Paul Ryan And The Catholic Vote
Aug11
By John Feehery
I am like a broken record on this topic, but the Catholic vote is the critical swing vote in this Presidential election, as it is every Presidential election in the modern era.
By picking Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney made a bold, if risky, choice. Ryan is no shrinking violet when it comes to big ideas, and his selection marks an interesting historical moment for Catholic voters.
Paul Ryan and Joe Biden represent a generational divide in Catholic politics.
Biden is an old-school liberal. He is a ward-healer, not an idea guy. He is pro-abortion (or pro-choice as he like to say), because that is how you rise in Democratic politics. He supports Obama over the Church when it comes to religious liberty. He prodded Obama into supporting gay marriage.
Biden likes to talk the talk of working class Irish Catholics, but he doesn’t really walk the walk. He is a Nancy Pelosi Catholic, somebody who goes out of his way to offend the Church hierarchy at almost every turn.
Biden would say that he represents the social welfare mission of the Church better than Ryan, that his belief in government spending is a better manifestation of how the Church helps poor people.
Ryan is a Midwestern Catholic. He is pro-life and has been throughout his political life. Ryan’s opposes the Obama Administration on the conscience clause debate. Although he hasn’t said much about it, I assume he is opposed to gay marriage.
Paul got into a heated debate with some Catholic nuns about government spending and the Church’s social welfare mission. These nuns did a bus tour earlier this year, protesting the Ryan budget cuts to welfare spending.
To his credit, Ryan didn’t shy away from the debate and I think many Catholic voters agree with him that huge federal bureaucracies that waste money do little to help the poor. And I think there are plenty of Catholic voters who agree that requiring more personal responsibility, such as imposing work requirements on welfare recipients, is a better way to go.
Catholic voters don’t vote monolithically. Like with the larger American public, Catholic women tend to vote more for Democrats than Catholic men, while regular church-going Catholics tend to vote more for Republicans than Christmas Catholics.
The Catholic Bishops, while they didn’t love the Ryan budget, are much more likely to be happy with the Ryan selection than Catholic nuns, who tend to be much more liberal on most social and fiscal issues.
But for Catholic voters who have some real doubts about Mormonism (and there are more than a few that fall into that camp), this selection of Paul Ryan is a welcome development. He will be the first Republican Catholic Vice President should he ascend to that office, and for Catholic voters, that should be a good thing.
I hope that the Catholic Bishops stay after Paul Ryan for his cruel & unfair budget toward the poor and middle Class (maybe some kind of an anti-Romney/Ryan Super PAC for Catholics who agree with the Bishops about the Ryan budget can be formed):
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1201597.htm
Catholic News Service
BISHOPS-BUDGET Apr-19-2012 (930 words) xxxn
Letters to Congress: USCCB opposes proposed cuts in services to poor
By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — “The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has expressed its concerns over proposed cuts in federal programs serving the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people in a series of letters to congressional leaders since April 4 as debate over the fiscal year 2013 budget begins.
The letters from Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, urge Congress to draw a “circle of protection” around programs that serve “the least among us.”
The letters were sent after the House of Representatives adopted on March 27 a $3.5 trillion budget resolution — with a $600 billion deficit — written by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The plan calls for massive spending cuts in nonmilitary programs, turning Medicaid into a block grant program administered by the states, reshaping Medicare over the next decade, and simplifying the tax code by closing loopholes and lowering individual and corporate tax rates.
A common message in the letters focuses on the necessity of “shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues,” the elimination of unnecessary military and other spending and fairly addressing long-term costs associated with health insurance and retirement costs.
In a letter to the House Agriculture Committee, Bishop Blaire said the House-passed budget “fails to meet these moral criteria.”
A summary of each letter follows…”
Also:
http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-063.cfm
Federal Budget Choices Must Protect Poor, Vulnerable People, Says U.S. Bishops’ Conference
April 17, 2012
Recent letters echo bishops’ consistent message that federal budget must form
‘circle of protection’ around ‘the least of these’
WASHINGTON—”As Congress began working on the FY 2013 budget and spending bills this week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) wrote several letters that repeated and reinforced the bishops’ ongoing call to create a “circle of protection” around poor and vulnerable people and programs that meet their basic needs and protect their lives and dignity. The bishops’ message calls on Congress and the Administration to protect essential help for poor families and vulnerable children and to put the poor first in budget priorities. The bishops’ letters oppose measures that reduce resources for essential safety net programs.
In the letters, Bishops Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, and Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairmen of the Committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development and International Justice and Peace, respectively, urged Congress to resist proposed cuts in hunger and nutrition programs at home and abroad saying that “a just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons.”
On April 4, Bishop Blaire cautioned that “at a time when the need for assistance from [affordable housing] programs is growing, cutting funds for them could cause thousands of individuals and families to lose their housing and worsen the hardship of thousands more in need of affordable housing.” He also reminded Congress that the Catholic community is one of the largest private, nonprofit providers of affordable housing in the country and is deeply involved in meeting the health housing and nutrition needs of families across the nation.
Bishops Blaire and Pates reaffirmed the “moral criteria to guide these difficult budget decisions” outlined in their March 6 budget letter…”
I think that the Catholic Bishops (and anyone who is not a millionaire) should be VERY afraid of this and should try to stop it as best as they can:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-13/politics/tea.party.cuts_1_medicare-and-medicaid-bush-era-tax-cuts-current-medicare-program?_s=PM:POLITICS
What would the Tea Party cut?
April 13, 2011 | By Shannon Travis, CNN Political Producer
In many ways, the debate over taming the nation’s spending and deficit beasts can be compared to a family’s hand-wringing over what to cut, and what to keep, in tough times. It may be easy to nix “luxuries” like vacations and eating out. But should “essentials” like a car or a home be downsized or gotten rid of to save money?
Tough choices about what to keep, kill or cut back on are the kinds of things the nation’s lawmakers are considering as they try to trim a $14 trillion debt.
A Capitol Hill protest organized by the Tea Party Patriots and other conservative groups drew a crowd in September.
Should familiar yet costly “essentials” — entitlements like Medicare, the nation’s health insurance program for seniors, and Medicaid, which provides health insurance for the nation’s poor — be phased out or dramatically overhauled?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan laid out the Republican plan last week. It would radically overhaul Medicare and Medicaid while lowering top tax rates.
President Obama on Wednesday laid out his plan for long-term deficit reduction, renewing his call for ending the Bush-era tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 while strengthening Medicare and Medicaid.
The Tea Party’s mantra to “stop the spending” largely refocused the national conversation on spending. Is it willing to see entitlement programs fundamentally changed?
Levi Russell, a spokesman for the Tea Party Express, says one way to reduce spending is to cut waste, overlap and excess in government programs…”