IF YOU are a Republican office-holder on the mainland these days ... or if you are one of the Republicans seeking to become the party’s champion this fall against President Barak Obama ... it seems as if one thing you absolutely, positively, 100 percent must do is support the Ryan budget.

As has been widely reported over the last few days, the Ryan budget would gut virtually every program that the less fortunate among us depend on, including food stamps, Medicaid, educational assistance and others. It would also transform Medicare into a voucher program, in which seniors would have to pay the difference between the coupons and the actual cost of their insurance.

Those whose annual incomes are more than $1 million, on the other hand, would be getting a tax cut of more than $250,000.

For his part, President Obama decried it as “a prescription for decline” and "thinly veiled social Darwinism.”

But how did such a radical plan come into being ... and why have so many of our friends on the right embraced it?

The answer may lie in the growing popularity of the godmother of radical libertarianism from the '40s through the '70s, Ayn Rand.

Some of you may remember Ms. Rand as the author of works such as “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” in which she basically extolled the virtue of living a life of pure greed and indifference to others. For her model of the ideal man, Rand chose William Edward Hickman, a gentleman of her day who was most famous for kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old girl and dismembering her body.

In one of her early journals, Rand quoted the statement by Hickman: "What is good for me is right." Her response? "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard."

Some of Rand’s other quotes include:

“Nobody has ever given a reason why man should be his brothers’ keeper”;

“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue”; and

"One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!"

Representative Ryan is a great fan of Ms. Rand, and requires that all of his staff read her books. Looking at his budget, I can only think that his muse would have approved.

Knowing that Gov. Calvo is a man of sincere Catholic faith, however, I was quite curious to know what he thought about it.

Would he, like Gov. Mitt Romney, whom he supports for president, abandon his lifelong positions and kiss the ring of Mr. Ryan? Would the governor twist himself into some sort of intellectual pretzel trying to justify a plan he surely knows would be a disaster for Guam?

I put the question to him at his briefing last Tuesday: “Governor, what do you think of the Ryan budget?”

His response?

I am pleased to report that, solid Republican loyalist though he may be, Gov. Calvo passionately rejected it. He said while he agrees with Gov. Romney on issues of economic freedom, he completely disagrees with the Ryan plan.

It appeared that the governor’s opposition stemmed not only from the plan’s potential economic impact, but also for its basic morality ... or lack thereof.

“I think what separates humanity from animals is the way we treat those that are most needy,” the governor said.

With election season starting, passions are running high about many issues. On this one, however, I am glad to see that common sense and basic humanity still prevail upon Guam ... on both sides of the aisle.