Forget for a moment what the Ryan Budget Plan would do for our fiscal condition over the next few decades. Focus on what Rep. Paul Ryan’s voting record has already done to our fiscal condition. According to a study released by Think Progress, Rep. Ryan voted to add $6.8 trillion to our deficit during the presidency of George W. Bush.
A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that Ryan voted to add a grand total of $6.8 trillion to the federal debt during his time in Congress, voting for at least 65 bills that either reduced revenue or increased spending.
From 2001 to 2008, Congress passed legislation that increased the national deficit by a total of $4 trillion — the number grows to $6 trillion if you add in the how much those policies have cost through 2011. Ryan voted for 90 percent of these deficit increasing bills.
And, yet, as the front-page on the Washington Post Online shows, Rep. Ryan is “seen as a hawk on budget.” But, by whom is he seen as a budget hawk? Idiots? Morons? Dupes? People who watch Fox New? People who read the Washington Post?
The Post article does push back a little on Ryan’s undeserved reputation by pointing out some minor instances of hypocrisy. Namely, he argued that stimulus projects in his district would create jobs and requested money for those projects, while telling everyone else that the stimulus had not and would not create jobs. And then he lied about requesting the money.
But that is small ball. How did Rep. Ryan get the reputation for being a budget hawk in the first place? His solutions are not aimed at balancing the budget. They are aimed at drowning the federal government in the unpaid taxes of billionaires. Under Rep. Ryan’s original budget plan, Mitt Romney would legally pay almost no taxes at all. Meanwhile, everything the government does to help people, including keeping their promises to retirees who spent their lives paying into the system, gets butchered. And, even in theory, Ryan doesn’t balance the budget for decades.
At some point, the media has to stop playing this shameful game of saying someone has a reputation for something and pretending not to know why they have that reputation.
Your reporting was BAD!
That’s why people are misinformed.
