Republican Ryan cites pope to defend budget cuts
Source: Reuters
Invoking Pope Benedict, Republican Representative Paul Ryan defended his budget plan on Thursday at Georgetown University, where a group of the Jesuit institution's faculty has accused him of misusing Catholic teachings to push cuts to programs that serve the poor.
"The overarching threat to our whole society today is the exploding federal debt," Ryan said, speaking in a Gothic, oak-paneled auditorium on the Georgetown campus.
"The Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has charged that governments, communities, and individuals running up high debt levels are 'living at the expense of future generations' and 'living in untruth.'"
Ryan said the actions of individuals, charities, private institutions and firms should take precedence over government programs - citing a Catholic doctrine known as "subsidiarity".
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-ryan-cites-pope-defend-budget-cuts-212712981.html
What an asshole.
= new reply since forum marked as read
for their own short-sighted, corrupt and self-promoting ideologies and hypocrisies??
Instead...they can ruin everything in the wake for their drive to be re-elected and lining of their campaign pockets by corporations, lobbyists and PACs...then expect that the future generations pay the price. What do they care...they will dead, gone and buried by the time the shit hits the proverbial fan.
Yes, Ryan is right we need to make some very hard decisions now (to fix what they destroyed) that are going to be devisating to many but every single thing should be done to protect anyone who needs the social safety nets (which will need to be bigger given cuts and the hard future) otherwise we will have famine and death to those who are the less fortunate.
Is that what Ryan wants to be remembered for on his death bed..."I squeezed every last penny I could to give to the already-rich more money and millions of people at the bottom suffered".
I am sure "Jesus" will understand. Right?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) today faced further backlash from religious groups after attempting to use Catholic social teaching to justify the House Republican budget. Ryan spoke this morning at Georgetown University in Washington, where he was met by faculty members and religious groups who protested his budget’s drastic cuts to programs that help the poor.
About 90 members of Georgetown’s faculty, including two dozen Jesuit priests, signed a letter telling Ryan that he is “profoundly misreading Church teaching” and that his budget would have “devastating consequences” for poor Americans:
However, we would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has wisely noted in several letters to Congress – “a just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.” Catholic bishops recently wrote that “the House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.”
As ThinkProgress has noted, Ryan’s budget appears to ignore Catholic social teaching, and religious leaders, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have criticized its cuts to programs that help the poor as “unjustified and wrong.” The backlash is similar to what Ryan faced last year, when religious leaders hammered him for adhering more closely to the policies of anti-government, anti-religion author Ayn Rand — who Ryan said inspired him to enter politics — than to the teachings of the church. Before today’s speech, however, Ryan backtracked on his admiration of Rand, saying, “I reject her philosophy.”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/26/471772/georgetown-ryan-budget-protests/
