Love him or hate him, there can be no denying that during President Obama’s tenure, Americans’ level of dependence on government has increased — the news that President Obama’s work requirement waiver helped to explode the number of able-bodied people on food stamps is only the latest confirmation. Mitt Romney weighed in on that point with a short op-ed today, reaffirming why his policies would lead to more opportunity while President Obama’s would lead to more economic decay, and his running mate followed up on the 47-percent flap with a similarly straightforward message, via NBC:

“He was obviously inarticulate in making this point,” Ryan said in an interview with KRNV. “The point we’re trying to make here is under the Obama economy, government dependency is up and economic stagnation is up, and what we’re trying to achieve is getting people off of government dependency and back to a job that pays well and gets them onto a path of prosperity.” …

Asked if Romney regrets what he said, Ryan responded: “Oh, I think he would have said it differently, that’s for sure, but the point still stands. We have too many people becoming too dependent upon government because of the poor economic policies of the Obama administration.”

Ryan also highlighted the dependence/stagnation vs. prosperity point with his own ad released today — vice presidential candidate he may be, and that obviously does a lot to help him with exposure, but he’s still got his own race to run in his home Wisconsin district to defend his Congressional seat. Ergo, maybe a little more low-budget than what we’re used to by now, but lowering taxes, cutting down regulations, balancing the budget — it’s all gold.