Paul Ryan's inner Ayn Rand emerged today during an interview previewing his anti-poverty proposals. Poverty isn't anyone's fault but that of the moochers in inner cities who choose it because they're lazy, inbred people who are genetically predisposed to ignorance about work, according to Ryan.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) previewed his upcoming legislative proposals for reforming America’s poverty programs during an appearance on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America Wednesday, hinting that he would focus on creating work requirements for men “in our inner cities” and dealing with the “real culture problem” in these communities. “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with,” he said.
Ryan also cited Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist who believes African-Americans are, as a population, less intelligent than whites due to genetic differences and that poverty remains a national problem because “a lot of poor people are born lazy.”
Ryan’s comments come a week after he released a 204-page report analyzing the effectiveness of the nation’s anti-poverty programs 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson declared a national War on Poverty. The former GOP vice presidential candidate, who argues that federal anti-poverty programs have contributed to the nation’s high poverty rate and “created what’s known as the poverty trap,” is expected to offer reforms to the programs in his upcoming FY 2015 budget.“[W]e want people to reach their potential and so the dignity of work is very valuable and important and we have to re-emphasize work and reform our welfare programs, like we did in 1996,” Ryan told Bennett.
If I'm understanding Ryan's remarks correctly, all it takes is making sure everyone has a minimum wage job that doesn't even pay the most basic bills, no government assistance, and a basic understanding that if you're poor, it's because you're a lazy bastard who doesn't care about the 'dignity of work.'
He's not going to win the Presidency with that message. What is it they say about the definition of insanity?
