Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Steve Benen at MaddowBlog:

Ryan was confronted by a voter at an event yesterday who’s struggling, and can’t afford to give up on public assistance. The Republican vice presidential nominee responded, “The only thing that limits you is your God given talent and your own effort. We need to have that dynamic economy return. You do that by drawing the economy and giving people a hand up, not a hand out. Teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself for a life. Don’t simply feed fish.”

As Sharpton asked, “Don’t feed fish? What does that even mean?” I don’t know, but that strikes me as a good question.

But I have a related concern: since when does Paul Ryan believe in teaching people to fish? Ryan’s budget plan includes some pretty brutal cuts to education and public-assistance programs. In fact, though much of his agenda is vague when it comes to reductions, if Ryan’s cuts were applied evenly, his budget could cut nearly $5 billion from elementary and secondary education, and take college aid away from nearly 10 million students.