Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took a swing at Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for his comments about the unemployed and inner city culture.
In a March speech at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor’s Humphrey-Mondale Dinner, Warren referenced Ryan’s comments that safety net programs like unemployment insurance can become a “hammock that ends up lulling people in their lives into dependency and complacency.”
“Paul Ryan thinks that a little help to try to keep the mortgage paid and food on the table will cause them to kick back and live large with no plans to work again,” Warren said.
She then quoted Ryan’s remarks in March where the congressman commented on the inner city “culture problem” of “men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working.”
Warren slammed Ryan for blaming the unemployed, and said he should instead blame Wall Street, deregulation and his own party.
“Paul Ryan looks around, sees three unemployed workers for every job opening in America, and blames the people who can’t find a job,” she said.
“Paul Ryan says don’t blame Wall Street: the guys who made billions of dollars cheating American families,” she added. “Don’t blame decades of deregulation that took the cops off the beat while the big banks looted the American economy. Don’t blame the Republican Secretary of the Treasury, and the Republican president who set in motion a no-strings-attached bailout for the biggest banks. Nope. Paul Ryan says keep the monies flowing to the powerful corporations, keep their huge tax breaks, keep the special deals for the too-big-to-fail banks and put the blame on hardworking, play-by-the-rules Americans who lost their jobs.”
After criticism from Democrats, Ryan called the remarks “inarticulate.”
Watch the video via the Warren campaign:
[H/t Huffington Post]
