Three Articles on Dolan and Ryan

Jonathan Cohn: "The traditional Republican response, which Ryan apparently made in his initial letter to Dolan, is that such reductions are necessary in order to reduce deficits. Dolan indicates he also supports fiscal responsibility and praises Ryan for his pursuit of it. But Dolan is either ill-informed (unlikely) or trying to obscure reality (likely). Such massive cuts to social spending are clearly not necessary to bring the balance into budget. Or, at least, they wouldn’t be if the Republicans weren’t simultaneously instating upon massive tax cuts that would primarily benefit the very wealthiest Americans."

MSW: "The second thing to note is the irony of seeing Ryan invoking Catholic social thought so forcefully. This is the same congressman who said he was inspired to go into politics by reading Ayn Rand, and who instructs his congressional staff to read Rand’s works if they want to understand his mind. During his speech introducing his budget, and in many appearances since, as well as on the House floor, Ryan has never before mentioned Catholic social teaching, nor the 25th Chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, when discussing the moral underpinning of his budget. To be clear: I think Ryan is genuinely concerned that we are saddling future generations of Americans with debt and that this is immoral. Everyone who knows Ryan insists that he is morally serious. But, he is steeped in Rand’s moral vision of human nature and society and, the last time I checked, Rand was not included in the Compendium of Catholic Social Thought."

Nick Sementelli: "Subsidiarity is the Catholic concept that societal issues should be addressed by the least centralized body competent and able to do so. In his letter, Ryan uses one of the Catholic Right's favorite arguments about subsidiarity: claiming that subsidiarity is a blanket endorsement of all "states' rights" claims. But what Ryan leaves out is the second half of that equation which Archbishop Dolan helpfully filled in: "The principles of subsidiarity and solidarity are interrelated to one another." A budget that delegates full responsibility for Medicaid to the states, but gives no concern with the impact that will have on the vulnerable participants in the program is short-sighted."