{"id":297083,"date":"2017-03-01T16:39:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T15:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/nobody-needs-a-lecture-on-morality-from-paul-ryan\/"},"modified":"2017-03-01T16:39:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T15:39:02","slug":"nobody-needs-a-lecture-on-morality-from-paul-ryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/nobody-needs-a-lecture-on-morality-from-paul-ryan\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobody Needs a Lecture on Morality from Paul Ryan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For nearly half a century now, America’s middle-class working families have been pummeled by corporate greedmeisters and their political henchmen.<\/p>\n

Indeed, during the recession, the typical median-income family has lost 40 percent<\/a> of their wealth. Haven’t they been punished enough?<\/p>\n

No, says House Speaker Paul Ryan.<\/p>\n

Along with other top Republican leaders of Congress, he intends to slash the Social Security money that middle-class and low-income workers depend on for their retirement, and he ultimately aims to kill it altogether.<\/p>\n

\"social-security-money\"<\/p>\n

(Photo: 401(K) 2012\/Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dependence on such public “entitlements,” he preaches, weakens our nation’s morality.<\/p>\n

Entitlements? Social Security isn\u2019t a welfare program \u2014 regular working people pay a 12-percent tax on every dime of their wages into the this public pension fund year after year. They earn their retirement.<\/p>\n

Morality? Social Security embodies America’s core moral value of fairness and our society’s commitment to the common good. And it works: Before it was enacted, half of all Americans spent their “golden years” in poverty.<\/p>\n

Social Security has saved the great majority of us from old-age penury. Where is the morality in stealing away this earned retirement \u2014 and the modicum of dignity that comes with it \u2014 from millions?<\/p>\n

Besides, a sermon on the morality of entitlements should never come from a congress critter’s mouth.<\/p>\n

Ryan himself wallows in a mud pit of congressional entitlements that working stiffs couldn’t imagine getting: A $223,500 annual paycheck, a free limousine and chauffeur, a maximum-coverage health plan, a tax-paid PR agent, a lavish expense account, free travel \u2014 and, of course, a platinum-level congressional retirement program funded by the very taxpayers who’s Social Security he’s out to kill.<\/p>\n

Yet Ryan wonders why Congress’ public approval rating is plummeting toward single digits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For nearly half a century now, America’s middle-class working families have been pummeled by corporate greedmeisters and their political henchmen. Indeed, during the recession, the typical median-income family has lost 40 percent of their wealth. Haven’t they been punished enough? No, says House Speaker Paul Ryan. Along with other top Republican leaders of Congress, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":297084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}