Yeh, the media has finally been calling out the GOP ticket on at least some of its deceptions. Here at BV, we’ve read about some of them. But the mass media are really copping to a few of Ryan’s lies, while glossing over the massive pile of BS which was his entire speech. It is amazing how Ryan wraps himself up as a person of such great faith when every sentence is deceptive and/or a bald-face lie. Heck, even Matthew Dowd, former Bush strategist admitted Ryan’s speech was full of lies. It ought to be a crime to lie to the American people the way he did.
This will be a test of our citizenry. If Americans believe this stuff, they would have no useful memory left. All they would have left is a gullibility so complete that they would believe anything and be vulnerable to any snake oil. In casting such a wide deceptive net, Paul Ryan insults Americans of every stripe. Here is a handy list of some of the the lies followed by what was wrong with that.
1. The lie that the president is just throwing away money (on ads) and he’s pretty experienced at that. FACT: The baseline level of spending was set prior to his taking office. Not only did the Bush administration assure a tax drought by its massive tax cuts (which were not paid for), but also it left them to expire during his successor’s term as a fiscal ticking time bomb. The country wouldn’t be able to afford to keep them, but would have no appetite to restore the tax revenue and Republicans could be counted on to exploit that fact. Additionally, the president inherited a financial disaster, TARP, the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a collapsing auto industry, an unpaid for Medicare prescription drug bill with no financial constraints built in, two unpaid for and unnecessary wars, and many other fiscal problems.
2. Ryan lives in the same place where he grew up. FACT: Ryan lives in Washington and his wife won’t move there. Ironically, though she plays Mrs Small Town on TV, she WAS a lobbyist previously, including for the tobacco industry.
3. President Obama didn’t help the GM plant in WI. FACT: It’s shutdown began in the fall of 2008 on Bush’s watch.
4. One in six Americans are living in poverty. That is not a lie. But what is a lie is that Paul Ryan wants to or plans to do anything to help them. Mitt doesn’t either. The plan massive cuts to the safety net, more cuts to Medicaid and food support programs.
5. The stimulus failed. FACT: Without the stimulus the economy would have been worse. 2.5 million jobs were created. But the jobs went to teachers, construction workers and policemen, whom the Romney/Ryan duo doesn’t care about. The statement masks that the main problem was that the stimulus wasn’t big enough. When private sector spending contracts, if government doesn’t fill the gap, massive recession ensues.
6. The lie that Obama did nothing about jobs. You would think that any president of any party would make job creation their priority. FACT: The stimulus bill was passed before the President worked on health care. 2.5 million were added by the stimulus. And more jobs have been added month after month. More would have been added had the GOP not thwarted the jobs bill.
Also, one of the reasons employers said they were not hiring is health care costs. Obama designed a plan to rein in health care costs and to create subsidies to small employers who covered their employees. The smallest employers were still not required to offer it. Paul Ryan voted against the health care plan. FACT: Paul Ryan voted against the jobs bill. The GOP fought both tooth and nail.
7. The lie that the Obama Affordable Health Care Act is a government takeover of health care. FACT: It is insurance reform to curb costs, reduce fraud, improve the delivery of health care, and stop insurers from dropping customers and stop refusing to cover patients with preexisting conditions. FACT: Health care is still private. FACT: Health insurance is still private. It also encourages best practices, evidence-based medicine, better infection control, expanded coverage to the uninsured, reigned in the cost of premiums, helped seniors with the cost of their prescriptions in the donut hole, and enabled the government to negotiate with insurance companies. This brings down the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. This saves everyone, except greedy insurance company executives, money.
8. Ryan lied by claiming $716 billion in cuts to senior Medicare services. FACT: This came from over-payments to Medicare Advantage plans, from providing the ability of the federal government to negotiate costs for medication for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The 2006 Medicare Drug bill forbade negotiation. Other cost savings came from reductions in fraud and abuse, costs due to mismanagement of infection prevention, and costs due to inappropriate standards of care (causing patients to end up back in the hospital repeatedly). The principal is if you spend on programs known to yield efficiencies while bringing better medical care, such as those above, you will ultimately save hundreds of millions of dollars. Note also these savings were projected to be over 10 years. BTW, the very same $716 billion “cuts” are in Ryan’s budget which the GOP passed, a fact which the Washington Post supposed fact check omitted. Pants’ on fire lie!
9. The lie that the Ryan budget will protect Medicare. FACT: He plans to convert it to a voucher plan and privatize it.That would not be Medicare at all. Previously, before FReedie Munster (ie, FReeper Eddie) was born, the US tried private insurance only for seniors and the companies wouldn’t cover most seniors. That is why Medicare was started. Under a private system, most seniors would be left high and dry or with staggering premium costs. FACT: And he lies when he says that there would be no change for older seniors. If you siphon out money to use as vouchers and not for direct payments for patient care, those in traditional Medicare wont get the treatment they need. Private insurance costs way more than Medicare, which keeps administrative costs a small fraction of private insurance costs.
10. The lie that greatest threat to Medicare is Obama care. FACT: Obamacare strengthens Medicare by making it more cost effective without reducing patient services. In fact, it saves patients money by covering an annual check up and other preventative services and decreases “donut hole” medication costs. IF Ryan/Romney gut “Obamacare,” Medicare will be in greater financial trouble. But note, Medicare Part B is not in financial difficulty. Part A (hospitalization) and Part D (the prescription drug benefit) are.
11. The lie that it (the Obama administration) ends with a housing crisis they didn’t’ correct. FACT: Paul Ryan fought mortgage reform, Obama housing efforts, efforts to restructure mortgages, and every single thing this administration tried to do to improve the economy’s impact on homeowners. Then Ryan has the temerity to blame Obama for his (Ryan’s) obstruction. Ryan was the Republican House Budget Chair, who refused to do anything to cooperate with the President.
12. The lie that the lowered credit rating was Obama’s fault. FACT: The credit downgrade was caused by GOP brinksmanship. The GOP were extorting draconian cuts by refusing to raise the debt ceiling and threatening a default on US debts, most of which loans owed to America’s seniors, by virtue of borrowing from Social Security, btw. For as long as Social Security has existed, the GOP has wanted to stiff seniors and end that program. Never mind we paid for our parents generation to have it, as they did before us. Paul Ryan helped bring us to the brink, relished his obstruction and then blames the president.
13. The lie was that Obama’s only reflection on his presidency was about the need for better “communication.” FACT: That was president Bush.
14. The debt commission big fat lie. Paul Ryan is disgusting here. He voted against Bowles-Simpson and then blames the president when the bill never made it to the president’s desk.
15. The lie that the GOP stepped up with good faith reforms which were equal to the problems. FACT: Every single thing they proposed the president agreed to, until they repeatedly moved the goal post to the point of absurdity.
16. The lie that there have been four years (Obama’s term) of trying to “divide up the wealth.” FACT: That is just code language to obfuscate that the wealthy want more tax cuts on OUR backs. The GOP has spent that last 11 years trying to redistribute middle class wealth upward to the rich (who do not need it).
17. The rewrite of the story behind the death of his father. He told Americans it was his mother turning grief into entrepreneurship. FACT: She could do that with the help of survivor benefits which she and her children each received each month from Social Security. That’s right, if a person who has contributed to Social security dies with under age children, his widow or her widower receives benefits. Yet, despite what he claimed last Wednesday, he has worked in Congress to privatize it and drown it in a bathtub.
18. His lie that he and Mitt have a plan for 12 million new jobs. FACT: The last Republican cost us jobs, big time. And Paul Ryan’s budget will cause draconian cuts to programs and major job losses in both the public and private sectors.
19. The lie that he learned a great deal about economics from anyone. FACT: Despite media spin, he is a Grover Norquist, Ayan Rand drone. He didn’t sufficiently study it to get any such cred. Even Alan Greenspan now admits he was wrong, but not Ryan. Anyone who thinks a 10th rate author forms a foundational economic philosophy is too ignorant to be VP. Now Ryan denies he follows Rand. He has said he did in 2005 and on other occasions. Now he’s lying about that because Ayn Rand was a misanthrope, a proponent of selfishness, and an atheist. This wouldn’t be helpful for him to win votes from his base.
20. He said that college students shouldn’t have to stare at Obama posters and wonder about their futures. FACT: Paul Ryan opposed getting private companies out of the middle of student loans so students would have more affordable college loans. He also voted to slash student aid, including Pell grants.
21. He laments underemployment, but simultaneously criticizes those graduates stuck waiting tables for complain about their career stagnation. For a guy whose been getting a government pay check nearly since he was their age, that’s just absurd. FACT: Most college students would be willing to wait tables to pay college bills during college, but hope to have something better once they graduate. Now many college grads, even those with advanced degrees, have to settle for waiting tables, which won’t pay enough to pay back their college loans. And Ryan doesn’t see the problem with that.
22. The lie that Mitt had anything to do with a balanced MA budget. He had to by law. All MA governors have to.
23. Mitt left the state of MA in good shape. FACT: No, he didn’t. And most MA voters were so unhappy with him that he couldn’t have won re-election. So he began running for president instead. (And no he didn’t work miracles at the Olympics. He got a bailout from the US government. No, he did not build that.)
24. The lie that Ryan really believes we have responsibilities to each other. FACT: Ryan’s budget, which passed the House, but not the Senate, is an everyman for himself budget. Predicated upon sharply cutting percentage of GDP the federal government can spend, ALL federal programs except defense and homeland security will be decimated. The numbers do not add up. And FACT: He really means here to make zygotes persons from the moment of conception. That is what he is talking about by protecting the weak. Real people, though, can forget about any good Samaritans.
25. The myth that Romney was a job creator who started businesses and turned others around. FACT: Mitt Romney was a vulture capitalist who swooped in picked off the assets of a company, forced it to take on debt and then walked away with all the money. He is a job destroyer and a debt creator.
Note: Yes, I know Ryan lied about the marathon time too. But that lie was just stupid. The others have real consequences.
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