Ryan, Duffy Don't Represent Middle Class

My grandmother’s long days working in a hospital laundry led to a retirement with dignity because Medicare and Social Security were there for her. She never could have afforded the $6,300 extra out of pocket that U.S. Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, and Sean Duffy, R-Weston, think seniors should pay each year. She would have had to get back on that city bus and work long past age 65 when cancer was starting to affect her health. There’s no dignity in a budget with these kinds of values.

What we consider the American dream today revolves around opportunity and dignity. But with cuts to Pell grants in the budget put forward by Ryan and voted for by Duffy and House Republicans, fewer children will have the opportunity to attend college. Pell grants helped me attend the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Growing up in a family where my little brother was sick for all of his nine short years, I saw how Medicaid saved us from bankruptcy. Yet Ryan and Duffy want to put Medicaid on shakier ground while they protect insurance companies that want to deny coverage for children with pre-existing conditions.

I was among the first in the country to declare a campaign for Congress, because the Ryan plan that Duffy supports flies in the face of the American dream as we know it. By voting for the Ryan plan, Duffy essentially voted to end Medicare, gut opportunity, hard work and dignity in exchange for rewarding the privilege, perks and good fortune of the Wall Street and Washington special interests instead of the middle class.

At that moment, I knew Duffy had the wrong values for the 7th Congressional District. Since that time, he’s continued to vote in ways that show he’s not serious about cutting debt, creating Wisconsin jobs or making our tax code fairer for his own constituents.

Cutting wasteful spending the right way is based on a politician’s values, and no one should mistake the Paul Ryan budget as having the right values that help America’s economy or Wisconsin families. The Ryan plan that Duffy supports fails at its own core mission because it makes the deficit worse, not better. The Congressional Budget Office says it would cut taxes, largely for the rich and for corporations that send American jobs overseas and cause downward pressure on American wages. It isn’t real reform on wasteful spending so much as it is a plan to waste more of our money on millionaire tax cuts by making drastic cuts to Medicare and breaking its promise of affordable health care in our retirement years.

I am running to protect seniors and middle-class families in retirement. I will not end the Medicare guarantee just to protect a culture in Washington that rewards billionaires and special interests. Ryan and Duffy had their chance to find a way to reduce the deficit and create a real recovery. Instead they chose to play political games that have delayed bipartisan deals and stalled our recovery. I’m running to replace Duffy because I know how good, serious public policy can help families whose stories are similar to my own.

Nobody handed me a guaranteed outcome, only an opportunity to show that I would work hard. That’s what took me from the working poor to the middle class. I’m going to make sure my grandson’s generation also has opportunities to show how hard work can lead to good jobs, good health, a retirement with dignity and an economy that grows for everyone.

---

This column was originally published in the Wausau Daily Herald.