Ryan made his reputation demonizing poor people. His most popular metaphor was the anti-poverty programs had failed because instead of being a safety net they'd become a "hammock," robbing people of their self-esteem and initiative.
Not surprisingly, he sought to slash programs that help low-income families and children. In 2013, from his perch on the House budget committee, he came out in favor of $20 billion in cuts that would have thrown an estimated two million children, elderly, and disabled Americans off food stamps. He pushed an amendment to eliminate food stamps for people who have $2,000 in savings, or a car worth more than $5,000. The CBO found that this would have thrown 1.8 million people off of the program. The Hill reported:
"Most of these would be low-income seniors and working families with children. These families typically live paycheck to paycheck. Denying them the ability to save for emergencies, such as fixing a car, or unexpected expenses, such as buying a uniform for a new job, only makes them more dependent on government resources, not less."
The mainstream media routinely give Ryan credit for being a serious budget guru and social policy expert. In 2014 when he released a 205-page report on the history of anti-poverty programs, going back a half century to President Johnson's Great Society programs, which concluded that they had failed. The report examined eight types of federal anti-poverty programs: food aid, social services, housing, cash aid, education and job training, energy, health care, and veterans affairs.
Ryan claimed that federal programs contributed to the nation's high poverty rate and created a "poverty trap." The report noted, "Federal programs are not only failing to address the problem. They are also in some significant respects making it worse." The report was filled with lies and misinformation, all meant to justify Ryan's proposed budget to slash anti-poverty programs like food stamps, family assistance, college aid, child care subsidies, and housing vouchers. Ryan, who also opposed extending unemployment insurance to the long-term jobless and raising the minimum wage, claimed that social science findings support his view that these programs have failed.
Ryan's report generated lots of attention in the mainstream media, including headlines like "Paul Ryan Critiques War on Poverty in New Report" (TIME) and "Paul Ryan Sees $799 Billion War on Poverty Failing Poor" (Bloomberg News). But few reporters bothered to contact any social science experts who might have explained that Ryan's report was full of holes. For all its footnotes, the report got it wrong, mostly by misquoting and misinterpreting studies that examine the impact of a wide variety of anti-poverty programs.
To cite just one example: Ryan's report cited a study published by Columbia University's Population Research Center measuring poverty trends since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s. Columbia Professor Jane Waldfogel and her colleagues looked at an alternative measure of the poverty rate known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which factors in government benefits like food stamps and programs like the earned-income tax credit. They found that the poverty rate fell from 26 percent in 1967 to 15 percent in 2012. But Ryan only cited data from 1969 onward, ignoring a full 36 percent of the decline.
"It's technically correct, but it's an odd way to cite the research," Waldfogel told Fiscal Times. "In my experience, usually you use all of the available data. There's no justification given. It's unfortunate because it really understates the progress we've made in reducing poverty."
It wouldn't have been difficult for reporters to find out that Ryan's study was bogus. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report, "Ryan Report Distorts Safety Net's Picture," revealing that Ryan's report was "replete with misleading and selective presentations of data and research, which it uses to portray the safety net in a negative light. It also omits key research and data that point in more positive directions."
Although mainstream media reporters were slow to expose Ryan's sham report, some reporters like Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer, New York's Jonathan Chait, the Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzik, Fiscal Times' Rob Garver, and The Wire's Philip Bump, did due diligence on Ryan's handiwork and called the congressman out. New York Times columnist (and Nobel Prize-winning economist) Paul Krugman also weighed in with "The Real Poverty Trap." Rather than call the Wisconsin Congressman a liar, Krugman was gentler, pointing out that social science research "doesn't actually support [his] claims."
Since he began his political career as a prote'ge' of conservative Congressman Jack Kemp, Ryan has been an extreme right-winger. On issues from taxes, abortion, gun control, and immigration, to campaign finance, workers' rights, business regulation, Social Security, and health care, he's been in lockstep with the conservative wing of the business establishment (like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he views any government regulation to protect consumers, workers and the environment as a "job killer"), the NRA, the Tea Party, and the religious right.
These groups now dominate a GOP that no longer has room for diverse viewpoints. For most of the 20th century, the GOP included business-oriented conservatives like Calvin Coolidge and Robert Taft and progressives like Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and Fiorello La Guardia who challenged the power of big business and promoted consumer and worker rights. Up through the 1970s, there were still "liberal Republicans," in the mold of Senators Jacob Javits, Charles Percy, Prescott Bush, and Mark Hatfield, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller; and even Michigan Governor George Romney, Mitt's dad.
Today "liberal Republican" is an extinct species, Political scientists Keith Poole of the University of Georgia and Howard Rosenthal of New York University have charted this shift in terms of voting trends in Congress. The influence of big business, well-organized right-wing funders (like the Koch Brothers and Mercers), think tanks and foundations, the rise of the Tea Party, the ascendancy of right-wing media like Fox News and radio talk shows like Rush Limbaugh, and the gerrymandering of congressional districts to promote "safe" GOP seats propelled the party even further to the right.
Paul Ryan's career has reflected these shifts within the Republican Party. His resignation now shows that Republicans in the Trump era are fighting a losing battle for Americans' hearts and minds.
*Portions of this article appeared in Huffington Post in 2016.
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