Not only is Paul Ryan’s voting record as extreme as Michelle Bachmann according to a study by nonpartisan Voteview.com, Nate Silver also points out that his voting record is even more extreme than Dick Cheney when he was in Congress.  If you love conservatism … this is your guy.  From co-sponsoring the Republican plan to privatize Social Security to trying to turn Medicare into a voucher plan for future seniors … this guy is dedicated to ensuring every senior is poor and destitute in this country if that is what it takes to pay for more tax cuts for the rich.

Can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs right?  Well the rich want like 250 million omelets.  Economically molesting and pillaging makes a person hungry.

Voteview.com focuses on party polarization and ranks members of Congress on their conservative/liberal records.  In this case – Paul Ryan ranked 373 out of 436 in terms of being the most conservative; Michelle Bachmann was ranked 377th most conservative.  You can find that ranking HERE.

Nate Silver at 538 runs the numbers versus historical standards and this is what he writes HERE:

By this measure, in fact, which rates members of the House and Senate throughout different time periods on a common ideology scale, Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900. He is also more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center.

Ezra Klein gives a great run down in a must read piece on various pieces of legislation that Paul Ryan has proposed during his time in Congress.  Remember that time that Bush tried to privatize Social Security after his 2nd term?  Yeah – Paul Ryan was one of two people to sponsor that bill.

You can read that must read HERE; an excerpt:

Ryan’s Social Security privatization proposal,  the Social Security Personal Savings Guarantee and Prosperity Act of 2005, which he sponsored along with then-Sen. John Sununu (whose father has been a prominent Romney surrogate), would have allowed workers to funnel an average of 6.4 percent of their 12.4 percent payroll-tax contribution to a private account [...] At retirement, all participants in the plan would be required to buy an annuity.

The Social Security Administration concluded that the Ryan-Sununu plan would require huge increases in general budget revenue to make up the shortfall left in payroll tax revenue. Specifically, revenue would have to increase by 1.5 percent of GDP every year, an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found, or about $225 billion at current GDP. That’s a big honking tax hike. What’s more, under the plan, investments in the stock and bond markets would skyrocket such that by 2050, every single stock or bond in the United States would be owned by a Social Security account. This would mean that the portfolio managers at the Social Security Administration would more or less control the entire means of production in the United States.

So as Ezra points out – not only would the Ryan plan to privatize Social Security require a hidden tax increase on working families ONLY (it doesn’t affect people who make their money through capital gains) … it would REQUIRE the Social Security Trustees to invest in the stock market thus propping up and increasing the value of every stock in the market.  Considering the fact that 57% of all capital gains are owned by the top 1% … I think it’s safe to say that this would be a tremendous boon for America’s wealthiest.  It is a hidden transfer of wealth essentially.  And it should scare you that this guy is a VP candidate.

Unlike someone like Sarah Palin – Paul Ryan is actually a smart guy.  And while he has a veneer of moderation on the outside … his voting record speaks for itself.  When you put him next to Michelle Bachmann in front of a camera – he looks like a moderate; when you look at his voting record – he just looks like her congressional twin.

He wants to make dividends for corporations tax deductible.  And he wants to lower capital gains rates on dividends. Of course – you know who gets most of the dividends that corporations pay out?  Really rich people.  So his plan lowers the tax burden for corporations already paying less and it pays out more money to the rich.  Seems legit.

Presently – the Federal Reserve has a dual mandate … keep low inflation and help reduce unemployment.  They really ignore the 2nd one …. but its there.  Well – Paul Ryan wants to eliminate the requirement for the Federal Reserve to reduce unemployment.  That says volumes about his priorities and yes … the Federal Reserve can do a LOT of things to reduce unemployment but it would come at the expense of people sitting on lots of cash.  The cash hoarders don’t really care about unemployment until the stock market starts crashing.  Other than that – they would LOVE deflation.  If you don’t know why – you need to read more economics.

He actually proposed a bill to require any budget surpluses to be directed towards tax cuts instead of addressing any national deficit.  Like I said – Ezra’s article is a must read.

And he doesn’t believe climate change is real; Think Progress has the details on that HERE.  I guess all of those scientists around the world are just in on the scam.

Planned Parenthood gave Paul Ryan a ZERO % rating on its women’s health voting scorecard HERE:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) cosponsored a bill that would give fetuses full personhood rights from the moment of fertilization, which was even rejected by voters in the socially conservative state of Mississippi. He voted to defund federal family planning programs, authored a budget that dismantles Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, all of which disproportionately aid and employ women, and voted multiple times to prevent women in the military from using their own money to pay for abortions at military hospitals.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sums up the Ryan Plan HERE:

“The new Ryan budget…. would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history).”

Paul Ryan’s plan would be such a giveaway to the rich that according to the Atlantic – under Ryan’s plan … Mitt Romney’s taxes would have been .82% instead of 13.9%.  Yes – less than 1%.  More on that HERE:

In 2010 — the only year we have seen a full return from him — Romney would have paid an effective tax rate of around 0.82 percent under the Ryan plan, rather than the 13.9 percent he actually did. How would someone with more than $21 million in taxable income pay so little? Well, the vast majority of Romney’s income came from capital gains, interest, and dividends. And Ryan wants to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends.

And if all of that isn’t concerning enough for you … I dare say the REASON Paul Ryan’s voting record is so extreme can be summed up very simply.  He’s a follower of Ayn Rand:

“[Y]ou can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.”
~Paul Ryan 

If you follow Ayn Rand … then you think people die … it’s their problem.  Too bad – life isn’t fair.  It’s a horrible, selfish view of the world.  It’s a worldview that says … I got mine – your problem isn’t my problem.

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