Liberals Attack Conservative Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) Because He Received Benefits When His Father Died Young

Liberals attack Paul Ryan because his father died young, resulting in survivor benefits

(By Hans Bader, Washington Examiner) - At the age of 16, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., suffered the death of his 55-year-old father. Because of his father’s early death, the government made survivor payments for a few years to Paul Ryan’s family – including for Paul Ryan himself. Ryan collected benefits for two years, until he turned 18.

The net effect of the death of Paul Ryan’s father was likely to reduce taxpayer expenditures on Ryan’s family, since retirees typically collect at least a decade’s worth of benefits. (My own father died five years short of retirement. The result was that my mother, who could otherwise have collected spousal benefits when he retired, instead had to wait well over a decade for benefits, reducing her lifetime social security benefits. She was effectively punished for his death.)

But the Daily Kos blog is now using his father's early death against Ryan. A Daily Kos diary attacks Ryan in a post entitled, “Entitlement-hating Paul Ryan collected Social Security benefits until he was 18.” Never mind that Ryan’s recent budget proposal doesn’t in fact seek to abolish entitlements, much less get rid of Social Security. It merely seeks to cut the rate of growth of exploding Medicare costs by eventually giving its recipients vouchers they can use to shop around for medical care.