas of government that could be cut without hurting those among us who are in need of help.

The argument that keeping taxes low for the rich creates jobs is a lie that can no longer be used, not after eight years of the lowest taxes in the history of the wealthy and jobs disappearing on a daily basis. Your column is total nonsense. Are you perhaps a lobbyist? You’re certainly an apologist for a group that should be ashamed of itself; Ryan owes this country an apology for showing such condescension toward so many of our citizens.