What Independent Women Voters Think of the Romney/Ryan Budget

With the selection of GOP extremist and social-engineer Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate—the stakes for women just got that much higher. Paul Ryan’s record is considered more conservative than Dick Cheney’s, and his suggested policies could be just as (if not more) detrimental to women and families. Not only does this anti-choice extremist want to completely derail Social Security, he wants to “end Medicare as we know it.” As EMILY’S List President Stephanie Schriock points out: “…from cradle to grave, Ryan and Romney are trying to make it harder for women to take care of themselves and their families.”

And women know it, too. We surveyed nearly 1,000 likely Independent female voters across 13 battleground states about the Ryan Budget and the Republican War on Women.  Across the board, Independent women voters were not impressed with Ryan’s policies.

• 65%: the percent of independent women who think Ryan’s plan to cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age, and replace Medicare with a voucher program while giving tax breaks to corporations and millionaires is a convincing reason to vote against Republicans running for Congress.
• 69% of independent women voters found Ryan’s plan to make deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and make women pay higher premiums for preventative healthcare like mammograms and cancer screenings a convincing reason to vote against Republicans running for Congress.
• 70% of independent women find Ryan’s plan to significantly cut taxes for multimillionaires while raising taxes for millions of families with kids who make less than $40 thousand dollars a convincing reason to vote against Republicans running for Congress
• 70%: of independent women find Ryan’s plan to cut Pell Grants for ten million students and rob one million students their access to college loans a convincing reason not to vote for Republicans running for Congress.

It doesn’t get much starker than this: under the Ryan Romney-Ryan & Republican platform: women lose. They lose the right to the retirement support they were counting on; they lose the right to affordable healthcare; they lose the capacity to better provide for their families, and they lose the ability to compete globally with a quality education.

We may have logic and numbers on our side, but on this road to history: we need to make sure we have boots on the ground. It has never been more important for women to speak up and get out the vote for President Obama and our EMILY’s List candidates who work tirelessly to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Universal Healthcare from their extremist enemies.