Top 5 Worst Things About Paul Ryan's Record

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1. Paul Ryan authored budget proposals that would end Medicare as we know it. His budget proposal would repeal health care reform, sticking seniors with the bill and leaving their health care at risk. This is especially problematic for women, who make up fifty-six percent of Medicare beneficiaries.

2. Paul Ryan’s budget plan would have cut SNAP grants by 18%. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) grants, also known as food stamps, has kept 3.9 million Americans (equivalent to the entire population of Oregon), including 1.7 million children, out of poverty, and allowed them to keep their families from going hungry. This plan also would have drastically cut jobs, leaving 174,000 people out of work.

3. Paul Ryan is bad for women. He voted for a bill that would have effectively banned abortion coverage by insurers who received federal or taxpayer funding. This bill, which Ryan favored, would have allowed anyone involved to refuse to perform an abortion for any reason, even if the life of the woman needing the abortion was in danger.

4. Paul Ryan is extremely anti-choice. Paul Ryan voted for the Protect Life Act, which grants hospitals far-reaching powers to deny women abortion care, without any exception for emergency situations. US law currently requires hospitals receiving federal funds to provide emergency care to anyone in need up to the point at which they can be stabilized or transferred, if the original hospital is incapable of providing the care they need. "The misnamed Protect Life Act is about allowing women to die if they need an emergency abortion," said Meghan Rhoad, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It is a vicious attack on women’s rights and on the most basic right to life.’”

5. Paul Ryan wants to defund Planned Parenthood. This ideological attack would only result in more women losing access to necessary and basic health care. One in five American women have used Planned Parenthood health services.

http://emilyslist.org/blog/breaking-mitt-romney-chooses-paul-ryan-vp





August 11, 2012

Republican Mitt Romney could not have picked a better running mate to telegraph the very essence of his campaign for president than Representative Paul Ryan. Together, these two candidates plan to lead the way in transferring even more wealth from the middle class, the working class and even the poor to the very rich in this country. Women should beware, because they are the targets or the disproportionate casualties in virtually every policy Romney and Ryan propose.

All we need to know about Ryan is written down in his infamous budget plan, which Romney has wholeheartedly embraced. Its most hated feature is that it converts Medicare to a private voucher system -- something that would be particularly harsh for women because they rely on Medicare to a greater degree than men. But it only gets worse from there. The Romney-Ryan budget plan places future cuts to Social Security benefits on a fast track that Congress could not slow down; makes Medicaid a state block grant program; repeals Obamacare, which makes health insurance affordable to tens of millions of women and their families; and slashes a whole range of social programs that disproportionately serve and employ women.

Members of the media will tell you that Ryan is smart and "wonky." But what he has in store for this nation is not smart -- it's doubling down on the disastrous policies of the Bush-Cheney years that not only wrecked the U.S. economy but pushed relentlessly to turn back the clock on women's basic rights. A Romney-Ryan administration would support anti-abortion efforts like "personhood" amendments, totally defund Planned Parenthood and all ferderally-funded family planning services, and use government to sanction religious opposition to birth control. Their vision is a threat to women's rights, public health and the economic security of the vast majority of people in the United States -- all for the benefit of the most fortunate among us.

In the coming days and weeks, right up until November 6, NOW will reach out to voters to drive home the message that a Romney-Ryan administration would be truly devastating to our economy and to women in particular. We will be dogging Romney-Ryan on the campaign trail, mobilizing to expose the disproportionate impact on women of their positions on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the social programs they would slash. We will also shine a spotlight on Romney-Ryan's threats to equal pay, reproductive justice, protecting women from violence, and other issues that deserve greater attention in this deeply consequential election.

http://now.org/press/08-12/08-11.html