These Nuns Won't Be Welcoming Paul Ryan Tomorrow

We're sure Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, architect of the Ryan Budget, will turn out a nice crowd of supporters in Moon tomorrow. But more interesting is who won't be in that crowd: namely nuns and many Catholics who find his cuts to the poor, well, decidedly un-Catholic. Paul Ryan who claims to be guided by the Catholic faith has raised the ire of a tenacious group of nuns who are on a mission to educate voters on the "immoral" Ryan Budget. 

The Nuns on the Bus are traveling the country to speak out against the Ryan Budget and politicans like Rep. Tim Murphy and Keith Rothfus who support it. 

The Nuns on the Bus aren't alone in their concern over Paul Ryan's controversial budget. This summer the U.S. Catholic conference of Bishops took the quite unusual step of publicly repudiating the Ryan Budget for its drastic cuts to the poor. 

So just what are these nuns upset about? The Nuns on the Bus came to town this summer in front of Rep. Tim Murphy's office in Dormont to explain. 

Patch.com reported: 

The Nuns on the Bus’ mission is to make elected officials aware of the group’s opposition to the budget proposed by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

“We cannot stand by silently when the U.S. Congress considers further enriching the wealthiest Americans at the expense of struggling, impoverished families,” states the Nuns on the Bus website.

Campbell reiterated the position outside Murphy’s office Wednesday.

“The Ryan budget is bad for the United States; it’s bad for Pennsylvania; it’s bad for each one of us,” she told the crowd. “Basically, it shifts money to the top 1, 2 percent by cutting tax rates. And they say, oh, we’re going to fund ‘job creators.’ But for the last 10 years these ‘job creators’ have had significant tax cuts, and we have yet to see their jobs.”

Sadly, four months later, this fresh-faced congressman whose prized budget has been maligned by nuns, Catholic Bishops and even Newt Gingrich could be a heart-beat away from the Presidency. 

We've all know a lot about Paul Ryan's work-out and his marathon times, but how much do we really know about his policies—the policies eschewed by nuns and faith leaders all across the country? While Paul Ryan stands in our back-yard and pretends to care about working famiies, share the truth about Paul Ryan with your friends, neighbors and fellow parishoners. Here are six facts on Paul Ryan:

1.) Ryan wants to end Medicare, replace it with a voucher system. Ryan’s latest budget transforms the existing version of Medicare, in which government provides seniors with a guaranteed benefit, into a “premium support” system. All future retirees would receive a government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But since the premium support voucher does not keep up with increasing health care costs, the Congressional Budget Offices estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050. A recent study also found that had the plan been implemented in 2009, 24 million beneficiares enrolled in the program would have paid higher premiums to maintain their choice of plan and doctors. Ryan would also raise Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67.

2.) Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005″ would havelost much of their retirement savings.

3.) Ryan’s budget would result in 4.1 million lost jobs in 2 years. Ryan’s budget calls for massive reductions in government spending. He has proposed cutting discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, which, the Economic Policy Institute estimates, would suck demand out of the economy and “reduce employment by 1.3 million jobs in fiscal 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in fiscal 2014, relative to current budget policies.”

4.) Ryan wants to eliminate Pell Grants for more more than 1 million students. Ryan’s budgetclaims both that rising financial aid is driving college tuition costs upward, and that Pell Grants, which help cover tuition costs for low-income Americans, don’t go to the “truly needy.” So he cuts the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could “ultimately knock more than one million students off” the program over the next 10 years.

5.) Ryan supports $40 billion in subsides for big oil. In 2011, Ryan joined all House Republicans and 13 Democrats in his vote to keep Big Oil tax loopholes as part of the FY 2011 spending bill. His budget would retain a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting “billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil.” For instance, it “calls for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone” and would spend only $150 million over five years — or 20 percent of what was invested in 2012 — on energy programs.

6.) Ryan has ownership stakes in companies that benefit from oil subsidies . Ryan “and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan’s budget plan,” the Daily Beastreported in June of 2011. “Ryan’s father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.”