Category: Ryan Budget

Ryan’s Budget Proposal Is Pitting G.O.P. Troops Against Top of the Ticket

August 31, 2012

Ryan’s Budget Proposal Is Pitting G.O.P. Troops Against Top of the Ticket

By

TAMPA, Fla. — Even as Mitt Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan exhort Republicans to embrace their proposed Medicare changes and spending cuts, the party’s rank and file is growing less enthusiastic about the fight than the top of the ticket.

Republican lawmakers and candidates are distancing themselves from the Ryan budget plan, which helped make the proposed changes a national issue. Republicans say the party now belongs to the more senior — and historically more malleable — member of the ticket, Mr. Romney, and not Mr. Ryan, the younger conservative firebrand who has become the subject of repeated Democratic criticism.

“The plan is the Romney plan,” said Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota. “He’s the one that’s going to drive the agenda.”

The distancing ranges from subtle to stark. Some first-time House candidates, unencumbered by a vote on the Ryan plan, have told local news media outlets that they have not and will not endorse the proposals found in the vice-presidential nominee’s budget. Some veteran lawmakers who voted for the plan are demurring on whether it will be the party’s policy blueprint, while the few in tough races who voted against it have made their opposition a calling card. Continue reading “Ryan’s Budget Proposal Is Pitting G.O.P. Troops Against Top of the Ticket”

The Upside-Down World of Paul Ryan

The Upside-Down World of Paul Ryan

Last night, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, accepted the nomination with a speech that took place in a world of his own making. The breathtaking dishonesty of Ryan’s speech seems to have shocked a lot of journalists and observers.

A lot of outlets talked around the “L” word. The Associated Press fact-check used the term “factual shortcuts” and said Ryan “strayed from reality,” while USA Today came closer by saying Ryan’s speech “contained several false claims and misleading statements.” But let’s say it outright: Paul Ryan lied. He lied, deliberately, about a lot of things.

It’s especially galling because Rep. Ryan has acquired an undeserved reputation in Washington as a “serious” guy, a courageous teller of bold truths. One hopes that the straight-shooting Paul Ryan myth will fade away after last night. We’ll see. Continue reading “The Upside-Down World of Paul Ryan”

Ryan’s Fact-Challenged Speech

AFL-CIO Now

 

08/30/2012; Mike Hall

Ryan’s Fact-Challenged Speech

Last night, Paul Ryan lived up to the Mitt Romney campaign pledge that it would not be “dictated by fact-checkers” when he blamed President Obama for the closure of a General Motors (GM) plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis. As any fact-checker or Janesville worker who lost a job knows, the plant closed during the Bush administration.

Even Ryan’s congressional office knows the truth that Ryan ignored last night. Take a look at this June 3, 2008, letter from Ryan and Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold (D) and Herb Kohl (D) criticizing GM’s plan to shutter the plant. Obama was an Illinois senator and George W. Bush was in the White House, just as they both were when the Janesville plant closed its doors later in that year. Continue reading “Ryan’s Fact-Challenged Speech”

G.O.P. Platform Seeks to Weaken Powers of Unions

 

New York Times
August 30, 2012, 10:58 am

G.O.P. Platform Seeks to Weaken Powers of Unions

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

 

Unlike in the past, this year’s Republican platform in Tampa, Fla., does not contain any sympathetic nods to the nation’s labor unions, which have become among the Republicans’ most formidable political foes. Instead, the platform calls for numerous steps that could significantly weaken America’s labor unions — public-sector and private-sector ones — and help speed organized labor’s overall decline.

The 2012 platform urges elected officials across the country to change their laws regarding public-sector unions and follow the lead of Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, who spearheaded an effort to curb the ability of his state’s public employees to bargain collectively. The platform states, “We salute Republican governors and state legislators who have saved their states from fiscal disaster by reforming their laws governing public employee unions.” Mr. Walker said that that legislation was needed to weaken overly powerful unions and balance Wisconsin’s budget, while labor leaders said the legislation aimed to destroy public-sector unions and cripple them politically. Continue reading “G.O.P. Platform Seeks to Weaken Powers of Unions”

Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words

Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words

By Published August 30, 2012

FoxNews.com

  • Paul Ryan GOP Convention.jpg

    Aug. 29, 2012: Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. (AP)

1. Dazzling

At least a quarter of Americans still don’t know who Paul Ryan is, and only about half who know and have an opinion of him view him favorably.

So, Ryan’s primary job tonight was to introduce himself and make himself seem likeable, and he did that well. The personal parts of the speech were very personally delivered, especially the touching parts where Ryan talked about his father and mother and their roles in his life. And at the end of the speech, when Ryan cheered the crowd to its feet, he showed an energy and enthusiasm that’s what voters want in leaders and what Republicans have been desperately lacking in this campaign. Continue reading “Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words”

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