Paul Ryan's Preaching of Ayn Rand's 'Gospel' Flopping on Main Street

COMMENTARY | House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan got a negative response in a Wisconsin town hall meeting Wednesday when he tried to justify to a constituent why the rich need to keep their Bush-era tax cuts. That's part of his budget deficit plan which recently passed the House.

President Obama criticized Ryan's budget deficit reduction plan Wednesday, calling it "radical" during his own town hall because it also features cuts to social programs which will affect the non-rich. When President Obama laid out his budget plans last week, he charged that Ryan's plan would hurt the disabled, including autistic children, charges which have been soundly criticized by conservatives.

Yet where do Ryan and other conservatives get such ideas that budget plans like his are right for America, plans that gut helpful programs while giving the wealthy more?

Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand, author of best-selling novels "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Despite conservatives who laud the self-reliance attitude of Rand, an atheist who hated the welfare state, in a nutshell, this woman's "Objectivism" philosophy looks this way to progressives: Selfishness overdosing on steroids combined with the attitude that the rich elite are that way because they are gifted and that the unemployed and disabled have no right to expect any help from them through their tax dollars. Only if these "special people" choose to be charitable should others expect anything.

On Phil Donahue's talk show circa 1980, Rand lashed out at society for spending tax money on educating special needs children, using words considered utterly cruel by today's standards, calling them "mentally retarded," "ungifted," and "sub-normal," claiming that the first priorities should go to gifted children (if anybody) since we depend upon them for our survival. Rand felt that special needs kids' parents and charity should be their only sources of help.

Rand died in 1982, but her twisted ideas live on through Republican and tea party lawmakers who are attempting to profoundly affect the lives of Americans, many of whom don't have any real voice in Washington. Paul Ryan and his like minds don't come out and say they're against the poor, the struggling, and the disabled, but their legislative works speak louder than Rand's words.