Only on Brody File: Paul Ryan Says Obama Trying To 'Equalize the Outcome of People's Lives'

In an exclusive interview with The Brody File, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan says President Obama’s vision for America “is to equalize the outcome of people’s lives” and blames the president for the high rates of poverty in this country.

This interview was conducted last Tuesday near Milwaukee, Wis., but The Brody File is making some clips available now. A full report will air this Thursday on "The 700 Club."

Courtesy: CBN News/The Brody File

David Brody: The liberals will say that about 60 percent of the budget cuts that you are proposing are going to hit low income Americans. What’s the response to that?

Paul Ryan: I would say, first of all, we need to fix our social safety net. And spending still continues under our budget under Medicaid and these other programs. They just don’t grow at the crazy pace that the president is proposing because those become unsustainable.

Here is the way we look at dealing with the safety net. We want the safety net to be there for people who can’t help themselves, and we want it to be there for people who are down on their luck, so that they can get back on their feet and get on with their lives with independence and self-sufficiency. But when we look at the safety net we look at not treating the symptoms of poverty, to make it easier to cope with, and live with, and to stay on. We look at the root causes of poverty so that we can eradicate poverty and end the cycle of poverty.

One in six Americans is in poverty today. More people are in poverty today than since we’ve been measuring the poverty rates. That’s under President Obama’s watch. These are a result of President Obama’s policies. So, if we want more of the same, stick with President Obama’s doing, which is having the highest poverty rates in the country.

What we want is economic opportunity. We want upward mobility. We want to have the kinds of reforms that worked so well in the 90s applied to the other parts of the social safety net so that they’re geared to getting people back to work, on their feet, in their lives where they can control their own destiny. We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency, and have that dependency culture. That’s not the American way, that’s not the American dream.

We want to restore the American dream for everybody in American society so that every person has a chance at equal opportunity to make the most of their lives. The president’s vision, I believe, is to equalize the outcome of people’s lives - not to promote natural rights and equal opportunity, but new government granted rights and equality of outcome. It’s a very different vision of what it used to be, and I really think that’s where the president is trying to take this country.