In-Depth Reporting From Janesville...By Out-Of-State Media

Solid economic and political profile of Janesville...but in The Washington Post, not (again) in a Wisconsin paper.

Can Ryan’s hometown survive Ryan?

Yet it is clear that some of Ryan’s votes and policy ideas collide with what Janesville has been going through. When he opposed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus package enacted in February 2009 — less than two months after the GM plant closed — Ryan famously derided the legislation as a “wasteful spending spree.” He also opposed a bill in early March of that year to help Americans avoid home foreclosures, as foreclosures back home were on the verge of shooting up. That same winter, he voted against an expansion of a state-federal insurance program for children, CHIP, even as Janesville families were losing their health coverage along with their jobs. And near the end of 2010, he voted against a child nutrition bill that continued subsidies for school lunches, even though the share of Janesville schoolchildren qualifying for such subsidies has doubled in the past few years to about 50 percent.