River Skylan and Hadley Van Dyne face off week to week as they stalk the campaign trails of President Obama and his opponent, Mitt Romney. They dabble in hot topics and issues facing the social and political consequence of the country at large. This week, River gets the first punch while Hadley gets the rebuttal. Tune in next week for more he said/she said of the left and right and to find out just where this debate will take us in time for Election 2012.

River says:

Did you hear the one about Mitt Romney selecting Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate?

Upon hearing the news I couldn’t help but ask myself: Is this Mitt’s way of saying I give up but I took so much money from you guys I have to pretend I’m still interested in becoming your next prez?

Alright so this Paul Ryan character, here’s a bit about him.

He wants to replace Medicare with coupons for private insurance plans. Coupons. He should just call them Early Bird Specials, my grandma loves those. The coupons would be designed not to keep up with medical inflation which would lead to seniors paying higher out-of-pocket costs every year. Then there’s Medicaid which, in addition to food stamps, Ryan wants to turn into block grants delivered to the states at highly reduced levels.

He wants to reduce taxes for the wealthy, giving them an extra 12.5% in after-tax income which will be easy as pie once his other cuts are put into place; he believes broad social spending programs are immoral and foster dependency.

Paul Ryan is a Catholic hated by the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s, which whom he credits much of his political career. Frightening.

He also wants to eliminate Pell Grants for higher education students across the country. As if college isn’t expensive enough, and jobs aren’t hard enough to come by…

Here’s where he stands on family issues:

• Voted to end Planned Parenthood funding
• Aims to ban abortion with 0 exceptions for rape or incest
• Supported the “LET WOMEN DIE” act, which allows hospitals to let mothers die instead of performing life-saving abortions.
• Co-sponsored the extreme “Personhood” bill that could ban forms of birth control. Personhood, by the way, is such a radical idea that even Mississippi, the most conservative of these united states, rejected it.

Hadley says:

River, if you want the real truth about Medicare, it’s that it will be bankrupt for those of us 45 and under by the time it’s our turn. Obama’s plan to save that is to underpay the doctors of those 55 and over who are still covered under the old Medicare. What kind of care do you expect you’ll get when your doctors are underpaid?

Paul Ryan will be a great balance to Romney and his budget plans will help put an end to our country’s mounting debt. Reducing taxes means more money for the economy, plain and simple. Ryan’s Path to Prosperity details plans to reform budget, tax code, Social Security and health care. He’s honest about our bankrupt government and its overspending and wants to take action where action has been ignored. Reforms for our broken tax code will increase jobs and lower rates. He aims to reverse Obama’s policies that drive up gas prices and instead open American energy production to help lower costs, create jobs and eliminate our dependency on foreign oil.

His budget also:

• Strengthens health and retirement security by taking power away from government bureaucrats and empowering patients instead with control over their own care;
• Restores economic freedom and ensures a level playing field for all by putting an end to special-interest favoritism and corporate welfare
• Cuts government spending to protect hardworking taxpayers;
• Tackles the drivers of our debt, so our troops don’t pay the price for Washington’s failure to take action

Your president has made a lot of false promises and a lot of wrong moves. Ryan is standing up for those of us who are tired of having our money spent in the wrong places. He’s ready to take action and I’m certainly ready for someone to get our nation’s budget back into some kind of order.