He got booed at the inaugural celebration, and rightly so.
He lost the vice presidential race, and only managed to save his congressional seat by the infusion of large amounts of outside money along with rampant right wing election tampering in Wisconsin of the kind we used to associate with corrupt third world governments, but that we now recognize as routine right wing corruption. He was called out, by position if not by name, in the inaugural address.
And now hes been caught misrepresenting himself and his positions, and his party positions.
Again.
Still.
He's the same old 'Lyin' Ryan'.
No values, except bad ones. No ethics, except bad ones.
Just another Republican politician, like too many others. Voters are tired of them; voters reject them. Journalists will keep showing them for who they are. In this case, it is Salon, (the paragraphs in the body of the article in bold type are my added emphasis - DG) :
Paul Ryan lies again
He got famous for telling fibs during the campaign. Now he’s dissembling about his attack on society’s “takers”
Last seen blaming “urban” voters (you know who he’s talking about) for his and Mitt Romney’s bitter November defeat, Rep. Paul Ryan returned to the prevaricating ways he made famous throughout the campaign on Tuesday. There were his silly lies about his marathon time, of course, and perhaps more serious, his serial lies in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., last August, on welfare, GM restructuring and the 2009 stimulus bill. It’s hard to know exactly what words to use to describe his campaign appearance “helping” at a soup kitchen that turned out to be a photo op showing him scrubbing already clean pots and pans, but “honest” isn’t one of them.
Now Ryan is trying to squirm out of the lasso in which the president captured him in his inaugural address Monday. “The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us,” Obama said with indignation. “They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”
Everyone who followed the 2012 campaign knew Obama was talking about Ryan as surely as if he’d said his name.
But now Ryan is complaining that Obama is being unfair, and that he never included Social Security and Medicare recipients in his attacks on “takers.” On the Laura Ingraham Show, he told a guest host that those programs “are not taker programs.” He accused the president of a “switcheroo” and said he had decided to “shadowbox with a straw man” and misrepresent the GOP position on those programs.
The problem, as Mother Jones points out, is that Ryan is on record in several places saying that the 60 to 70 percent of Americans who receive some sort of government assistance are making us “a society where we have a net majority of takers versus makers.” He says he got those numbers from a Tax Foundation study — which included Medicare and Social Security recipients to get that number.
Ryan is also on record supporting plans to voucherize Medicare and he was a point person for George W. Bush’s failed plan to privatize Social Security. He’s shown his hostility to those programs, and by extension, to those who rely on them, many times over the years.
Likewise, his running mate Mitt Romney’s callous remarks about the “47 percent” also relies on calculations that include Social Security and Medicare recipients.
Ryan didn’t move away from his “taker” analysis entirely. “The concern that people like me have been raising is we do not want a dependency culture.” He also complained that the president didn’t promise to tackle the debt – debt mostly created by programs Ryan voted for, from two wars to new Medicare benefits to TARP, plus the Bush tax cuts.
Now Ryan is angry that the president is telling the truth about the gulf between the two parties. Also from Obama’s inauguration address:
For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm.
Oh, and by the way, Ryan voted against Hurricane Sandy relief. Maybe he’ll find some way to whine that Obama’s reference to “a home swept away in a terrible storm” is unfair, too.
Did you see Ryan's latest press release advocating Governing by Gimmick ?
ReplyDelete“Since taking the majority, House Republicans have done their job. We’ve passed a budget that promotes economic growth and gets spending under control. But for nearly four years, Senate Democrats have refused to pass a budget. Today’s agreement will hold the Senate accountable for this legal and moral failure. Just as April 15 is tax day for American families, it is budget day for Congress. Unless the Senate acts, there will be no consideration of a long-term debt-ceiling increase. I look forward to working with my colleagues—in both houses and in both parties—on this vital issue.”
What Ryan does not acknowledge is that the Republicans when they retook the majority in the House passed the "Ryan Rule" where by as Chairman, he is given unilateral power to set spending subject to a up-and-down vote ... last time a "few" Republicans voted against the Ryan Budget ... and this past December, a "few" Republicans got re-assigned.
Note, also that Ryan's statement “I stand in strong support of the agreement reached by my colleagues today. Our conference has united around a common-sense proposal. which essentially means the Republicans decided this gimmick without any in put from the Democrats.
Now, why hasn't the Senate passed a budget ... well if they had the "Reid Rule" whereby he was given unilateral power that only required a simple majority, then the Senate would pass a budget too ... but the TEA Party-Republicans would not permit that rules change.
The "Gimmick" is that if the Senate does not pass a budget by April 15th then pay for Members will not be granted until a budget is approved or the session ends (December 31,2014) .... they still get paid.
Yep it's a gimmick ... if the Republicans were serious, they would require that a budget be passed by April 15th or reductions are done in each Member's Representational Allowance which is how they pay their staff and send franked mail and as well reductions in Committee staff. I have a hunch if their operating budgets started getting hit, they might be more responsive than this silly No Budget, No Pay gimmick ... oh, and if this legislation would be approved, then the "Debt Ceiling" would be suspended allowing the government to pay for appropriations already authorized ... the way it should be.