Though Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan claims that the Republican ticket “will not seek to transform America into something it was never intended to be,” as a Congressman, Ryan advanced legislation that he himself admitted would profoundly alter the fabric of American society.

Throughout his career, Ryan advocated for privatization of Medicare and Social Security as a means of restructuring society to more closely resemble the extreme laissez-faire system envisioned by authors like Ayn Rand. In a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, an Ayn Rand appreciation group, Ryan explicitly said Republicans should “change the dynamics in this society”:

Health savings accounts, personal accounts for Social Security, these are the things that put the individual back in the game, that break the back of this collectivist philosophy that pervades, you know, 90 percent of the thinking here in this town [...]

[W]e have to go back to Ayn Rand. Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works…. I think, if we win a few of these right now, if we switch health care to an individual, consumer-based system, in moving Social Security to an individually pre-owned, pre-funded retirement system, just those two things right there, will do so much to change the dynamics in this society, will do so much to bring more people into the side of transparency in government, than anything else we can do.

Indeed, it’s hard to overstate how much of a break Ryan’s budget proposals are with the American political tradition. His dramatic spending cuts would crowd out almost every part of government other than the military and Social Security.

Ryan’s budget is such an ambitious attempt to change American society that Newt Gingrich (no stranger to extremism) called it “right-wing social engineering.” He would slowly dismantle the New-Deal era institutions that spread economic risks across everyone — the rich, and poor, the healthy and the sick — and shift all of the economic costs and risks onto the individual.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced Wednesday that all 88 boards of election in the state must restrict early voting hours to weekdays. The uniform hours were decided in the wake of outcry over the disparity between restricted hours in Democratic-leaning counties and expanded hours in Republican-leaning counties.

All early voting locations will now be open Tuesday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm through October 12th, then Monday through Friday from 8 am to 7 pm through November 1st. Because weekend voting hours have been eliminated, all voting must end Friday, November 2nd at 6 pm.

By decreeing this new rule, Husted complicates the Obama campaign’s lawsuit over a new law barring all but military families the right to vote in the three days leading up to the election. While the Obama campaign wanted to restore that right to everyone, Husted’s decision means no one, including military voters, can vote during this period.

Husted, a Republican, scoffed at the “political hysteria” and “partisan controversy” surrounding the differing schedules, saying, “It has been in law and in tradition in Ohio that local Boards of Elections have established their own voting hours.”

But the break with tradition was of Husted’s own making; when the local committees in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lucas, and Franklin counties gridlocked over expanding hours, the Secretary of State stepped in to deny the expansion. These counties contain Ohio’s most populous and diverse cities: Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, and Columbus, which all went to Obama in 2008. 82% of early voters in Franklin County and 50% of Cuyahoga County voters voted on nights or weekends. Republican territories Warren and Butler Counties, meanwhile, approved expanded hours, as they had in the 2008 election.

Lynn Kinkaid, Director of the Butler County Board of Elections, told ThinkProgress they expanded hours “to give every citizen the ability to vote” and recalled long lines of voters on weekends during the 2008 election. But he personally agreed with Husted’s directive to limit hours, noting the strain on staff and county budgets that can’t afford to pay overtime for weekend pollworkers. However, the county has asked the Secretary of State’s office to allow them to stay open on Columbus Day, which the new directive prohibits.

Mitt Romney offered a white board presentation during a news briefing in South Carolina on Thursday morning that sought to untangle the campaign’s contradictory message about Medicare. Over the last week, Romney and Ryan have twisted themselves into a pretzel to attack President Obama for “stealing” $716 billion from Medicare, while trying to explain why Paul Ryan included the savings in his FY 2013 budget. Romney had previously pledged to sign the document into law.

During the presentation, Romney tried to lay out the differences. Obama takes the money out of seniors’ Medicare Advantage plans and cuts payments to providers, causing some to lose his coverage, he argued. The program’s trust fund would go bankrupt by 2024, under Obama, and seniors would lose access to the care they need. His plan, alternatively, would preserve the program for current retirees and keep it solvent indefinitely.

ThinkProgress explains why this is wrong:

The Obamacare savings slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade by, in part: eliminating overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, reforming provider payments to encourage greater efficiency, tying reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and reducing fraud and abuse. The law does not impact patient benefits.

As a result of these savings, “growth in spending will be restrained” and the life of the Medicare trust fund is expanded by eight years, the government estimates. Sixteen million seniors are also benefiting from the savings by receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and saving more than $3.9 billion on prescription drugs.

Should Romney restore the $716 billion — and unless he institutes other yet to be specified reforms — we would move back to the old system of overpaying private insurers and providers. He’d be re-inserting inefficiency back into the system, jeopardizing the benefits that seniors are currently enjoying, and shrinking the solvency of the Medicare trust fund from 2024 under current law to 2016.