Paul Ryan: We Spend Too Much Time Measuring Compassion By How Many Tax Dollars We’re Spending
So says Rep. Paul Ryan, addressing the House Budget Committee yesterday.
We’re counting the dollars, says Ryan, but we’re not measuring outcomes. Are more people getting out of poverty because of what we’re spending?
Contrast that with Rep. Nancy Pelosi saying that President Obama should wear the title of “food stamps President” as a “badge of honor.” That goes hand-in-hand with the attitude Ryan is talking about. Many, including most of our friends on the left, like to measure the success of social spending by how many programs we have, how much we’re spending on those programs and how many people are enrolled in them.
Really, though, success should be measured by how many people don’t need those programs.
This is the fundamental political divide in America. On one side, we want people to be independent and to make their own choices accepting the fact that sometimes people make bad choices and suffer the consequences. On the other side, they want to control people’s choices to keep them from making bad ones in the hope that we can avoid consequences.
Tags: deficits, entitlements, food stamps, nancy pelosi, national debt, paul ryan
