When Ryan's father died, his mother received Social Security benefits. This money would have helped toward his college education at a state school where he attended. A state school payed for by taxpayers' money. Actually, this is a dramatic example of how our system of investment in people can be so successful. He did quite well for himself. Now he's trying to destroy the very system that was there to help him succeed. Self reliance??? Like the president said, self made people didn't make it on their own.

Ryan may be the "intellect" of the Tea Party, but he surely is the hypocrite end piece to the Romney campaign. A very good fit I'd say...those who have enjoyed and benefited from the very system they now want to destroy. The believers in Ayn Rand once they have attained their "fair share" via the very same "collectivism" they now espouse to be the downfall of our fair nation. Ryan is a fraud. Always was and always will be. A man with limitless ambition now married to his clone. Romney/Ryan: The road to ruin for the middle class as well as the blue collar class, even though they don't seem to get it yet. Their mantra is the same as usual these days from the right wing controlled GOP/Tea Party: more for the rich and less for everyone else. Raising taxes on the middle class really isn't the way to get out of a economic slowdown. But, making corporations as well as wealthy individuals pay their fair share can surely help. Seems fair to me....

Ryan obviously think fiscal austerity is for others.

Thanks exposing the hypocrisy.

In 2010, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan noted that Congressman Dennis Kucinich's accomplishments in Congress "could not fill the toe-end of a sock," and the same can be said of Paul Ryan. According to the Washington Post, here are Paul Ryan's accomplishments in Congress: "After a year and a half on the job, Ryan reached a milestone: He passed his first bill. It renamed a post office. Four years later, Ryan got another bill passed. It lowered the excise tax on the parts used to make arrows. This is the sum total of Paul Ryan's changes to U.S. code. After 2006, Ryan's focus was on a committee — the Budget Committee — whose main job is to produce theoretical statements of policy, not actual law. He has not passed a law since." See "Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential candidate, has a complicated record with little compromise" [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paul-ryan-republican-vice-presidential-candidate-has-a-complicated-record-with-little-compromise/2012/08/13/eb6f7378-e57c-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_story.html ].

It is not hypocrisy to comply with existing law but argue that the law should be changed. How many members of Congress can you name who have not sought federal funds for their districts? If George Soros and Warren Buffett, Obama billionaire supporters, think the wealthy should pay more taxes, do they donate money to the IRS on top of their taxes. No. So are they liberal hypocrites? By the logic of Obamabots, they must be.

A typical Biased article. Ryan did what he was elected to do. He tried to fight against defict spending. When outvoted, RYAN fought for his home state and his constituents. Romney and RYAN will work to keep America strong and keep the USA out of BANKRUPTCY.

That sounds like another way of saying I was for it before I was against it. Or maybe I was against it before I wa for it. Just another day full of GOP propaganda and lies...

But it is hypocrisy to use SSI to pay for your college tuition and now plan to cut it for everyone else

You're entitled to your own opinion, 12, but not your own facts. How do you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y?

It doesn't matter. The Globe hates ALL Republicans or Independants who are sick and tired of all of this runaway spending. For example, why do we have forty-six different Reading Recovery programs funded for the Dept. of Education?; isn't one or two enough. It's a pork barrel like most of the Federal programs. Time to gut them ALL!

Comply with existing law? You make it sound like he was *required* to take the stimulus funds. Instead he lobbied to make them available. I guess you live by the "everybody's doing it so I might as well too" philosophy. What does that add up to? Unprincipled? Amoral? Hypocritical? Take your choice.

It's also hypocrisy to on the one hand announce non-stop that these programs are terrible and bad for everyone, then on the other hand write letters to get funds by saying how great the programs are.

Don't you just love people like arstalt12, cindyloulou, and the like? If the Globe prints anything that might be interpreted as slightly negative about one of their godlike politicians, they become apoplectic about the newspaper's perceived bias. haha. Do they ever say that when there's a negative article about a Democrat (of which there are plenty)? Of course not, but that's what happens to people who consider their political philosophy a religion and their candidates as deities.

Just to let you know that I am taking a leave of absence from BostonGlobe.com comments. Now that the presidential campaign is in high gear, it's a waste of my time (although sometimes fun) to debate committed Boston liberals. My efforts will be better spent at home in NH, a state that could put Romney and Ryan over the top in the electoral college. My thanks to Kitchener, with whom I sometimes disagree but whose comments are always thought provoking and usually civil. A suggestion to System Worked: Delete the LOL shtick. Your comments often have substance but your LOL thing obscures the serious content of your comments. To my faithful followers (who seem as though they are stalking me at times), Off Track Betting and Messin: your liberal use of "liar," "***hole," and other epithets has convinced me that Jonah Goldberg was correct when he claimed that some liberals are among the most intolerant people in the nation. Perhaps I'll see all of you folks again after Romney and Ryan win the White House.

How is All of that hope and change doing? You must be happy with the economy. How many of your friends and relatives are out of a job? What we need is MORE spending! More welfare, more EBT cards, more SSI etc. etc. When are you moonbats going to wake up?

Ryan is a good mate for flip-flop Romney He flip flops too.

Unlike you, I don't think anyone has a magic bullet. I think Obama has made mistakes. He's a human being, not a god. I also have compassion for those who are handicapped or unemployed. Compassion. Is that a word that's not in your vocabulary? Are "me," "myself" and "I" the only thing you care about? Does selfishness define your life?

What I care about is putting this fiscal mess back in order and getting people back to work. Obama needs to stop making EXCUSES. He could have adopted the tenants of the Boles-Simpson bi-patisan Commission but he chose NOT to. This was as YOU remember, a Commission formed by Obama. Since he failed to accept any and all of their recommendations, we have added one and a half trillion to the deficit. He has been a completed failure and a change needed. He has had almost four years to do something and has failed miserably. There is hope and change with Romney!

As I have said elsewhere, the budget commission never issued a report, only a draft, because the commission members couldn't reach agreement. The draft report recommended extensive tax increases that could never have passed Congress. The draft report was something I could agree with, but if you read it you would hate it, not just because of the tax increases, but also for all the loopholes it recommended closing, including the mortgage interest deduction. The last President to balance the budget was Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Have you forgotten that?

Thanks, Bender & MacQuarrie! That Congressman Paul Ryan sought millions of stimulus funds for his district fits in with his family history: his family are millionaires because of government contracts to build highways. "The Ryan workload from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later, was mostly Highway construction." Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-family-wealth-11644997#ixzz23bc6nGEq http://www.ryanfl.com/contact-highway.htm

Finally. The first Tea Bagger realizes all is lost and throws in the towel. Good luck in New Hampshire, where republicans are still republicans and the Tea Gagging party hadn't yet strangled sensibility.

Cut pYments to every state but Wisconsin. That is what Ryan has shown us he believes in.

"we don't want to go with ideas that have proven to fail" Yest tax cuts for those making over $1M, which have been shown to not work, is still a good idea? Myopia much?