Paul Ryan’s poverty tourism

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:44:00 +0000

Paul Ryan, in a recent photo, appeared to be vigorously scrubbing dishes at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio. As the Washington Post noted: “Ryan, his wife and their young children headed to the kitchen, donned white aprons and offered to clean up some dishes.”

However, they were in an empty facility, at a time when breakfast service was over, the homeless clients vamoosed, the place already scrubbed by volunteers. So what did Paul Ryan do, since he was there to express his concern for the poor and downtrodden? Make a donation? Actually, according to the Post, he “took some large metal pans that did not appear to be dirty, soaped them up and rinsed them … as the cameras clicked and the TV cameras rolled.”

I know soup kitchens. I’ve worked in one. Paul Ryan did not work.

Salon.com > Paul Ryan soup kitchen

Paul Ryan’s poverty tourism