Editor:
Vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention last Wednesday night was so loaded with lies that even Fox News wrote, “To anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.
“The Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of – cow dung – that flowed from Ryan’s mouth.”
1. Ryan blamed the president for the nation’s credit downgrade in August of 2011.
When Standard & Poor downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating, they said that it was because Republican lawmakers had taken the nation’s debt ceiling hostage (something Ryan supported doing) and because “the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues” (another position Ryan maintains). Remember Grover Norquist’s binding tax pledge…
You will not raise taxes or I will destroy you?
2. “More debt than any other president before him.” Romney has made the same claim. It’s a lie. That’s Bush, not Obama. When Obama took office, the national debt was $10.626 trillion. It has increased to slightly above $15 trillion. A deficit mostly created by spending programs Ryan himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP (the Bush bank bailout).
3. Blamed Obama for shutting down a GM plant in his hometown, Janesville, Wis. Again, that was Bush, not Obama. Ryan actually asked for federal spending (bailout) to save the plant, while Romney and GOP were against the auto industry bailout.
4. Obama “did exactly nothing” on Bowles-Simpson. Fact: Ryan, who was on the 18-member commission as ranking house member, voted against it!
The House Republicans voted as a bloc – they were the only ones to vote as a bloc. Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called Ryan’s statement “utterly hypocritical, the three House Republicans who voted against it, unlike the Senate Republicans, were instrumental in keeping the plan from coming directly to Congress.”
Don’t forget the GOPs plan is for Obama to be a one term president. They’re not going to give him anything. Mitt Romney, by the way, in an interview, told Sean Hannity: “My plan is very similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan.” Really?
5. He accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by $716 billion. In fact, Medicare’s chief actuary says the law (Obamacare) “substantially improves” the system’s finances. Plus, Ryan himself has embraced the same savings in his most recent “Path to Prosperity” budget. Romney, on the other hand, has vowed to restore these cuts, so he’s at odds with his own VP. Obamacare doesn’t raid Medicare and Ryan’s plan would do a lot more to ruin Medicare. One of the biggest lies of the campaign.
6. Stimulus — Ryan: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare … You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.” Truth: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus created 3.3 million jobs. Four out of five economists agree. More than a quarter of all stimulus dollars went for tax relief for workers. Ryan himself wrote letters requesting stimulus money, then lied about it.
7. Obamacare — Ryan: “You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover…” Truth: Politifact called the “government takeover of healthcare” their “lie of the year” in 2010.
8. Jobs — Ryan: “We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years.” Truth: An almost impossible goal. Technology has driven down manufacturing employment. Today, in almost every industry, fewer people are required. Digital control systems now monitor activity and send commands sans people. People are becoming obsolete. Employers say Americans lack the skills they want/need. Too many people, not enough living-wage jobs.
9. Debt — Ryan: “The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.” Truth: A false choice. There is no evidence that decreasing the size of government grows the economy; What are you going to do with the laid-off government workers and contractor jobs?
10. Ryan said: “The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.”
Ha! All you have to do is look at his budget and the guiding light of his life, the atheist sociopath Ayn Rand. The church has condemned Ryan’s budget plan as immoral; Fox News contributor Sally Kohn says “Ryan would raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires even further and increase — yes, increase —the deficit.’’
Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong. Doesn’t seem to faze these people.
Diane Daiute
Sweet Home