43aaf2f4   
   XPost: alt.politics.bush, alt.politics.republicans, alt.politics.elections   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats.d   
   From: nsmontassoc@yahoo.com   
      
   On 8/20/2012 7:45 AM, Bundler Unbound wrote:   
   > "In few places have dreams become more diminished and futures more   
   > uncertain than in his home town."   
   >   
   > "Private philanthropy — which Ryan says he prefers to government   
   > subsidies — has withered, because fewer people in town can afford to   
   > give to charity. To save money, the two United Way chapters in the   
   > county have just merged, laying off three of the six workers in the   
   > Janesville office."   
   >   
   >   
   > ===================================   
   >   
   > "Could Paul Ryan’s ideas help his struggling home town?"   
   >   
   > Opinion   
   > By Amy Goldstein   
   > August 17,  2012   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   > Rep. PAUL RYANwas eight minutes into his maiden speech as the 2012   
   > Republican vice presidential candidate when his brow furrowed. “Over   
   > the years,” he said, “I have seen and heard from a lot of families,   
   > from a lot of those who are running small businesses and from people   
   > who are in need, but what I’ve heard lately, that’s what troubles me   
   > the most. There’s something different in their voice, in their words.   
   > What I hear from them are diminished dreams, lowered expectations,   
   > uncertain futures.”   
   >   
   > What Ryan did not mention last Saturday in Norfolk, with a battleship   
   > and bunting behind him, is this: In few places have dreams become more   
   > diminished and futures more uncertain than in his home town.   
   > Janesville, Wis., is a community of 63,000 near the Illinois border   
   > where Ryan still returns on weekends and is sometimes an usher at St.   
   > John Vianney Roman Catholic Church. It has a proud industrial past —   
   > and a job base that was shredded in the recent recession.   
   >   
   > Ryan has emerged as his party’s star advocate of smaller government,   
   > free markets and conservative social policies. Could places like the   
   > small, park-studded city where he grew up be healed by the ideas that   
   > catapulted him onto the GOP presidential ticket?   
   >   
   > Janesville was the home of the Parker Pen Co. from the late 1880s   
   > until the manufacturer was sold and gradually left town, laying off a   
   > final 140 workers in 2010. But for nearly a century, the main engine   
   > of the local economy was a hulking General Motors plant alongside the   
   > Rock River. The Janesville assembly plant began to turn out cars in   
   > the early 1920s and at its height employed 7,000 people, pulling in   
   > family members one generation to the next. It was the oldest operating   
   > auto plant in the country when it shut down at the end of 2008. Its   
   > closing triggered layoffs of more than 5,000 people and roughly $225   
   > million in lost payroll at the plant and at local companies that   
   > supplied goods and services to GM.   
   >   
   > Some families have left town. Some that used to enjoy their boats and   
   > summer cabins have been turning up at the local food pantry, on   
   > Medicaid rolls and in foreclosure listings.   
   >   
   > In the days since Ryan became one of the GOP’s two leading men, the   
   > people of Janesville, of all political beliefs, have been reveling in   
   > the reflected glory of their native son. But already, there are hints   
   > of unease about whether, if their congressman were to reach the White   
   > House, his fiscal views would serve his community well.   
   >   
   > In his budget proposal, the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” Ryan, the   
   > chairman of the House Budget Committee, lays out a path to curb   
   > federal spending and taxes that would redefine Social Security,   
   > Medicare and Medicaid — the main fibers of the nation’s social safety   
   > net and big drivers of federal deficits into the future.   
   >   
   > “It can’t possibly hurt to have the vice president of the United   
   > States come from Janesville,” said state Sen. Tim Cullen, a moderate   
   > Democrat and long-respected local figure who has worked extensively   
   > with Ryan and likes him. But of Ryan’s pure faith in the private   
   > sector to meet social needs, Cullen said that in a town like   
   > Janesville, “it’s a mismatch.”   
   >   
   > I have spent the past year exploring the effects of vanished jobs in   
   > the place that happens to be Ryan’s home town. Janesville is appealing   
   > as a microcosm because, even though the economy has been bruised there   
   > lately more than in many other places, the shape of its job losses   
   > largely matches the national pattern. The recent recession stole more   
   > jobs from manufacturing than from any other sector, more from men than   
   > from women, and it had a substantial impact on people who were not   
   > highly educated but were well-paid.   
   >   
   > Janesville is an old United Auto Workers town that tilts Democratic,   
   > but with Ryan’s natural charm, prominent family, savvy politics and   
   > relatively weak opponents, the people of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional   
   > District keep sending him to Washington by comfortable margins. He was   
   > first elected to Congress in 1998, at age 28, a full decade before the   
   > GM plant closed and he issued the first version of the “Roadmap” that   
   > would make him a conservative icon.   
   >   
   > Even before Mitt Romney chose him as his running mate, Ryan’s focus in   
   > the past couple of years was becoming more national. While he   
   > continued to hold “listening sessions” with his constituents and was a   
   > familiar figure around Janesville, he wasn’t at public events quite as   
   > often. He began to get heckled by older people in town because of his   
   > ideas for Social Security and Medicare. And the caustic politics   
   > surrounding Wisconsin’s conservative governor, Scott Walker (R), made   
   > Ryan a lightning rod, too. Last Sunday, when he and Romney flew to   
   > Wisconsin — the new GOP ticket’s first appearance in Ryan’s home state   
   > — they did not appear in Janesville. They went to the convention   
   > center in Waukesha, the state’s Republican core, just north of Ryan’s   
   > congressional district.   
   >   
   > Still, Ryan has not shunned his home town’s needs. When General Motors   
   > announced that it might close the Janesville assembly plant,   
   > Wisconsin’s then-governor, Jim Doyle, a Democrat, assigned a task   
   > force to try to save it. Cullen was a co-chairman, and he recalls that   
   > Ryan quietly went to Detroit on his own to meet with company   
   > officials. And he “met with GM people in Washington. We didn’t   
   > succeed, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try hard,” the state senator   
      
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