In Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's State of the Union address last week, he fretted over our social safety nets becoming hammocks.

Here's what he said:

We are at a moment, where if government's growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America's best century will be considered our past century. This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.

So what I want to ask Congressman Paul Ryan is this: How'd it feel to rest in the hammock? How did it feel to know you could go to college and read crap like Ayn Rand because of that hammock? Because Paul Ryan, youngest child in a family of four, had a great big hammock hanging in his living room that sent him to college.

One day as a 16 year old, Ryan came upon the lifeless body of his father. Paul Ryan, Sr. had died of a heart attack at age 55, leaving the Janesville Craig High School 10th grader, his three older brothers and sisters and his mother alone. It was Paul who told the family of his father’s death.

With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college. To make ends meet, Paul’s mother returned to school to study interior design. His siblings were off at college. Ryan remembers this difficult time bringing him and his mother closer.

See how that worked? Congressman Paul Ryan loses his father at age 16, and Social Security steps up to ease the burden. Of course, his mother also received Social Security benefits as his father's surviving spouse.

Seems like it was such a great hammock for Ryan that he just doesn't want anyone else to share it.

[h/t Blue Texan]