Editor,
While I’m not foolish enough to think that a GOP convention speech would be completely factual, neither should GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan be foolish enough to think I wouldn’t do my fact checking. For the sake of full disclosure, here are some things that Ryan left out of the conversation:
While it’s true that the president did not implement all of the bipartisan debt commission’s recommendations, Ryan forgot to mention that he was a member of that commission and voted against the final report. Ryan asserts that the president broke his campaign promise to keep the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis. open. What he failed to mention is that the decision to close the GM plant was made during the Bush administration, before Obama even took up residence in the White House. Ryan stated of the stimulus package, “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst.”
Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan’s pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies. Ryan continued the GOP mantra that Obama has gutted Medicare, stating “the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly … So they just took it all away from Medicare; $716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.” Ryan’s claim ignores the fact that he himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its budget committee. The cuts that will be made do not directly affect the Medicare recipients. The cuts reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance companies and other providers. The GOP plan, which includes “vouchers,” would actually increase Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket costs down the road.
Some may call Ryan’s comments a distortion, misspeak or an exaggeration. If you look up the word “fact” at Thesaurus.com, you’ll see the opposite of fact is fabrication or lie. You be the judge.
Jeffrey Paul
Daily Lobo reader
