There is a difference between abilities to take on more tasks than another but it does not nullify the role of community members and government in helping people achieve their life goals. They can provide the energy, intellect, and skill but Ryan's crystallization came while being educated, something he could not do on his own. He would need a teacher or books written by others to gain the knowledge is shape his future.

Ryan is supposed to be some kind of intellectual, but he's really just intellectually dishonest. Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has called Ryan's budget proposal "surely the most fraudulent budget in American history." Ryan's plan would slash Medicare and Medicaid while reducing taxes for the rich, but claims to reduce the deficit by closing tax loopholes: "As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That's a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close? None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That's the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.) See "Pink Slime Economics" [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/opinion/krugman-pink-slime-economics.html ].

Paul Krugman is no longer a serious economist. His early work on international trade theory was quite fine. But now Krugman is just a nasty, angry polemicist for the left wing of the Democratic Party. There are lots of serious researchers on fiscal policy, like Martin Feldstein of Harvard, who are much better sources than cranky Krugman.

Another false assertion from Ozark, a notorious right-wing liar (and recently an apologist for the Bush-Cheney outing of Valerie Plame). Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008 and remains a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Do you have something better than right-wing propaganda to counter those real-world achievements with?

The headline of this article is misleading since (in addition to his fraudulent budget proposal) Ryan is also a personal fraud. As Joan Walsh of Salon.com notes, "Paul Ryan was born into a well-to-do Janesville, Wisc. family, part of the so-called "Irish mafia" that's run the city's construction industry since the 19th century. When his lawyer father died young, sadly, the high-school aged Ryan received Social Security survivor benefits. But they didn't go directly to supporting his family; by his own account, he banked them for college. He went to the private Miami University of Ohio; the land grant University of Wisconsin (my alma mater) apparently wasn't good enough for Ryan. After his government-subsidized private education, the pride of Janesville left college and went to work for government, where he's spent his entire career, first serving Republican legislators and then in his own Congressional seat, with occasional stints at his family-owned construction business when he needed a job (reportedly he also drove an Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile for a while). Ironically, Ryan came to national attention trying to dismantle the very program that helped him go to a private university, pushing an even more radical version of President Bush's Social Security privatization plan, which failed. He has since become the scourge of the welfare state, a man wholly supported by government who preaches against the evils of government support." See "Paul Ryan: Randian poseur" [ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/12/paul_ryan_randian_poseur/ ].

Yes, he remains a Princeton economist because they pay him big bucks and he has tenure. He no longer publishes scholarly research, just diatribes for the NY Times. BTW, it's really unbecoming to call people liars with whom you disagree.

So are you saying that using his skills as an economist while working with the New York Times isn't serious work? If so, how can you take seriously a clown like Jacoby who talks about the economy all the time but is merely a failed lawyer? And by the way, calling someone like you a liar is hardly unbecoming when the statement is true.

I'm curious how receiving Social Security survivor benefits after his father's death taught Rep. Ryan "self-reliance." And, after using those benefits to gain admission to a private college, why he wants to dismantle the safety net that helped him so much. "I got mine. Now the rest of you are on your own" appears to be Rep. Ryan's governing philosophy. Nice guy...

Liberal college professors actually try to teach students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Here's a case of a conservative college professor doing just the opposite. The real question now is, as an Ayn Rand Libertarian, is Ryan just another tool, pimping for the corporate oligarchy, or whether he is an unwitting "true believer" and an enabler of corporatism? The big lie is that the Libertarian concept of personal freedom has the unintended consequence of deregulating big business, Wall street and the rest of the fat-cat 1%.

More journalistic curiosity about a candidates education evidenced in the first paragraph then ever seen in the Globe about Obama.

It's true that Alan Greenspan was a friend and follower of Ayn Rand, and a lot of our problems are related to his blind belief that unrestricted capitalism was the way to go.

Do you have any concerns that by ignoring the deficit, Dems and Repubs are pushing us towards Greece's fate, which means that all safety nets will be dismantled?

Everything anyone would ever want to know about the President's education is widely well-known and easily accessed, here in the Globe and elsewhere, You are reading with a jaundiced eye.

If we suffer the economic fate of Greece, all safety nets will be dismantled. The horrible economic policies of the Republicans and Democrats both in the past 12 years has worked to push Granny off the cliff more surely than Ryan, who is the only one to propose a solution.

Greenspan screwed things up so badly that he eventually had to go before Congress and apologize.

Ozark: If Paul Krugman is "an angry polemicist" for the left-wing of the Democratic party, then think of him as counter-attacking against the dozens and dozens of the nattering nabobs of negativity on the pro-corporate radical right. It's OK for the anal apertures on Fox News, hate/talk radio and dozens of nasty websites to indulge in mud-slining, slander and lies, but it's not OK to fight back? A realistic assessment would show that the few good guys are badly outnumbered by the bad guys.

What a horrible human being. Now that he has benefited from safety net programs he wants them dismantled. Shall we sit by as the elderly and disabled starve to death and freeze to death in their homes? Is this what America is becoming?

self reliance = conservatism, gov't handouts = liberalism. Sure we should help people truly in need, but so many gov't programs are abused by a generation of Americans used to getting something for nothing. Our national budget and our economy simply can't sustain funding programs that require the country to take on more debt to support. The math is abundantly clear. Why don't people get this? Get off the class warfare BS that Obama continues to promote to divide this country and get people working together to grow this economy. That's the only way out of this mess.

Interesting. You attended U Wisconsin? That means your college education was subsidized by the taxpayers of Wisconsin.

Evidence of this abuse? And I don't mean anecdotal (I know a lady who knows a lady who...), I mean real, strong, good, evidence.

Responsible government, slow but steady growth has been Obama's plan. Ryan thinks we chop off our legs to save money and somehow we'll start running.

Big,bold.self-reliant and courageous? First of all,his budget is not courageous.It's MEAN and it's pandering to right-wing special interests at the expense of most Americans.Romney's choice of Ryan is a case of appeasing these special interests.Actually.Romney would pay zero taxes under Ryan's budget plan. Ryan's family collected Social Security after his father's death-nothing wrong with that but he shouldn't demand "sacrifices" that don't apply to him or his "special" friends. The attempt to paint Ryan as a hero is extremely misleading.

Joan Walsh of Salon.com went there, not me. And we should subsidize such education. Hypocrites like Ryan want to cut Social Security for others while taking advantage of it themselves.

Who gets to decide who is abusing the "system"? You?

Ryan's mother would have received Social Security benefits when her husband died at the time Paul Ryan was age 16. This would have at least supplimented the family income and a boost for his college tuition. He's a living example of the success of Social Security as an investment in people. The return of this investment to the U.S. Treasury would be the taxes he paid through his income. Now he's an enemy of the very system that helped his family. Self reliance??? Some people forget where they came from and how it all happened. As the president said, self made people don't do it alone. Someone else was there to help them.