Mr. Speaker,
I doubt you will read this, but it needs to be said.
You are about the same age as I am. We both went to high schools in the Big 8 conference: you at Janesville Craig, me at Madison East, and we both worked at McDonald’s as teens. It is entirely possible that as teenagers we crossed paths at a high school athletic event. My parents did not have the money your parents had. There were no ski trips to Colorado for us, especially after your hero, Ronald Reagan, made it okay for management to bust unions.
Like you, I also saw my dad have a heart attack in his fifties. Luckily, my dad survived. I am sorry you had to lose your father at such a young age. I am also sorry you had to watch your grandmother suffer through Alzheimer’s. I lost my mom to dementia, and would not wish either of those diseases on any family. If it had not been for my dad’s Teamsters insurance and Medicare, I do not know what we would have done to care for my mom in her final years.
I think it’s awesome that there was a safety net for you to use to pay for your college education when your father passed away. When my dad lost his livelihood due to union busting, there was no safety net for us. My dad had to take on low-paying jobs just to put food on the table. It would be years before he would see a settlement for unfair labor practices. My college fund went up in smoke, and the only way I could afford a higher education was to join the Army. While I’m proud of that service, I am not thrilled that Congress put an expiration date on the Montgomery GI Bill: life gets in the way, and we could not all finish college in the 10 years allotted.
While you were learning about Freidman, von Mises, and Hayak, I was on the East/West German border, knowing that had war broken out my life expectancy was all of nine minutes, and I would likely go out in a brilliant flash of light. During those days when you were discussing Ayn Rand with your college professor I was at OP Alpha, one of the loneliest outposts in the Army at the time, watching for any signs of Soviet aggression. It is also the place where I got a “Dear John” letter from my high school sweetheart, and I can attribute the steel plates I have in my neck to my time at OP Alpha.
While you were driving the Wienermobile, I was with the 101st Airborne Division, chomping at the bit to get out of the Army and start college. It was also where I tore up my ankles and lost some of my hearing. Those are health issues I am now jumping through hoops with the VA over (guess than makes me a moocher, and a taker).
When you were interning, working as a speech writer, and being mentored by Jack Kemp, I was working in a lumberyard loading trucks, making a couple bucks over minimum wage, trying to save enough money to buy a house with my VA loan. Just so you know, you can’t save any money when you are making a couple of bucks over minimum wage. At the same time, I was on my first attempt at college. It did not go well: I was like a fish out of water. I was a returning veteran with worldly experiences and my classmates were younger and less mature than I was. Not fitting in made things harder than they should have been. I ended up dropping out and going to work full-time for that lumberyard.
When you were elected to Congress, I had worked my way up to be the assistant manager of that lumberyard. I was sent to management training, where the first thing out of the company president’s mouth was, “The assistant manager position will be eliminated over the next couple years.” I was laid off shortly after the birth of my son a couple years later. My family had to declare bankruptcy.
I was determined not to be in that position again, so I went back to college. I wanted to use my GI Bill, but it had expired just one year previously so I had to pay with student loans. I made it through and attained my bachelor’s degree in IT. Just one day after I graduated the state of Wisconsin, our home state, passed a new GI Bill: college would be free for any veteran at any of the state college campuses. It was a little too late for me. I did take the state up on that offer for my master’s degree though (again—moocher).
When you became speaker of the House, I was a divorced single father living paycheck to paycheck, trying to do the best I could for my son. I can balance a budget like no one’s business and I can stretch a dollar a lot further than you can imagine, yet I would give my last dollar to someone who needed it more than I did.
I don’t know where you went wrong in your life, Mr. Speaker. Social Security paid for you to go to college—yet you want to take that away from people. You grew up in a blue-collar union town, much like I did, just 30 miles away from me. You know what those people are like; you know how hard they work. Yet you want to take away their safety net. You had a great public high school education. I have been to Janesville Craig, and it is a helluva lot nicer and more modern school than Madison East is. Your education was paid for with tax dollars, and you know what? I am okay with that. Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue higher education, whether it is as a welder at a tech school, or getting a PhD in literature. Money should not stop you from following your dreams.
You turned your back on the legacy of Robert M. LaFollette, a governor every fourth grader in Wisconsin learns about during Wisconsin history. He fought against corporate power in politics. You are for it. He fought for the rights of the worker, while you have fought for the rights of management. You turned your back on your progressive Republican predecessors who held your seat in Congress like Henry A. Cooper and Thomas R. Amlie.
Paul Ryan, you are a son of Wisconsin. The only problem is: you lost your way. Instead of following the legacy of Wisconsin’s progressive leaders, you have followed the path of Joseph McCarthy—and that is not a compliment. You should be standing up to your party and the president and saying, “ENOUGH!” Yet because you have put party before country, you do nothing. I am sure you know the president and vice president should be impeached and possibly tried for treason, but you sit on your hands seeing this as an opportunity to pass your tax cuts for the rich and tear down the programs of the New Deal.
Shame on you, Mr. Speaker. Shame on you.
Speaker Ryan, you claim to be a devout Catholic. If that is the case, then I suggest that you put down Atlas Shrugged and listen to the words of Pope Francis:
“A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.”
Your fellow Wisconsinite,
Mark E. Andersen