Paul Ryan: Social Security and Medicare are “collectivist”

America Magazine, a Catholic weekly in business since 1909, has shared a transcript of Paul Ryan in 2005, decrying Social Security and Medicare as “collectivist” and “a welfare transfer system” and seeking to privatize them.

This isn’t from a secret video, it’s from the untranscribed portion of Ryan’s 2005 speech at the Atlas Society’s “Celebration of Ayn Rand.” It fits well with the Romney video because it makes clear that middle class entitlements, “so called defined benefit programs” such as Social Security and Medicare ARE an explicit strategic target because they are collectivistic, socialistic and foster dependency.

This is the event where Ryan stated that Rand was the “one thinker” who is the “reason I got involved in public service;” and that Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are “required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.” Statements he would latter dismiss as “urban legends.”

The speech has been hidden in plain sight on the Atlas Society website, which offers only a partial transcript. This omits several revealing passages that illuminate Ryan’s philosophy as it relates to policy priorities. It is impossible to summarize these statements without sounding like a breathless conspiracy theorist.

Here’s what Ryan says. Don’t trust my bullets. Read the transcript. Don’t trust my transcript, listen to the audio on the Atlas Society site.

• Ryan describes Social Security and Medicare as “collectivist” and “socialistic.”
• Ryan’s strategic plan: privatize Social Security and Medicare in order to convert people from “collectivism” to believers in a “individualist capitalist” philosophy. So that there will be “more people on our team” who “won’t listen to” Democrats.
• Ryan’s acceptance of Pinochet’s Secretary of Social Security José Piñera’s similar program of Social Security privatization as a “moral revolution” that made Marxists into capitalists who started to read the Chilean equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. Ryan is overheard, “Yeah” “That’s right.”

You can listen to the audio HERE. Vincent Miller’s transcript is available HERE.

Related articles:

1. Jeffress: Social Security Crisis, Medicare Crisis and Deficit are ‘God’s Judgment’ for Legal Abortion
2. Fischer: Social Security and Medicare Are "Ungodly" Programs Of "National Suicide"
3. Santorum: Abortion responsible for Social Security shortfall
4. Paul Ryan still believes in forcing rape victims to bear rapists’ children
5. FFRF halts Social Security pro-baptism practice