Paul Ryan at CPAC: Free school lunches mean poor parents don’t care about kids | The Raw Story

I know that CPAC will be well covered and not sure what I could possibly add to the conversation. I won't be remaining silent, just focusing more on some of the idiocy coming from our "officials" in the GOP.

Although the target of this article is his comment regarding "brown bagging it" versus the school lunch program, the clip (and I do realize this is just a clip) starts in with his false claim (or interpretation) concerning the recent CBO report.

No, it will not discourage people from working, it will allow people in the same boat as I (working 2 and in some cases 3 jobs) to reduce work hours from 62+/week to 40. What the CBO report actually says according to FactCheck:

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers CHOOSE to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise RATHER THAN AS AN INCREASE IN UNEMPLOYMENT (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) OR UNDEREMPLOYMENT (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).

But the kicker concerning this clip, besides being totally detached from realty, from the comments section:

“Miss Laura,” he said, “I don’t want your money. I want my lunch in a brown paper bag.”

“Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a bag?”

“Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a paper bag, that means someone cares about them. Miss Laura, can I please have my lunch in a paper bag?”

According to commenter "jimmyblair" this is a passage from a book by Laura Schroff, An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny The story summary is generally accepted to be about the unbreakable connection between those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. Ryan seems to have misinterpreted it to give an anti-government slant that isn't at all a part of the original story.

So I did a bit of searching to see if "others" had picked up on this tid-bit and they have - yea rah! Wonkette, in their usual snarky style picked up the story from a different posting and ran with it:

Wonker Tallmutha caught TPM commenter Ottnott sexplaining that the whole story was STOLED from the book An Invisible Thread, which is about … GIVING CHILDREN FREE FOOD AND HOW THAT IS THE BEST!

And then there is this, Ryan's lame excuse:

Today at CPAC, I shared a story I heard from Eloise Anderson, the secretary for children and families for the state of Wisconsin. She mentioned it in her testimony for a House Budget Committee hearing last year. I have just learned that Secretary Anderson misspoke, and that the story she told was improperly sourced. I regret failing to verify the original source of the story, but I appreciate her taking the time to share her insights.

So what started as a post about how devoid of humanity Paul Ryan is has turned into something much more interesting.

Oh and one final thought, if Eloise used this stolen anecdote in testimony, isn't that perjury?

Paul Ryan at CPAC: Free school lunches mean poor parents don’t care about kids | The Raw Story