Ryan, with no political competition to fear, has felt perfectly safe in voting against the programs that his district so desperately needs. He has voted against minimum wage increases that would make hard work more family-sustaining; he has opposed the S-CHIP health program and Obama’s flawed but useful Affordable Care Act, despite a 71 percent increase in visits to Janesville’s low-income health clinic and he has voted against extended unemployment benefits in the face of pitifully few job opportunities for the thousands of jobless in Janesville.

Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” would cut funding for job-training programs around the country. “The cuts he is proposing would have a devastating effect on the hardest-hit workers in Wisconsin, with cities like Racine and Beloit way above the national average in unemployment,” says Robert Borremans, executive director of the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board. “The cuts would mean that displaced workers would be shut out of new opportunities.”