Paul Ryan Lies: 6 Biggest Lies from the Ryan RNC Speech

Vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan spoke at the RNC convention on Wednesday night. The highest profile speech of his career thus far, here are the six biggest lies that Ryan told during his speech.

1) Security for the old is a Romney/Ryan platform staple:

On its face, the most laughable of falsehoods last night. The world’s only Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver has been touting his budget (that Romney agrees) with every other day (and twice on Sunday) as one that will save Medicare voucher programs wherein old folks would be given promissory notes of a fixed value. As the free market drives up health care costs, the vouchers’ value would remain static. Not to mention, mom and pop would have to shop around and feed a corrupt industry that already leaves the sick and dying in the lurch in their final years.

This reality contradicts Ryan’s claim that “the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.”

2) Obama steals $700 billion plus from Medicare:

OK, here is the old trick of turning your greatest weakness into a strength. A swiftboat tactic, which has worked before. Not only is it false, but Republicans backed Dems into a corner for more than a generation trying to get cuts to entitlements. Now that that is happening, all of a sudden Paul Ryan is a staunch progressive, defending the old and sick from the greedy Democrats who will take this money and spend it on ... uh, entitlement programs. The money is not being stolen. It’s going into the Affordable Care Act’s coffers to be spent in a more financially responsible way. All to keep tax cuts and the Defense Department humming, just to pacify “conservatives.” A lot of good that did.

Oh yes, and Ryan’s buget takes just as much money from Medicare. And slashes Medicaid by one-third.

3) Obama blames his troubles on Bush:

It’s not that Obama never does this, it’s that he doesn’t do it nearly enough. The economy was in freefall in late 2008 (pre-inauguration) and early 2009 (pre-Obama legislation). Millions of jobs were lost during this time, most never to return. If the president would pressure Congress, poke his finger in a few chests and pass reasonable budgets, there would be less fodder for Republicans in the political season (which never ends). If he would have taken a page from Bush 43, and steamrolled Congress when he had majorities in both houses, using executive orders liberally and “going nuclear” to bypass filibusters, the economy could be flourishing by now. Not that rich people aren’t doing better than ever today, by the way.

Also, Ryan blamed Obama for the closing of the doors of a Janesville, Wis. GM plant in his speech. The plant closed before Obama was inaugurated. Who is wrongly blaming who again? This is a pattern of behavior from the right, and Ryan is as far right as they come.

4) Obama caused the debt:

Again the one and a half trillion dollars spent on stimulus, half of which was passed by George W, was voted for by one Paul Ryan in Congress. As was the auto bailout. And TARP. What an unprincipled little Eddie Munster look-alike. Astoundingly, he was RIGHT to vote for all of those things in order to save the economy; but because of the ignorance of his party, he has to run from his record, just like Romney. Where will they stand when the shit hits the fan (and it will if they get elected)? No one can say.

Ryan blamed Obama for the failure of Simpson-Bowles: “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” Ryan voted against the bill.

Also, there are a couple of wars that Bush 43 did not put on the books. That’s a couple of trillion added to the “Obama deficit” right there. This is only a part of the doubling of Pentagon spending that took place under George W. What a sick joke. 

5) “We will get America creating wealth”:

No, not so much. Spending cuts, higher taxes for the middle class and lower taxes for the rich will lead to another “trickle down” failure where states are given a free pass to violate workers’ rights and cut the public sector down to nothing. As we have seen across the country since the AstroTurf Tea Party takeover of 2010, the economy is being gutted in the name of an upward redistribution of wealth.

Wealth creation for the few comes at a great expense for the masses. If work is incentivized, the middle class will have money, immediately pumping it back into the economy and creating goods and services along the way. Rich people just stow their money away and play the market, creating nothing.

Ryan also blamed Obama for the U.S. credit rating downgrade of 2011 after Ryan helped lead Congress into a standoff over raising the debt ceiling. Did this create wealth?

Oh, and no one knows where revenue will come from under the Romney plan.

6) Romney/Ryan will “speak with confidence and clarity” in foreign policy:

In a final display of moral twerpitude, Ryan implied that the U.S. standing in the world was in “decline,” that Obama instills “doubt in our allies” and allows adversaries to test us.

Listen up, chickenhawks: This is a big loser for you. Everyone knows you’re talking about Iran, which poses no threat to the U.S. The Project for a New American Century and Evangelicals hoping for rapture are trying to draw us into another huge war. Iran is controlled by a-holes, but that’s no reason to sacrifice another million people in the Middle East. They would not even be in power if not for our meddling for generations (read a book other than one by Ayn Rand).They are using the nuclear program as a bargaining chip. Romney can’t even handle a trip to London, let alone rein in Netanyahu.

Not to mention, President Obama ended the Iraq War, got Bin Laden, and is popular abroad. He built that.