The glue that holds Republicans together is massive tax breaks for the wealthy. Guns, Jesus, racism, abortion, homophobia, Mexicans, Muslims, and giving the finger to anyone smarter than a Palin are all just silly meaningless bones the the RNC throws down to feed their ignorant bigoted base to win elections.
Even back in high school Paul Ryan sleeping with Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged knew he would dedicate his life to massive tax cuts for the wealthy. His very existence as a good Catholic Christian.
Arthur Laffer and his silly Laffer curve calling for massive tax breaks for the wealthy has consistently been shown to be an even bigger pile of crap that Ayn Rand.
If you look at the historic graph of when our budget turned from black to red since 1946 one can see the actual date of that moment. 1963 when JFK slashed taxes on the wealthy by about half. Right at the moment down we went into every increasing debt and deficit. Reagan gave it a shot and tripled the debt. W Bush gave it a shot and doubled the debt.
When I was 17 I read Atlas Shrugged and fell under the spell, in fact the first bumper sticker I every bought was WHO IS JOHN GALT. But after a year my acne cleared up along with my head, not so with Paul Ryan.