Victoria Bekiempis — Paul Ryan Is In Love With St. Thomas Aquinas; What Does This Mean?

Since Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as a running mate, many media outlets have pointed out the Wisconsin Rep's interest in Ayn Rand.

And they should -- Ayn Rand's basic schtick is that selfishness is a virtue and as such, the only ethical economic system is pure capitalism. Under Rand, any social safety net is wrong and unjust and for "moochers " and "collectivists;" true moral exemplars are ultra-rich egoists. What's important about Ryan's Rand affiliation, then, is its fiscal implications (and not-so-subtle dislike of the poor.)

Ryan might have realized that aligning himself with a pro-choice atheist might piss off GOP fundamentalists and partially renounced the pop philosopher, saying before VP talk: "If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand."

Of course, this is complete bullshit. He hasn't abandoned his interpretation of Rand's economic policies (see first link.) More importantly, though, there's no way Ryan could read Aquinas -- and adhere to his beliefs -- without lying to himself and/or doing some serious mental gymnastics. And that's because Aquinas would have fucking hated Ryan's capitalism.

Let's get down to business.

The Village Voice | Blogs
Paul Ryan Is In Love With St. Thomas Aquinas; What Does This Mean? (UPDATE)
Victoria Bekiempis

Good analysis. And I do know something about Aquinas. Paul Ryan is no Aquinas.

BTW, the news of Ryan's throwing Rand overboard for Aquinas is all over the news and blogs today. Do I sense a row brewing? I don't think that Ryan can have this both ways.

Moreover, Ryan's glibness is dealing this indicates a lack of political acumen. He is creating more problems for himself than he is resolving. Palin II?

Rep. Paul Ryan Proposes "Universal Credit"

Paul Ryan was out this week with a GOP proposal that could easily be interpreted as a form of a Basic Income Guaranty that Dems should consider as a shot across the bow.  Story at The Fiscal Times here.

Rep. Paul Ryan appeared at the Brookings Institution this week to talk about poverty. 

The Wisconsin Republican and 2012 vice-presidential nominee discussed how the poor could be “reintegrated” into society, and as part of his speech, he proposed that the United States consider adopting a “Universal Credit” scheme that would both streamline the various social safety net payments and tax credits the poor receive and, rather than cutting off abruptly when recipients cross a certain income threshold, would taper off as income rises, thereby reducing the disincentive to finding work .

To be clear, Ryan has not suddenly changed his mind about the need to cut entitlement costs. He firmly believes that the U.S. is spending itself into economic oblivion and that the main drivers of the problem are our healthcare and entitlement programs. What’s happening here is that Ryan, having taken a couple of runs at entitlement reform, with no success, is changing his approach. 

Ryan cited work done by economist Gene Steuerle, who has pointed out that current policies that abruptly strip recipients of their government benefits when they find work or reach a certain level of income, have the same effect as drastically raising their marginal tax rates and create disincentives to work. 

“According to Steuerle’s calculations, if she’s enrolled in programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and SCHIP, her implicit marginal tax rate will be as high as 55 percent,” Ryan said. “And if she’s enrolled in other programs—like housing assistance and welfare—the rate will reach above 80 percent. In other words, go to work, and you’ll keep less than 20 cents of every extra dollar you earn.”

Sort of like a "supply-side" twist to a Basic Income Guaranty with Ryan doing the math to show how small a percentage of the transfers are effectively retained if someone becomes employed; you gotta love it.  I guess this is just the general way these people's brains work.

The key change to the GOP/Ryan approach here is that the Treasury transfer payments don't disappear when the recipients get a job; rather they are reduced as other "earned" so-called income increases; in effect, functioning as a Basic Income Guaranty for the individuals and households.

The article indicates that this part of the GOP leadership still remains stupid and blind and in the dark on fiscal authority; but even so, this is manifestly a change of course towards a more progressive policy taken by the Ryan faction here.

If Ryan has serious desire for national office, this change of course was absolutely necessary for him.

He takes some flack from the GOP crazies faction in the form of Sen. Rubio chronicled in a video embedded in the story; but Rubio has NO CHANCE of obtaining national office without an appeal that is accepted by a significant percentage of Christendom in the U.S. who vote primarily on the issue of social-economic justice.

After the 2012 loss, Ryan perhaps knows he needs significant votes from this cohort of U.S. Christendom (who were run off by Romney's "47%" remarks despite VEEP candidate Ryan's attempt to counter via his soup kitchen high jinks) and has come up with a policy that may appeal enough to these people to get him over the top... and in his moron view it has the added benefit that it "won't cost the taxpayers any more money!".

Win-win for someone like Ryan.

Progressive Wyden joins conservative Ryan to "save money" by ending Medicare guarantee

Ignorance affects both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) are joining forces to reform Medicare in a way that both say will save the social safety net.

The plan (PDF), set to be officially unveiled at the Bipartisan Policy Center Thursday, would give seniors the option of choosing between new private insurance programs and a form of traditional Medicare.

Like the plan Ryan introduced earlier this year, this new proposal would still provide seniors with a set amount of money in the form of vouchers, but it’s more generous than Ryan had proposed because “premium support” would fluctuate with the actual costs of health care.

The bipartisan-duo is proposing an annual growth rate based on nominal gross domestic product plus 1 percent instead of basing it on the cost of inflation as Ryan originally wanted, something that would not have kept up with skyrocketing health care costs.

Beginning is 2022, seniors would be forced to use their vouchers to buy coverage through a Medicare “exchange” — which would also include private insurance plans. Unlike Ryan’s plan, private companies would have to agree to offer plans at least as comprehensive as Medicare, and they would have to agree to cover any senior regardless of medical history.

Seniors would be responsible for paying out of pocket for any costs above any beyond the voucher.

Read the rest at Raw Story

Wyden, Ryan team up to overhaul Medicare

by David Edwards

Affordability is never an issue for a currency sovereign that is the monopoly provider of a non-convertible floating rate currency of issue. The only issue is the availability of real resources in relation to effective demand. The objective is not to limit access to existing resource or fail to create enough future resource to meet demand, but to match existing and future resource with effective demand.

Price is not the way to ration health care in order to control costs. This undermines effectiveness in providing care, the purpose of the health care system. The way to control costs while providing optimal care is by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the system rather than starving it of money.

Make no mistake. This ends the Medicare guaranteed benefit as its exists, effectively killing Medicare as we know it. Medicare as we know it is one of the most successful and popular government programs. "Lack of affordability" is not a sufficient reason, because affordability is a bogus issue.

UPDATE: Jason Links comments at The Huffington Post
Ryan-Wyden Medicare Plan: Great Political Trap, Dubious Policy

Anyone who thought that the 2012 election battle over health care would be a simple matter between President Barack Obama and a candidate who wants to privatize Medicare and "repeal Obamacare" is waking up to new complications today, as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are teaming up on a new Medicare reform plan that has both men pitching and yawing leftward and rightward from their previous positions.As Brian Beutler and Benjy Sarlin put it, this plan is going to "turn the fight over Medicare on its head." It could also alter the competitive dynamics of the 2012 race in significant ways. Will the plan improve the lives of ordinary Americans, though? That's debatable.

Ryan and Wyden rolled out their idea in an interview with Lori Montgomery in the Washington Post, and the conventional way of looking at the matter is that Wyden is willing to embrace health care subsidies in the form of "premium support," while Ryan is now open to "maintaining the current Medicare system." Ryan also makes a significant concession -- the Medicare subsidy would be tied to the ebb and flow of health care costs instead of inflation. Ryan's previous plan did the opposite, which is what made it a joke: health care costs have risen ahead of inflation, which meant the subsidy he offered would likely get less and less valuable over time, until it was no help at all. The essence of Ryan's previous Medicare plan was that he'd save the government money by ceasing to spend it altogether, while pretending otherwise. Under Ryan-Wyden, those "premium support" vouchers are more valuable, but you also don't affect the budget bottom line as significantly.

What you do get from this plan, however, is an influx of taxpayer cash headed in the direction of private insurers.... [Emphasis added]

Private insurance introduces significant inefficiency into the the US health care system in the form of added administrative costs and rent extraction.

...So, we have a policy whose benefits on the American public are, at best, dubious -- from the pair's admission that it will have a limited budget, to the fact that it will weaken Medicare's bargaining power, to the real concern that it will toss seniors into uncertain consumer waters. In short, it looks pointless....

What we do have is greater wealth extraction in the from of economic rent, and a worse deal for seniors than they have presently — all in the name of "saving money." What is actually involves is moving money from government transfers to private coffers, while lowering effectiveness and efficiency, as Links goes no to show in his post.

So far, the president gets it. But will he cave under Beltway pressure as the campaign heats up, Links asks?

 White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer says: "We are concerned that Wyden-Ryan, like Congressman Ryan’s earlier proposal, would undermine, rather than strengthen, Medicare ... The Wyden-Ryan scheme could, over time, cause the traditional Medicare program to 'wither on the vine' because it would raise premiums, forcing many seniors to leave traditional Medicare and join private plans. And it would shift costs from the government to seniors. At the end of the day, this plan would end Medicare as we know it for millions of seniors. Wyden-Ryan is the wrong way to reform Medicare."

National Review Spins for Rep. Paul Ryan

NRO (CAUTION: Extremely disturbing image of Rand at the top of this NRO page) out at 4:00 am this morning with some early spin on behalf of Rep. Paul Ryan, in advance of his speech to be given at Georgetown U. this morning, wrt his views on the atheist Ayn Rand and how her deranged and disgraceful philosophy has influenced him.  From the NRO:

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, recently called Ryan “an Ayn Rand devotee” who wants to “slash benefits for the poor.” New York magazine once alleged that Ryan “requires staffers to read Atlas Shrugged,” Rand’s gospel of capitalism. President Obama has blasted the Ryan budget as Republican “social Darwinism.”

These Rand-related slams, Ryan says, are inaccurate and part of an effort on the left to paint him as a cold-hearted Objectivist. Ryan’s actual philosophy, as reported by my colleague, Brian Bolduc, couldn’t be further from the caricature. As a practicing Roman Catholic, Ryan says, his faith and moral values shape his politics as much as his belief in freedom and capitalism does.

Here is a video that although it includes only some quotations from others, at the end it includes actual video of Ryan speaking about his view of Rand's philosophy:




We report, you decide. ;)

From Ryan's namesake:  "Beware that no one shall be despoiling you through philosophy and empty seduction, in accord with human tradition, in accord with the elements of the world, and not in accord with Christ"  Col 2:8

Hey Paul, please just read the Scriptures brother.

Hey, Paul Ryan...we can't run out of money!

Hey, Paul Ryan...we can't run out of money. Dollars are created when the government spends and that's the only way they can be created, so there's no risk of not being able to "pay" for entitlements.

That's point number one.

Point number two is that Medicare is eminently sustainable so long as we have the real assets (hospitals, doctors, nurses, technicians, medicine, etc) for people to consume. The only possible way that Medicare could not be sustained is if these assets were unavailable for some reason and that is not the case. And by the way, Alan Greenspan schooled you on this a while back.

Paul Ryan will never wake up to these facts. He's a blind, ideologue. He's a little boy who read a book a long time ago and now has the crazy beliefs of that book deeply embedded in his mind.

The sad part is that the people of this country beleive him. They believe him because they have been brainwashed into believing all that hogwash about running out of money and "not being able to afford" Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These have been some of the most succesful social programs this country has ever seen and millions of Americans have been kept out of poverty thanks to them. Yet despite this, Ryan and the GOP want to do away with them for reasons that are both ideological and irrational.

The powers that be love Ryan. He's their handome and "brilliant" messenger. But when we have millions of sick and homeless, then and only then will we will feel the REAL cost to society. It will be a burden that dwarfs any purported burden we face now.

In Paul Ryan the GOP have chosen a plan, but is it a plan whose ultimate consequences they truly understand?

Brett Logiurato — Paul Ryan Writes An Op-Ed On 'Ending The Stalemate' In Congress, And It Doesn't Once Mention Obamacare

Rep. Paul Ryan has a must-read op-ed in the Wall Street Journal tonight on ending the fiscal impasse in Washington.

It's perhaps more notable for what it doesn't once mention — Obamacare — as what it eventually proposes. That omission seemed to ignite the ire of conservatives Tuesday night. 

The key proposition in Ryan's op-ed, though, is a trade of entitlement reform for repeal of the sequester cuts. 

From the op-ed:

"For my Democratic colleagues, the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act are a major concern. And the truth is, there's a better way to cut spending. We could provide relief from the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act in exchange for structural reforms to entitlement programs."

Ryan also proposes a few ideas for entitlement reform — making wealthier Americans pay higher premiums for Medicare, reforming "Medigap" (Medicare supplement) plans to "encourage efficiency" and reduce costs, and asking federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement.

Ryan's entry into the current debate is significant — until now, the former Republican vice presidential nominee had been almost entirely silent....

Because of that clear omission, Ryan's op-ed was immediately slammed by conservative groups that have led the "defund" charge. 

Business Insider

Paul Ryan Writes An Op-Ed On 'Ending The Stalemate' In Congress, And It Doesn't Once Mention Obamacare

Brett Logiurato

Uh oh. Look out. Here's comes the Grand Bargain.

Obama wants Paul Ryan as Speaker

In case you had any doubts that Obama was a fiscal hawk, a true fiscal conservative, who has done more to harm working people and the Middle Class than anyone before him (maybe with the exception of Bill Clinton, but he's close), then just look at who that backstabbing traitor in the White House wants as Speaker of the House. None other than Ayn Rand poster boy, Paul Ryan.

“The White House would like that idea,” Allen said during an interview with Laura Ingraham on her radio show today. “Because they would like one more win … what they’ve always told me is that they admire Paul Ryan for being a substantive, smart guy.

Yeah...right...a substantive, smart, guy. He thinks the government ran out of dollars.

Ryan, of course, is for cutting Social Security, ending Medicare and turning it into a voucher program and cutting taxes for the wealthy.

Obama never ceases to amaze how far to the right he can go and how deeply tied to the interests of the wealthy and big corporate he really is.

Paul Rosenberg — From Nixon to Paul Ryan: How right-wing radicals deceive America

By shifting the spectrum of debate, here's how America's rightward march has been normalized throughout history

From Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich to Bush to Paul Ryan and Chris Christie today, leaders who’ve shifted America to the right have been aided by moderating misrepresentations. In the case of Reagan, it was not just the man, but conservatism itself that received the flattering reinterpretation. That was a difference that mattered; it goes to the heart of why Reagan is the American right’s touchstone. But the more general process of misrepresenting and reinterpreting increasingly radical ideological figures as if they were normal, everyday pragmatic problem-solvers is one that’s been a repeated leitmotif in America’s political trajectory since Richard Nixon’s political resurrection in 1968.

As Elias Isquith wrote here after Christie’s reelection, Christie is not the next great moderate hope, he’s just very good at executing what Blake Zeff identified as the GOP’s blue-state playbook, breaking with red-state conservative orthodoxy on a few secondary issues. But it takes more than a column or two to expose the emperor’s new clothes. For the moment, George Washington Bridgegate notwithstanding, Christie remains the GOP’s best hope of winning the White House in 2016, largely because he’s so good at the game that Isquith pointed out, orchestrating his own misrepresentation as a mainstream political figure. What’s more, battling against 2016 GOP rivals will only make it more difficult and more important to see beyond the illusions to what Christie is actually doing. That’s why is helps to look backward to similar figures in the past, and how they managed to so successfully deceive. And it’s not just Christie. Paul Ryan’s role in shaping GOP budget politics — and all the attendant economic fantasizing — provides another key reason why we need a far better grasp of the process of normalizing reactionary radicalism. 

Salon
From Nixon to Paul Ryan: How right-wing radicals deceive America

Paul Rosenberg

Adele M. Stan — Paul Ryan Called for Ending Social Security in Speech to Ayn Rand Fans

Ryan called Romney "inarticulate" for characterizing 47 percent of Americans as moochers. How would Ryan say it better? They're "collectivists."

AlterNet
Paul Ryan Called for Ending Social Security in Speech to Ayn Rand Fans
Adele M. Stan

Revealing. This really is a stealth campaign designed to fool the majority of voters about the hidden agenda of Romney and Ryan on behalf of the extreme rightwing. This is John Birch Society stuff. And Paul Ryan is the Koch candidate being groomed for the top office.

Romney-Ryan foreign policy cred —or not? McCain-Feingold

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was one of the Senate's leading voices on foreign policy while in office, opposing the Iraq War and calling for a withdrawal from Afghanistan long before it became popular to do so. He served on the Foreign Relations Committee and had an extensive foreign policy agenda. And now that Mitt Romney has selected Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate, he's concerned with the lack of foreign policy readiness on the GOP presidential ticket.

"The Romney-Ryan ticket is extremely weak when it comes to foreign policy," Feingold said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "These guys do not have a serious view or background in what's going on in the rest of the world. This is extremely important in a president and vice president."
Romney's top surrogates have been rushing to defend the ticket's foreign policy chops.

On Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another foreign policy heavyweight in the Senate, compared Romney's experience to Ronald Reagan's and criticized President Barack Obama's international agenda. Still, he had trouble coming up with foreign policy accomplishments for Ryan, simply noting that his budget policies would prevent deep cuts to the Pentagon under budget sequestration.

"I think that Mitt Romney understands our nation's challenges," McCain said on "Fox News Sunday." "He's proven that by the proposals that he's put forward, his understanding of the importance of our relationship with Israel -- which has hardly ever been worse -- his understanding of American exceptionalism, which President Obama has abandoned."

The Huffington Post
Russ Feingold: Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan 'Don't Seem To Care' About Foreign Policy
Amanda Terkel

Related to this is whether Paul Ryan is ready to step up to the presidency on day one if need be, which is the only actual job qualification for a vice-president.

Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), when faced with a letter of condemnation by 90 Catholic faculty members at Georgetown University, has abruptly decided to back away from his famous endorsement of the works of controversial author Ayn Rand and her philosophy of “Objectivism.”  The congressman, who is scheduled to speak at the Catholic university today, is now emphasizing Christian philosophers and the writings of Pope Benedict XVI as the true exemplars of his world view over Russian émigré and atheist Rand.

A National Review profile from early Thursday said, “‘I reject her philosophy,’ Ryan says firmly. ‘It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,’ who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. ‘Don’t give me Ayn Rand,’ he says.”Ryan, said the Review, is actually “a practicing Roman Catholic” and that “his faith and moral values shape his politics as much as his belief in freedom and capitalism does.”

Ryan went so far as to decry his affinity for the book Atlas Shrugged and its author as an “urban legend,” and cites it as proof that he’s “arrived in politics” that a false story is out there circulating about him.  He says the association of his name to Rand and her brand of capitalism-as-religion is “inaccurate” and “part of an effort on the left to paint him as a cold-hearted Objectivist.”

Pardon me while I laugh. (ROFL)

Read it at Raw Story
Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism

by David Ferguson | editor at Raw Story

The crack in the dike?

Paul Ryan is relatively unknown to US public

Not surprisingly, Paul Ryan is unknown to the US public, let alone the details of his plan. The race is now on between the GOP and the Democrats to define him.

Americans have been polled on the Ryan Plan without naming it.

At about the same time, a national USA Today/Gallup poll of Republicans found that just over two thirds (68 percent) said they did not know enough about Ryan's proposal to have an opinion on it. Most Republicans with an opinion (24 percent) favored the plan, while 8 percent opposed it.
However, some media pollsters asked about the substance of the plan and found net negative reactions among those willing to venture an opinion. In June 2011, for example, a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll posed the following question to Americans:
There is currently a proposal to change how Medicare would work so seniors being enrolled in the program ten years from now would be given a guaranteed payment called a voucher from the federal government to purchase a Medicare approved coverage plan from a private health insurance company. Do you think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or do you not know enough about this to have an opinion at this time?
Although nearly half said they had no opinion or were unsure (47 percent), more considered it a bad idea (31 percent) than a good one (22 percent).
Similarly, a CNN/ORC International poll conducted in May 2011 found that 58 percent of Americans opposed "the Republicans' plan to change Medicare" based on what they had heard or read, while just 35 percent said they supported it and 7 percent were unsure. Given the lack of familiarity gauged by other polls, the CNN result likely says more about suspicion of congressional Republicans on Medicare than awareness of the bill itself (the previous question on the same survey found that 48 percent preferred President Obama's approach to Medicare to 39 percent who preferred the approach of the Republicans in Congress).

But as favorable to the Democrats as this seems, it is far from cut and dried, as the rest of the post shows. Finally there is credibility.

A bigger challenge for Democrats may be how to make these arguments believable to true swing voters. Last month, The New York Times reported on a set of focus groupsconducted in late 2011 by the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, in which participants were informed that "Romney supported the Ryan budget plan — and thus championed 'ending Medicare as we know it' — while also advocating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." According to the Times report, the attacks had little impact. The participants "simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."

The Huffington Post
Paul Ryan Is Still Unknown, Has Vulnerable Budget Plan, Polls Show
Mark Blumenthal

Ryan Lizza — How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.

Interesting in-depth article about Paul Ryan, the Ryan Plan, and the future of the GOP.

The New Yorker
How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.
by Ryan Lizza

Buchanan: Who promoted Private Ryan?

Irish brawl; Pat takes a club to Ryan and throws in some interesting GOP history.

Who made Ryan keeper of the keys of true Republicanism? 

Trump “inherits something … that’s very special to a lot of us,” said Ryan, “the party of Lincoln and Reagan and Jack Kemp.” 

But Trump did not “inherit” anything. He won the nomination of the Republican Party in an epic battle in the most wide-open race ever, in which Trump generated the largest turnout and greatest vote totals in the history of Republican primaries. 

What is Ryan up to? He is pandering to the Trump-hating Beltway media and claiming the leadership of a Republican establishment routed and repudiated in the primaries, 

The hubris here astonishes. A Republican establishment that has been beaten as badly as Carthage in the Third Punic War is now making demands on Scipio Africanus and the victorious Romans. This is difficult to absorb. 

Someone should instruct Paul Ryan that losers do not make demands. They make requests. They make pleas. 

Trump cannot allow the establishment to claw back in the cloakrooms of Capitol Hill what he won on a political battlefield. He cannot allow a discredited establishment to dictate the issues he may run on. That would be a betrayal of the troops who brought Trump victory after victory in the primaries. 

To longtime students of politics, there is rarely anything new under the sun. And there is precedent for the shakedown Ryan and his Beltway collaborators are trying to do to Trump. Paul Ryan is the Nelson Rockefeller of his generation. 

In 1960, Gov. Rockefeller refused to challenge Vice President Nixon in the primaries. When Nixon went to Rockefeller’s New York apartment to persuade him to join the ticket, Rocky refused, but demanded concessions in the platform, to which Nixon acceded. 

The Chicago convention, a Nixon convention, believed itself betrayed by the “Pact of Fifth Avenue.” 

Only the appearance of Sen. Barry Goldwater at the podium to tell conservatives to “grow up. We can take this party back,” halted a suicidal drive to take the nomination away from Nixon.

Who promoted Private Ryan? https://t.co/BAEc1WdJqa via @worldnetdaily. Right on Pat! As usual Buchanon is spot on.

— Sarina Forbes (@Sarina4Senate) May 10, 2016

Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and Thomas Aquinas = Exploding Heads

Following up on Paul Ryan's recent repudiation of Ayn Rand and embrace of Thomas Aquinas, Mike Kimel point us to a couple of arguments Aquinas mounts in the Summa Theologica — one against interest, which is also prohibited in Islam, and the other to the effect that the purpose of wealth is to provide aid to the poor. Aquinas also asserts that it is no sin to appropriate the private property of others for survival, if society doesn't provide the means of subsistence.

Interestingly, both Ayn Rand and Thomas Aquinas professed to be followers  of Aristotle in asserting the reason is the defining characteristic of human nature. The assumption that humans are "rational animals" also underlies REH. However, Ayn Rand and those subscribing to REH hold that rationality   equates with individual pursuit of maximum utility economically. Aquinas could not disagree more. He holds that rationality and faith are compatible rather than mutually exclusive, as Rand thought.

The views of Aquinas that Kimel mentions stand in stark contrast to the foundational assumptions of modern capitalism, especially neoliberal economics. However, in the mind of Aquinas he was just providing a solid rational basis for the teaching of the gospels, which is a matter of faith, showing the compatibility of faith and reason.

Jesus was much more direct,however, and cut to the chase:

"...but seek ye first the reign of God and His righteousness, and all these shall be added to you." Matthew 6:33 (Young's Literal Translation)

"...Verily I say to you, inasmuch as ye did it to one of these my brethren — the least — to me ye did it." Matthew 25:40 (Young's Literal Translation)

"Treasure not up to yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust disfigure, and where thieves break through and steal, but treasure up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth disfigure, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where your treasure is, there will be also your heart." Matthew 6:19-21 (Young's Literal Translation)

"... 'If thou dost will to be perfect, go away, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.'" Matthew 19:21 (Young's Literal Translation)

These are called "hard sayings." Many either ignore them or else reinterpret them to suit themselves. But the meaning is abundantly clear, and the message is incompatible with what Paul Ryan represents.

The entire Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes (Matthew, chapters 5-7) are considered by most Christians to be the formula for discipleship, and scholars, who often argue over the authenticity of sayings attributed to Jesus, are in general agreement that the Sermon on the Mount represents authentic sayings of Jesus, probably very close to the words he uttered on the occasion. So there should be no dispute over this.

Read it at Angry Bear
Ayn Rand v. Thomas Aquinas in Paul Ryan's Mind

by Mike Kimel

Mike the Mad Biologist — Republican Rep. Paul Ryan Wants to Create Massive Government Bureaucracy

Essentially, what Paul Ryan wants to do is create a government bureaucracy to monitor these ‘contracts’ (or, maybe monitor the Social Contract?). Conservatives have spent the last forty years railing against this very thing. Of course, people will disagree about whether they hit these ‘benchmarks’, so we’ll need to hire people to adjudicate that process. More ‘big government.’ It also opens people up to the predations and whims of ‘petty government bureaucrats.’

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan Wants to Create Massive Government Bureaucracy

Mike the Mad Biologist

(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)

What Mike the Mad Biologist overlooks is what's in the back of Paul Ryan's mind. He clearly has no intention of creating a new government bureaucracy, which is against everything he stands for. What he wants would be a quasi-judicial system, privatized and run by business to discipline workers and teach them how to work.

Sam Stein — Mitt Romney: Paul Ryan Budget Is Not His, Candidate 'Putting Together His Own'

Within minutes of tapping Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney was distancing himself from the congressman's controversial budget, which includes steep cuts to government programs and changing Medicare into a voucher-like program.

The Romney campaign sent out talking points on Saturday that made the case that he was his own man on matters of Medicare and Social Security and that he wouldn't be tied to a document he insisted he'd sign into law and once called "marvelous."

The Huffington Post
Mitt Romney: Paul Ryan Budget Is Not His, Candidate 'Putting Together His Own'
Sam Stein

Most popular Twitter comment: Romney Ryan have best hair. Maybe voters won't notice the Ryan Plan for them.

Scott Wong — Paul Ryan: FBI playing politics with Clinton

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) took a swipe at the FBI on Tuesday, accusing agency officials of acting like “political operators” after they released an unflattering Hillary Clinton report right before the three-day holiday weekend.

“It’s like the most buried time you could put out stories. I’m surprised. I mean, I can’t believe they would do what is such a patently political move. It makes them look like political operators versus law enforcement officers,” Ryan said in a radio interview with WRJN in Wisconsin.

“The fact that they chose the Friday before Labor Day to put all this out there mystifies me as to why they thought that was a smart thing to do,” he added.I don't agree with Paul Ryan on much, but he is right on this.

Since SCOTUS threw the 2000 election to G. W. Bush, the US justice system has been steadily losing credibility. It's bipartisan. Not that were weren't serious issues before that.

The Hill
Ryan: FBI playing politics with Clinton

Scott Wong

Ezra Klein — "Why did the GOP turn against stimulus?"

...It has become common for Republicans to deride the very concept of stimulus as absurd, to mock Keynesian economics as an ivory-tower fantasy, and to oppose temporary tax cuts as a recession-fighting measure. But during the Bush administration? All that was orthodox conservative policy.

In 2001, Grover Norquist called a national sales-tax holiday “exactly the kind of immediate stimulus our shell-shocked economy needs now.” Norquist went on to quote George W. Bush’s chief economist, Glenn Hubbard, saying we needed stimulus “sooner rather than later.” Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced a bill to that effect.

Around the same time, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) held a hearing in which he invited Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist based at the American Enterprise Institute, to make the case for a fiscal stimulus. “The economists who studied this were quite surprised to find that fiscal policy in recessions was reasonably effective,” Hassett testified. “It is just that folks tried a first punch that was too light and that generally we didn’t get big measures until well into the recession.”

Ryan was delighted by his answer. “That is precisely my point,” he replied. “That is why I like my porridge hot. I think we ought to have this income tax cut fast, deeper, retroactive to January 1st, to make sure we get a good punch into the economy, juice the economy to make sure that we can avoid a hard landing.”

So not only was it non-controversial that deficit-financed stimulus spending was an effective and desirable way to fight economic downturns, but it was taken as obvious by Paul Ryan — Paul Ryan! — that the big danger was that you did too little. Now, of course, Ryan takes the initial stimulus’s inability to fully combat the recession as evidence of the policy’s failure, even though we now know the recession was deep enough that standard calculations — the sort of calculations Hassett was referring to in his testimony — would have argued for a stimulus of more than $2 trillion.

Read the whole thing at The Washington Post, Why did the GOP turn against stimulus?

Nuns with guns

Nuns who have been critical of a budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) that would defund many social programs in favor of tax cuts wrapped up their nine-state tour in Washington, D.C. on Monday with an interfaith event at the United Methodist Building near the Capitol.

“Paul Ryan has claimed to be a faithful Catholic, and I have no reason to suspect that that isn’t accurate, “Sister Mary Ellen Lacy Daughter, a lobbyist at Catholic social justice lobbying group NETWORK, told Raw Story. “What we do know, and what the bishops agree with us on, is that the document, the budget that he wrote, is not a moral document. It is not a faithful budget. It is not consistent with the Catholic social teachings. He may claim one thing, but it is clearly in opposition to what we believe.”

“The reality is we should be voting for people who espouse our values, not necessarily voting for your religion,” Daughter said. “What we can judge is the product of what they put out, and Ryan put out a budget that decimates programs that provide for people’s futures.”

Read it at Raw Story
Social justice nun: Ryan’s budget is ‘not a moral document’

by Kay Steiger

Paul Ryan may have a problem here. Nuns on his back.