The hypocrisy of Paul Ryan's assault on government

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Paul Ryan's right-wing agenda, which seeks the undoing of the American social compact, amounts to nothing less than an assult on democratic self-governance and on the very foundations of government itself.

Which is to say, he basically wants government out of the way so that the supposedly free market can thrive as a Hobbesian state of nature with a police force protecing private property but otherwise with no fetters whatsoever on capitalist supermen of the kind found in Ayn Rand novels.

Yes, it's all about the self-made man for Paul Ryan, and about the evils of government, that obstacle to the creation of wealth. Right?

Well, not so fast. Looks like the Republican wunderkind with the absolutist right-wing ideology is a bit of a hypocrite:

When Paul Ryan took to the stage in Mooresville, North Carolina, as Mitt Romney's running mate, he attacked President Obama's "you didn't build that" remark about the role of government in supporting private innovation. But while Republicans have been clamoring to make this election a false dichotomy between the private sector and the public sector, Paul Ryan — heir to a private fortune made by building public highways — is a gaping pothole in that plan. Paul Ryan is a living, breathing GOP example of how public infrastructure and private entrepreneurship work hand-in-hand.

Paul Ryan's great-grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways. According to the Web site of Ryan Incorporated Central, the company was "founded in 1884 with a single team of mules building railroad embankments in Southern Wisconsin." And in the 1800s, railroad construction was subsidized by the federal government. Mid-century, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act into law, providing taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of a transcontinental railway. All railroads thereafter connected to, and benefited from, that public investment.

At the turn of the century, Ryan Inc. turned to road building. A subsidiary family corporation, Ryan Incorporated Southern, states on its Web site, "The Ryan workload from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later [and] was mostly Highway construction." The $119 billion spent by the federal government on the Interstate Highway System was, by one account, "the largest public works program since the Pyramids."

And it's still going, this sucking at the government teet:

A current search of Defense Department contracts suggests that "Ryan Incorporated Central" has had at least 22 defense contracts with the federal government since 1996 , including one from 1996 worth $5.6 million.

But that's just the family business, right? In Washington, Ryan fights against this sort of thing. Uh, no:

What's funny is that Mr. Anti-Spending secured millions in earmarks for his home state of Wisconsin, including, among other things, $3.3 million for highway projects. And Ryan voted to preserve $40 billion in special subsidies for big oil, an industry in which, it so happens, Ryan and his wife hold ownership stakes. Yet Ryan wants to gut financial aid for college students, food stamps for hungry families, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security — the very things that have, historically, helped poor families climb the ladder of opportunity in America.

Now, Ryan defends himself by saying that there is in fact a purpose for government:

"Of course we believe in government," Ryan said to the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. "We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits, and obviously within those limits are things like infrastructure, interstate highways, and airports."

In other words, what's good for Ryan and his family, and those like him, as well as for his state and hence for his political career (he opposed President Obama's economic stimulus package but lobbied aggressively for stimulus money for Wisconsin) is fine, while what's good, and desperately needed, by everyone else is a target for Ryan's draconian budget plan.

If you're rich and can build a highway or an airport, the government will give you millions, and you'll benefit from Ryan's massive tax cuts for the rich anyway, the tax burden shifted even more towards everyone else. But if you're poor, or pretty much anywhere in the 99%, screw you. The government of Ryan's right-wing fantasies couldn't care less.

Actually, is it any wonder Romney likes him so much?