Paul Ryan on Welfare & Poverty Republican nominee for Vice President; U.S. Rep. (WI-1)

Civil society means we give of ourselves without government

In books, they call this civil society. In my own experience, I know it as Janesville, Wisconsin--a place, like ten thousand others, where a lot of good happens without government commanding it, directing it, or claiming credit for it. That's how life is supposed to work in a free country. And nothing undermines the essential and honorable work of government more than the abuse of government power.

Cold social programs have displaced civility and charity

I believe that the genius of America lies within each of us and our families, our neighborhoods, and our faith; not the central planners in Washington.

Subsidize and deregulate our wealth of faith based charities

Remove anti-poverty programs that dishonor human dignity

[In response], Ryan argued that government welfare "dissolves the common good of society, and it dishonors the dignity of the human person." He would restore human dignity by removing anti-poverty programs.

When asked about "the moral dimension" of a budget that gives tax cuts to the wealthy and cuts spending for the poor, Ryan's answer included the phrase "subchapter S corporations." Spending on programs such as food stamps and college Pell Grants is "unsustainable," he said. If government does too much for the poor, "you make it harder" for churches and charities to do that work.

It was a bold economic--and theological--proposition. Even Jesus said to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Ryan would rather give the rich a tax cut.

End federal food stamps with block grant to the states

"If you knew the history of my state," the South Carolina African-American told the Republicans, "you wouldn't be in favor of that." Cantor backed down immediately, and the subject did not come up again.

Direct federal grants to persistently impoverished districts

Food stamp program is rife with waste, fraud & abuse

Much of this is due to the recession, but not all of it: Enrollment grew from 17 million recipients in 2001, to 28 million in 2008, to 46 million today. Very large increases occurred during years of economic growth, when the number of recipients should have fallen.

A flawed structure fuels unsustainable growth: State governments receive federal dollars in proportion to how many people they enroll in the program, which gives them an incentive to add more individuals to the rolls. State governments have little incentive to make sure that able-bodied adults on SNAP are working, looking for work, or enrolled in job training programs. This leads to a program rife with waste, fraud and abuse.

Time-limit & work requirement for need-based aid

The key to the welfare reform of the late 1990s was Congress's decision to grant states the ability to design their own systems. Congress should extend the successes of welfare reform to all assistance programs aimed at empowering lower-income Americans by implementing reforms that give states more flexibility to meet the needs of low-income populations & to make sure that the truly needy receive the assistance they need to live meaningful, independent lives.

Imposing time limits and work requirements on federal need-based aid is a positive reform. But education programs must be accountable and job-training programs must be effective so that vulnerable citizens can take advantage of them

Left federal barriers to community & institution empowerment

Above all, the role of policymakers must be to lift government-imposed barriers to stronger communities and flourishing lives. Fiscal responsibility and economic opportunity are but means to a more critical end: the rebuilding of broken communities and the empowerment of families and citizens. The ever-expansive activism of the federal government drains the vitality and displaces the primacy of the bedrock institutions that define America.

Voted NO on instituting National Service as a new social invention.

Adds to National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) purposes:
1. providing year-round opportunities in service-learning;
2. involving program participants in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery;
3. increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals;
4. encouraging service by individuals age 55 or older and continued service by national service alumni;
5. focusing national service on the areas of national need.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Sen. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D, MD): [In developing national service over many years] we were not in the business of creating another new social program. What we were in the business of was creating a new social invention. What do I mean by that? In our country, we are known for our technological inventions. But also often overlooked, and sometimes undervalued, is our social inventions.

We created national service to let young people find opportunity to be of service and also to make an important contribution. But not all was rosy. In 2003, when I was the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee funding national service, they created a debacle. One of their most colossal errors was that they enrolled over 20,000 volunteers and could not afford to pay for it. That is how sloppy they were in their accounting. I called them the "Enron of nonprofits."

And they worked on it. But all that is history. We are going to expand AmeriCorps activity into specialized corps. One, an education corps; another, a health futures corps; another, a veterans corps; and another called opportunity corps. These are not outside of AmeriCorps. They will be subsets because we find this is where compelling human need is and at the same time offers great opportunity for volunteers to do it.

Opponent's argument to vote No:No senators spoke against the amendment.

Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.

Proponents of the amendment say:
• This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
• To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
• We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
• Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
• This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.

Opponents say:
• The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
• The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
• The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.

Voted YES on promoting work and marriage among TANF recipients.

Voted YES on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks.

Voted YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations.