Paul Ryan’s Real Motivation: Cutting, Privatizing Public Services, Programs

by Clyde Weiss  |  August 14, 2012

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s new running mate, is infamous for a budget plan he claims will reduce the federal deficit by $1.6 trillion. As Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein pointed out this week, however, Ryan is more interested in shrinking and privatizing public services and safety net programs like Social Security than in reducing the deficit.

“The truth is that the Ryan budget’s largest long-term savings don’t come from Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security, or even Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security put together. They come from everything else,” Klein writes. “Ryan says that under his budget, everything the federal government does that is not Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security will be cut... That means defense, infrastructure, education, food safety, energy research, national parks, civil service, the FBI — all of it.”

Klein points out that Ryan’s voting record also demonstrates deficit reduction isn’t at the heart of his budget-cutting philosophy. He notes that Ryan voted for Bush’s tax cuts for the mostly wealthy, the costly war in Iraq, and the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. Ryan also pushed a Social Security privatization plan that actuaries concluded “would require $2.4 trillion in additional costs over the first 10 years.”

The bottom line, says Klein, is that deficits and government spending are not what guide Ryan. “It’s radically reforming the way the federal government provides public services, usually by privatizing or devolving those public services away from the federal government.” And while Klein focuses on federal spending, the impact of Ryan’s cuts would be across the board, hurting public services provided at every level of government.