Things Paul Ryan Would Like Locals To Forget

Okay. I began this posting as a brief top five list but in less than an hour I was past ten. It simply got away from me.

1. That Paul Ryan participated in a conspiracy on the eve of Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration with about 15 other republicans who agreed to use congressional power to destabilize the U.S. economy in an effort to install single-party rule, and make Obama a one-term president. Three weeks after the meeting in Washington, Ryan held a similar meeting in Janesville with Wisconsin operatives to discuss the local strategy.

2. That he proposed larger tax cuts than George W. Bush in 2001 meant to lessen at the time, CBO projected SURPLUSES. Today, he proposes larger tax cuts that he claims will lessen CBO projected DEFICITS. The added irony here is that during district townhalls, Ryan has repeatedly insisted that government does not have a revenue problem, yet his primary solution for nearly every budget problem is to play with revenue rates and loopholes.

3. That the person who inspired him to run for public office was Ayn Rand.

“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”
-- Paul Ryan

4. That he requested federal stimulus funds to foster economic development in his district and like everything else he does, used it as a political wedge or turns it into a political football. After repeatedly claiming he never did request the funds, Ryan reversed and in fact said he did, but not before painting the stimulus as failed policy and the requests as a standard procedure of constituent service.

5. That he refuses to debate his opponents running for our congressional district office. This despite pretending to repeatedly offer challenges to debate his proposals and running political ads showing him interacting with constituents.

6. That he was the architect of Bush’s Social Security privatization efforts. Had he succeeded back then, the system would have suffered devastating losses during the 2008 Bush recession and would have left millions of seniors destitute.

7. That under his watch as representative of the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin, giant global manufacturers General Motors in Janesville and Chrysler in Kenosha closed their doors, taking with them over 3,500 family raising jobs and another 5,000 jobs from satellite operations.

8. That Paul Ryan insisted, "the country cannot afford the $38 billion cost" was the reason he voted against extending unemployment compensation. But soon afterwards, in a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for top income earners - he reversed his vote on UC eventually adding another $858 billion in future debt!

9. That Paul Ryan, the guy who often refers to himself as the area's go-to "federal guy" did not participate with local leaders in the district's most important meetings and plans for economic recovery during what was arguably the most stressful time in its history since the Great Depression. He was simply a no show. You're on your own.

10. Strategy sessions have always been important to Paul Ryan, but not the sort of meetings one would think important for a congressman at a time of national economic duress. While Ryan ignored his constituents at home when they needed his help the most, he was sure to attend strategy meetings in California to coordinate the funding of party activities and the direction of the conservative movement. When Ryan wasn't attending Wall Street junkets, he was attending meetings like these sponsored by the billionaire Koch Bros. Ryan is clearly far more concerned about the next election than he was ever about his constituents or the next generation.

11. That as a member of the House Ways and Means and the GOP House budget chairman, he played a leading role in what most observers call the worst congress in the history of the United States.

12. That he is the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it by offering seniors a coupon to purchase private insurance, costing each senior an additional estimated $6,400 a year. Ryan's plan is meant to slowly starve the open-ended benefit system and turn it into a giant collectivist network of wealth redistribution for the private-for-profit health care industry. He aims to eventually do the same to Social Security. Yet, he wants the current Medicare system to remain intact for his mom today, but not for the moms of tomorrow.

13. That his budget proposals titled, “The Roadmap for America’s Future” and the sequel, “Path To Prosperity” are actually budgets without numbers, compassion or morality, but instead are right-wing engineered and ideologically calculated manifestos drawn from the fictional nightmare storybook “Atlas Shrugged.”

14. When a 71-year-old constituent couldn't bear to hear Paul Ryan claim that most of our debt in the future comes from our safety net programs while at the same time proposing to cut revenue by giving the wealthy huge tax breaks, the man jumped up and spoke out against Ryan's line of bullshit. The senior was tackled and arrested by police while the immature congressman began mocking the distraught man.

15. That Paul Ryan voted for TARP, not premised on the nuts and bolts of the proposal, but because he claimed to fear that without it, Obama would have swept through a huge statist agenda because there would have been no support for the free-market system. Yes, Ryan turned to the power of collectivism to save the free markets - exactly what Obama supported. Except Obama did not attempt to politicize the crisis or demonize opponents in the process.

16. On March 6, 2012, a man shot and killed himself at the doorway of Paul Ryan's office here in Janesville. Ryan's staff initially denied having any previous contact with the victim but later reversed their position. It turned out Ryan did have constituent correspondence with the man in 2010 and again in 2011 over dealings about a lawsuit the victim filed against the FBI. Details of Ryan's interactions with the man remain guarded.

17. That Ryan, despite coming from one of America's top dairy states, has consistently opposed and voted against the milk income loss contract, or MILC, program, which supplemented dairy farmers when milk prices fell below a certain level. Small dairy farmers are expected to be hit especially hard and say a tough year has been made worse by Republicans obstruction to pass a new farm bill before the old one expired. Ryan's budget also cuts $30 billion in farm subsidies over the next ten years.