Tonight the Huffington Post published video of GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan claiming “Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want the welfare state.” Ryan made the comments — eerily similar to those made by Mitt Romney earlier this year, which went viral last month — “as part of his keynote address at The American Spectator’s 2011 Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner,” the Huffington Post reported.
“Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers,” Ryan added, although the Huffington Post notes that “it’s not definitively clear whether Ryan said ‘the welfare state’ or ‘their welfare state.’ HuffPost originally transcribed it as ‘their welfare state.’ Regardless, the comment was made in reference to people on government assistance.”
“Today, 70 percent of Americans get more benefits from the federal government in dollar value than they pay back in taxes,” Ryan said. “So you could argue that we’re already past that [moral] tipping point. The good news is survey after survey, poll after poll, still shows that we are a center-right 70-30 country. Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want their welfare state. What that tells us is at least half of those people who are currently in that category are there not of their wish or their will.”
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Ryan’s pertinent comments begin at about the 6:40 mark: