We talked on Tuesday about Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan having a stimulus problem: publicly, he claims to abhor President Obama's Recovery Act, but privately, he sought Recovery Act funds for his district and said they'd boost the economy.
Last night, Rachel took the story much further, noting among other things that Ryan has been caught lying about the issue -- more than once.
Again, let's not forget what makes this story important. It's not just a simple matter of a congressman opposing the stimulus, but then seeking investments for his constituents once the money was on the table and was going to be spent anyway. Appearances of hypocrisy are perhaps the least important part of the story.
Rather, the controversy matters for two important reasons. First, the revelations undermine the basis for Ryan's philosophical/ideological objections -- the Republican insists government spending can't create jobs and doesn't boost economic growth, but in his letters to the Obama administration, Ryan said government spending in his district can create jobs and does boost economic growth.
And second, Ryan got caught lying about his efforts -- twice. In 2010, Ryan specifically said he would not vote against something "then write to the government to ask them to send us money.... I did not request any stimulus money." In reality, Ryan penned at least five letters to two federal departments seeking grants under Obama's Recovery Act.
Yesterday, talking to a reporter in Ohio, Ryan again said, "No, I never asked for stimulus," even though he got called out for telling this same lie two years ago.
Late yesterday, hoping to make the problem go away, Ryan said in a statement that he "didn't recall" his efforts, because they were "treated as constituent service requests."
So, Ryan lied twice about letters that contradict his entire governing philosophy, but he doesn't think it should be held against him because he was mistakenly trying to help his constituents with public investments that would create jobs in his district.
He's off to a great start as a candidate for national office, isn't he?
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Despite the best attempts by Republican spin doctors and secret money from the Kochs, there is no comparison between the president's plan for Medicare and what Romney and Ryan want to do with this nation's signature program of economic growth and financial stability for seniors. Paul Ryan has been on record for years in the least popular Congress in history that he wants to kill Medicare and privatize the program. This is a basic fact, one that cannot be wiped away by GOP ad spending. The Ryan plan for Medicare is not only a death panel for seniors, it is a plan that will kill jobs and irreparably harm the economy through spiking health care costs and what amounts to higher taxes on middle class folks. - principled progressive
Please explain Obama's plan to me. I still don't get the math. How can you pull 700 billion from the plan and extend it's life? It doesn't compute for me
Because the money 'pulled' from Medicare is not 'pulled' at all. It is anticipated savings ( a good chunk of it already realized) from overpayments to providers, hospitals, drug and equipment companies and well as crack down on abuse. Its money SAVED, not 'pulled'. Those savings are then applied to provisions within the ACA to expand services and provide medicaid to those Sr.s who exhaust their savings when in extended care. (like my mother-in-law)
Its smart management of funds. Not cutting of services as R&R would do.
Tom, the first thing to do is drop the Romney/Ryan lie that Pres. Obama "cuts" Medicare, implying that the cuts are to benefits - the cost savings don't touch benefits. The cost savings come in the form of lowering subsidies to bloated private insurance plans that were supposed to lower Medicare costs, but instead, exploded them, aka Medicare Advantage. Next, hospitals and other providers have agreed to lower reimbursement rates for Medicare patients because under the Affordable Care Act more people will have access to healthcare, and they expect that will to help them make up that revenue. They're also trying out pilot programs that pay doctors based on quality of care, not on how many tests and procedures they order up. Lastly, the cost savings come from cutting out waste and fraud.
When Romney/Ryan say they're going to restore "$716 Billion" what they're saying is, "we're going to go back to overpaying insurance companies, and we'll also make sure we keep the system inefficient, and restore all the waste, fraud and abuse."
WaPo has an excellent article on the nature of the $700B in cost savings, pie chart and all:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/romneys-right-obamacare-cuts-medicare-by-716-billion-heres-how/
Tom-3671033
This question has been asked by you before, Tom and it has been answered. Yet, here you are again asking the same question.
Tom on 8-16-12
Tom on 8-15-12
And then we have a contradictory statement by Tom that even the Romney/Ryan ticket would be impressed by.
Tom on 8-02-12
Cut the crap, Tom.
"Ryan said in a statement that he "didn't recall" his efforts, because they were "treated as constituent service requests."
Ah yes - The ol' "The voters made me do it!" trick.
Ryan thinks regular people are gonna buy his excuse? He thinks we will believe that a request for $20 million from the maligned stimulus money is just any ol. typical constituent service request, like helping someone out with an issue with Social Security or the VA?
Bad enough his policies are so awful. Bad enough he is such a liar and hypocrite. But he thinks we are stupid. That is just plain offensive and disrespectful of his official employers, We The People.
No matter what Ryan says, obviously his constituents (you know, the ones who requested service) thought the stimulus would help save and create jobs in Ryan's local and area economy. So regardless of whether Ryan is telling the truth here, which he isn't, his constituents saw the value of the stimulus and got in on it to their benefit. I'll bet Ryan is willing to take credit for helping them with that in his district reelection campaign.
I think Rachel made a stronger point of hypocrisy in Ryan's statements last night about the stimulus: Romney and Ryan said the stimulus failed while they believe lower taxes spur job growth. The stimulus was 1/3 tax cuts; did that third fail as well and tax cuts don't spur growth or did that succeed and the stimulus wasn't a complete failure?
Well, most folks know by now that when a Republican tells a lie, and repeats the lie ad nauseam it becomes the truth to many low-informational voters...
...AND THE MSM HARDLY GIVES A DAMN!
Thank you for all that you do Steve & Rachel.
Can we see the entire memos please? Just showing excerpts where he used the word 'stimulate' doesn't necessarily mean it was from the Obama stimulus package. I just want to be sure so when I defend this point I'm not pushed into a corner by my repub friends. I'm afraid just because Ryan asked for funds/projects to go to his constituency and used the phrase 'to stimulate the local economy' that we may have a week tie between that and the actual stimulus package.
Actually bigern70 the entire letters are available. The money involved is stimulus money.
Ryan's defense is that they were written by low level staffers on behalf of his constituents and he can't be held responsible for what goes on in his office. After all, he is just the congressman. He isn't responsible when his staff puts a letter in front of him and tells him to sign.
Why not just have Ryan on your show? ask him these questions and not a bunch of people that don't like him..
But then again it was PolitiFact that has shown the maddow show to be false and tells a few lies now and then.
And Rachel Maddow has shown PolitiFact is a liar too. In the case of the letters, are you saying that Paul Ryan did not sign the letters asking for money for his constituents in Wisconsin making Rachel Maddow a liar? Please remember Rachel Maddow did not raise the question of the letters and Paul Ryan conveniently lied and said he knew nothing about the letters but after some investigation, it was determined his staff did the letters and I am going to assume he just signed his name to something he DID NOT read.
I would love for Ryan to show up on Rachel's show, but he doesn't have the balls. He is a Fox News bubble baby.
Anybody who knows jack also knows that PolitiFact screws up every now and then. Well I would image that Rachel makes a few mistakes here and there but she does a better job of getting it right than all the other talking heads running an evening show. I know I watch.
The maddow show deals in 1/2 truths and twisted facts and just plain old Bull$hit.
Just almost the rest of the MSLSD shows.
It's leftwingnut media.
So he-lee cow you must be a rightwing nut fax or fux or fox watcher .they are always right in telling the wrong things.
Clear case of the dog did it or better yet the clerk or the janitor did it and I had to fire them because as Mitt Romney said "For Pete's sake I am running for President". So with Paul Ryan it is a case of for Pete"s sake I voted against the Stimulus Bill.
saw that segment...it was terrific
I lean slightly left and i love watching your show. The amount of work your backroom team does on research should be commended.....
Ryan is learning to be a Romney clone. He is white, learning to be vague, relatively wealthy and a liar.
He is a Republican. He already is white, relatively wealthy, and a liar. He just has to work a little more on vague. Not much for Ryan to learn. I think he can do it.
So "I invented the internet" and "I was for it before I was against it" were huge stories, but an out and out lie (uh, not the first one) barely makes a ripple?
Dog bites man.
It is also understood that Congressman Ryan voted in 1999 (at age 29) to repeal parts of the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing commercial and investment banks to merge. This law was one of the main protective barriers enacted under FDR's New Deal to ensure that another Great Depression would never happen again. Now, Mr. Ryan appears to be in the same change-of-heart camp as Sandy Weill, capitalist banker and former chief executive of Citigroup, who recently declared that the banks should be broken up. What lesson can we learn from this?
How about a budgetary lesson? It is apparent that what ordinary citizens cannot afford is expensive on the job training for some privileged, well-to-do, brainwashed ideologue of the reactionary right (you guessed it, the 1%).
Read more at
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-establishment-paradise-part-one.html
As an example of how they get away with the lies: I just escaped a flame war this week with a Right Winger who claimed that the ideas that Paul Ryan got into politics "because of Ayn Rand" and encouraged his interns to read Atlas Shrugged are hate-filled attacks and lies because Paul Krugman reported them. Never mind that Krugman's source was Ryan himself.
It doesn't matter what they say. They have gotten their audience so attuned to believing any old thing as the "truth from on high" that they can just shake the Etch-A-Sketch.
Steve, I think you may need to start a Ryan Mendacity series!
You know being a part of the X-generation as we are called. When the "Adults" of the time in the 80s labeled us with the big fat X as in we will never amount to anything. That used to aggravate me. I would think just wait until it's our turn to run this Country, just wait until we take center stage, and change the world for better. Then Paul Ryan fellow X'er, and attended the Miami of Oxford where I, and many other fellow X'er probably went to the same parties with him. Although, I don't recall him. That fellow X'er finally taking center stage to represent not only his party, but my entire generation. When he took center stage I realized all those "Adults" that X'd us out so far are RIGHT :(. Please fellow X'er Democrats come forward, and prove their stereotype of us wrong. It's times like these when we are grateful to have Rachel Maddow in our Generation to help prove them wrong.