| August 29, 2012 Contact: Mike Browne Phone: (608) 444-3483 |
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The Real Ryan Record: Failure, Fraud, Fealty
Nine Things Paul Ryan Hopes the Media Ignores
Madison - With the countdown on to Rep. Paul Ryan's speech accepting the Republican Vice Presidential nomination tonight, much attention is being paid to what he will say. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said even more significant is what will not be said as he introduces himself to the nation in his primetime television address.
Ross commented, "Rep. Paul Ryan's carefully crafted wonkish persona belies an abysmal record of failure and regressive social and economic agenda. The Real Ryan Record is failure, fraud and fealty to party bosses."
While Rep. Ryan and the GOP tout his public image at their scripted convention, Ross pointed to a number of votes and his record as a Congressman as a much better indicator of what we might expect from him, including:
1. Voting for eight straight Republican budgets that turn a $281 billion surplus into a budget deficit;
2. Voting for the largest unfunded mandate in our nation's history, the $7 trillion Medicare Part D plan that explicitly prohibits the federal government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for better prices and reimportation of safe and cheap prescriptions;
3. Voting to put both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on the national credit card;
4. Failing to address the unemployment crisis in his own backyard. The two highest metropolitan unemployment rates in Wisconsin according to BLS statistics released today are in Paul Ryan's congressional district;
5. Worsening the trillion-dollar student loan debt crisis by spearheading cuts in federal Pell Grants, the largest single source of need based college tuition assistance for America's college students in his proposed budget;
6. Voting against the Lily Ledbetter Act to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work;
7. Opposing the repeal of the discriminatory "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy;
8. Opposing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother;
9. Voting for tax breaks and subsidies to the oil industry that will directly benefit big oil companies leasing land from his family.
"The Real Ryan Record: betrayal of his generational peers, saddling the middle class with the burden of paying for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and voting to explode the very deficit he now rails against," concluded Ross.
