Paul Ryan: 70% want American Dream, 30% want Welfare State

[retromike22]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/paul-ryan-30-percent-welfare-state_n_1933730.html

Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, share a similarly dim view of a very large portion of Americans, according to previously unreported remarks by Ryan. Both believe that many of their fellow citizens are dependent on government and have no motivation to improve their lives -- but they disagree over the precise number.

Romney's estimate, famously, is 47 percent. For Ryan, it's 30 percent.

"Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want their welfare state," Ryan said. "Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers."

I don't understand how the welfare state and the American Dream are mutually exclusive. I think the welfare state gives more opportunities for more people to achieve their American Dream.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Considering how good Ryan is with numbers...

[LiberalJunkie]

Well at least it's only 30%.....lol

[Likely Voter]

so putting those numbers together 17% believe they are entitled to the American Dream?

[Adam Griffin]

Kudos to him for picking a smaller number.

[7,052,770]

What's a bigger deal, this, or the 5-year-old Obama video?

[Likely Voter]

more doucheyness...Ryan suggests that the 47% need to "get a job"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdhRzt5geeQ&feature=share&list=ULXdhRzt5geeQ

[retromike22]

more doucheyness...Ryan suggests that the 47% need to "get a job"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdhRzt5geeQ&feature=share&list=ULXdhRzt5geeQ

I like the youtube comments:

"Why aren't those 77 year old ladies out there digging ditches and cutting down trees and driving big rig trucks instead of just sitting around collecting Social Security? They need a JOB!"

"My mother is 86 years old! How are you going to find her a job. She paid into Social Security all her life, you better believe she deserves the money from the government."

[Politico]

Romney should have said 30%, a more reasonable estimate.

[independent-lefty]

The outrage! lulz...

[Person Man]

So that's what? An average of 39%?

[Wisconsin+17]

"I don't understand how the welfare state and the American Dream are mutually exclusive."

Some people actually want to earn money and provide for themselves.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

"I don't understand how the welfare state and the American Dream are mutually exclusive."

Some people actually want to earn money and provide for themselves.

You really don't understand that much do you?

[pbrower2a]

As usual the Hard Right seeks to pit the working poor against the destitute for the power-lust and exploitative gain of the super-rich. It's as if some people would like to return to the class warfare of the 1880s -- the decade in which Karl Marx died, and not the decade three before this one.

It would have seemed not so long ago that such a reversion to the Class Struggle as Marx knew it was an obsolete concept, something that wise people tried to avoid.

The adults are not in charge in the GOP.  

[retromike22]

"I don't understand how the welfare state and the American Dream are mutually exclusive."

Some people actually want to earn money and provide for themselves.

If they want to provide everything for themselves then they should join the Amish.

[後援会]

I like the youtube comments:

"My mother is 86 years old! How are you going to find her a job. She paid into Social Security all her life, you better believe she deserves the money from the government."

Yes. The stunning ignorance of how Social Security works displayed there makes me laugh as well.

[King]

Conservatives continue to stoop to ad hominem on voters instead of any actual plan for America.

[wildfood]

As usual the Hard Right seeks to pit the working poor against the destitute for the power-lust and exploitative gain of the super-rich.  

It reminds me of southern plantation owners convincing poor whites that owning a slave (which cost more than many of them would make in their lifetimes) was a right worth dying for.

[opebo]

The 'American Dream' was provided by the State.

[Eraserhead]

Drudge Report and Huffington Post were having a "battle of the scandalous tapes" last night. Both even had the RED HEADLINES IN ALL CAPS! lol.