Paul Ryan is a FRAUDSTER!

The following article was composed and contributed to the BAP Bog by a local citizen, Tom Dona Rosa who has done his homework. Thank you Tom!

Each year for a number of years citizens living in the First Congressional District have received from Congressman Paul Ryan an Annual Report on the Unites States Government with the Great Seal of the Congress of the United States on it. The Report represents itself to be a an Annual Report similar to a Corporate Annual Report. We all know that Corporate Annual Reports must be a truthful and an accurate representation of the Corporation at the time that it was issued. So why would this Annual Report be any different? WOW is all I can say!! I had glanced at the others and filed them, but this one I looked at more closely and to my utter shock found out that it is a TOTAL misrepresentation of our Government’s finances!! It is in essence a FRAUD upon us because it intentionally misrepresents the income and expenses of our government!!!

For starters Paul Ryan claims that the payments to the Social Security Trust Fund and other similar programs, Medicare, Federal Unemployment, and of all things the Railroad Retirement Fund are part of the Government’s Revenue!! He calls them “Social Insurance Taxes” as if there is such a thing. It would be like Governor Walker claiming that the payments to and income earned by the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) is part of the income to the State of Wisconsin!! Now people know that the money that goes to the WRS for public employees pensions is NOT income to the State of Wisconsin but money being set aside and invested to pay the pensions when those public employees retire.

There Goes Lyin Ryan

John Heckenlively penned this parody of Roy Orbison's Crying back in 2010and asked me to record it. I was about to dust off the mp3 file in response to Lyin' Paul Ryan's selection as Mit-the-Twit's VP, when I got a link from John to the video he'd just finished. I'm no Roy Orbison with an 8 octave range, but here after long delay is Ryan Lying.


John Heckenlively - Lyrics, Compilation
Sean Cranley - Vocals, Mandolin, Accoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar
Caelyn Cranley - Drums

America, Don't Buy Paul Ryan's Snake Oil!

FACT: Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk
FACT: Clinton left us with a budget surplus to pay off the debt
FACT: Ryan voted for the unfunded Afghan war
FACT: Ryan voted for two Bu$h tax cut with no off-sets
FACT: Ryan voted for the unfunded Iraq war
FACT: Ryan voted for the unfunded Medicare Part D
FACT: More the 1/2 our debt was run up during the Bu$h Admin
FACT: Ryan helped Bu$h do it every step of the way
FACT: Ryan is NOT a deficit hawk
FACT: Ryan is a hypocrite and a liar

There Goes Lyin' Ryan

Today's location for Rep. Paul Ryan's Kenosha listening session on the GOP budget recently changed! The location is now Gateway Technical College - 3520 30th Avenue in Kenosha. It also now begins 2:45 instead of 3:00 and runs until 4:00 pm. Hope you can attend and let others know he has changed the place to Gateway! Thanks!

There Goes Lyin' Ryan

Today's location for Rep. Paul Ryan's Kenosha listening session on the GOP budget recently changed! The location is now Gateway Technical College - 3520 30th Avenue in Kenosha. It also now begins 2:45 instead of 3:00 and runs until 4:00 pm. Hope you can attend and let others know he has changed the place to Gateway! Thanks!

Fruther Proof the Ryan is Lyin Sack of Shit

The following half truth (LIE!) courtesy Paully Ryan and the Weekneed Standard was posted by Nemo on Free Racine and is making all around the wingnut blogospere. The truth, which CONservatism cannot abide, follows below

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo-director-says-obamacare-would-reduce-employment-800000-workers_547288.html

Chairman [Paul] Ryan: “[I]t’s been argued...that the new health care law will create jobs and increase labor force participation. But if I recall from your analysis, it was quite the opposite. Is that not the case?”

Director [Douglas] Elmendorf : “Yes.”...

[…]

Rep. [John] Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, we'll -- and Dr. Elmendorf -- and we'll continue this conversation right now. First on health care, before I get to -- before I get to broader issues, you just mentioned that you believe -- or that in your estimate, that the health care law would reduce the labor used in the economy by about 1/2 of 1 percent, given that, I believe you say, there's 160 million full-time people working in '20-'21. That means that, in your estimation, the health care law would reduce employment by 800,000 in '20-'21. Is that correct?

Director Elmendorf: Yes. The way I would put it is that we do estimate, as you said, that...employment will be about 160 million by the end of the decade. Half a percent of that is 800,000.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/143379-gop-jumps-on-old-cbo-job-numbers

EXCERPT: However, the CBO prediction is a little more nuanced. Last summer's CBO report said the projected labor reduction is "largely" the result of more people voluntarily staying out of the workforce because the healthcare reform law gives them better healthcare options through an expansion of Medicaid and new state-run health insurance exchanges.

From the report:

"The expansion of Medicaid and the availability of subsidies through the exchanges will effectively increase beneficiaries’ financial resources. Those additional resources will encourage some people to work fewer hours or to withdraw from the labor market."

Further, a ban on discriminating against preexisting conditions will likely "increase the appeal" of health insurance plans offered outside the workplace for older workers.

"As a result," CBO said, "some older workers will choose to retire earlier than they otherwise would." END EXCERPT

Hey, THAT means they'll leave job openings that younger workers can fill. BONUS!

Thank you Nemo for your continued service in allowing me to point out the lies required to advance the Con-servatisma. If you must lie to advance your thoughts, your thoughts are not advanced.

Paul Ryan Can't Have it Both Ways

On the eve of tomorrow's healthcare summit where it will be made plain for all to see that GOPstructionist party has no real solutions, our company has received word that our health insurance premiums will rise by 22% again this year. I suppose we should be thankful that this broken system isn't delivering the 39% skyrocket attempted by the profiteers in California, yet. Yet our cost has doubled twice in the last 8 years even with more out of pocket costs, and at 22% it will double again in 4 years. this is unsustainable and somethings got to give, so far it's us. Well of course even more so the 30,000 Americans who die annually due to lack of health coverage while the party of "right to life" dithers and obfuscates for their corporate masters.

Meanwhile the GOPsters are talking out of both sides of their face, with Paully "wanna-cracker" Ryan, such a pretty boy ahhhhhhk, parroting the talking points puffed out in his finest plumage. Below is an insightful piece authored by Kelly Gallaher which was posted on Yes We CA Racine and run in the Racine Journal times.

The past few weeks have been very exciting for Congressman Paul Ryan(R-WI). On January 29, the Congressman had the opportunity to spar with President Obama at the televised GOP retreat in Baltimore in front of thenational press. The attention continued with the unveiling of his budget plancalled “A Roadmap for America’s Future 2.0.” Ryan’s budget was initially regarded as a serious effort to propose a counterpoint to the Administration’s 2010 budget. That is, until people read it.

Congressman Ryan’s limelight became a glaring spotlight when closer examination revealed the Roadmap for America’s Future sought to radically dismantle Medicare by replacing the current system with vouchers andreplace a traditional safety net with a sweeping effort to privatize SocialSecurity for Americans under 55 years old. His plan would undermine the securityof these programs for millions of Americans and subject them to the volatilityof Wall Street and unabated greed of corporate health care. Nobel Prizee conomist Paul Krugman called it a “breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy.”GOP members staking their future campaigns on protecting Medicare and Social Security scattered.

Then came the Wall Street Journal that singled out Ryan this past week for his hypocrisy in slamming the stimulus plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Ryan called the stimulus a"wasteful spending spree" while requesting these same funds last October from the Department of Labor saying “I support the Energy Center of Wisconsin’s grant application for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Energy Training and Partnership Grants.” He went further in his request tosay the grant “would make effective use of the funds they would receive. ”

How does a program like the stimulus that "misses the mark on all counts” and “hasn’t created the jobs” also manage to “propose to develop an industry-driven training and placement agenda that intends to place 1,000 workers in green jobs” as he stated in his stimulus request? Easy, it’s called dishonesty. It is dishonest to say the stimulus doesn’t create jobs atthe same time you ask for stimulus money to create jobs. In December, Ryan called for the repeal of the Recovery Act even though his own hometown of Janesville had received more than $4 million of stimulus money for jobs and newprograms.

Erroneously characterized as a “deficit hawk,” Paul Ryan’s public profile completely contradicts the way he votes. Ryan voted for record spending, unfunded tax cuts for the wealthiest, the bank bailouts and trilliondollar wars which created our deficit nightmare. Also called a policy “wonk;”Ryan championed unsustainable expansions of Medicare Advantage resulting inbillions of overpayments while he seeks to create a policy to dismantle Medicare and Social Security for Americans long after he’s gone from office.

Democrats are not the only people who have questions about Ryan and his agenda. He has mystified conservatives as well. In response to his votes in favor of the auto bailout and the AIG confiscatory bonus tax even conservativepundit Michelle Malkin was moved to scold him to “practice what you preach when itmatters. Not after the fact.” Perhaps Wisconsinites could take comfort that his vote was in support of workers. Sadly this was not the case. When questioned about his vote on the auto bailout just last week to Daily Beast writer, Benjamin Sarlin, Ryan confessed he was moved to vote for it not to keep autoworkers employed, but because he believed “that a second Depression would threaten capitalism—and rescue Obama's presidency.”

Congressman Ryan has been practicing the most cynical kind of political hypocrisy and hoping we would not notice. In this age of internet communication, that kind of pretense is no longer possible, and hisconstituents must hold him accountable. Ryan deserves credit for having an idea; not many of his colleagues have shown the same initiative. However, it has alsogiven us the opportunity to look deeper in to what the future would look like if many in the GOP had their way. Ryan perhaps said it best in a recentinterview with the New York Times, “I’m worried that if we get the majority back by default, we’ll screw up again.” On that, we can both agree.

Kelly Gallaher

The Fallacy of the GOParty Line

Because they must criticize Obama no matter what he does or says, all the little GOPpositionsits, including of course Paully the Parrotboy” Ryan are running around spouting the same approved gandabyte talking point; if we set a time table, our enemies will just wait us out. The thing is, if you have audacity to think about it for a moment, this tired old party line (they said the same thing about Iraq) falls apart utterly. And of course they conveniently ignore the inconvenient truth that President Obama explicitly stated that the drawing down of forces would be contingent on conditions on the ground.

If the matter was as simplistic as the GOPsters “logic” would have us all believe (or as their mental constructs allow) the Taliban need only have stopped fighting a couple years ago and we’d be leaving now based on favorable conditions on the ground, in country. They could then start their movement back up again. But movements don’t work that way, they’re like sharks, they either move or they die.

So we see yet again that when exposed to a modicum of critical thinking the GOPlogic that seems to make sense on the simplistic surface is hollow in the middle like a rotten tree. But I guess they feel they must come up with something negative with which to prop themselves up. And of course, never meeting a war they didn’t love, they’ll never be satisfied with anything less than war without end, amen.

A Closer Look at Paul Ryan's Closer Look

The following excellent analysis of yet another attempt at deception by Paul Ryan (this time on healthcare) is published with permission of the Author, Kelly Gallaher of Yes We Can Racine. http://yeswecanracine.com/

Congressman Paul Ryan has been very busy talking about the health care crisis and touting his plan called “The Patients’ Choice Act”. My local newspaper invited him to write a series of articles to examine the “facts” of current legislation. After reading his article on July 27th, I realized they offered it with no rebuttal or factual verification. A day later, I received a mailing from Ryan criticizing current health care reform proposals while stressing the benefits of his plan. Ryan’s plan sounds great, while U.S. House of Representatives Bill H.R. 3200 sounds scary. This time I sat down and read very closely every idea and derision posed in Ryan’s mailing. With a small amount of research I was able to refute every statement of criticism contained in the mailing. All of them. I was also able to dismantle the benefits Congressman Ryan claims his “Patients’ Choice Act” contains and discovered a pattern of distorted language designed to misrepresent and confuse constituents about health care. I will illustrate a few of the worst:

Regarding his proposed tax refund of $5,700 for every family or $2,300 for individuals, Ryan says:

“My plan, The Patients’ Choice Act, ensures universal affordable health care for all Americans.” and “Allows everyone to use this tax credit to select from a group of comprehensive health insurance plans that fit their specific needs-just like Members of Congress and federal employees do now.”
• Last year family coverage in the private market averaged $13,000 and exceeded $16,000 per year in some states and is predicted to keep rising nationally. A figure far more than double the tax credit would allocate.
• Republican Senator Richard Burr admitted that Ryan’s credit is not sufficient to cover American families. Burr says “that probably won’t meet the equivalent of an FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefit Program) plan.” Even Ryan’s friend in Congress says this isn’t equivalent to the coverage they have.
• Under Ryan’s plan, families with employer paid insurance would be taxed on the entire amount the employer contributes just as if it were wages.
• Replacing the current employer tax exclusion with an individual tax credit would significantly weaken employer-based coverage because individuals receive the credit and employers no longer have an incentive to contribute.
• Unlike health reform proposals that the House and Senate committees are developing, Ryan’s plan does not set meaningful minimum standards on what benefits insurers must cover. It doesn’t limit deductibles or out-of-pocket costs leaving private insurers to determine those themselves state by state.

On current proposals being debated in the House and Senate, Ryan says the following:

“Total costs would exceed $1 trillion.” and “Creates an entitlement that will cost another trillion over the next ten years, on top of the trillions the government is already scheduled to spend on health care.”
• The initial report by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) in early July calculating estimated costs has been used by Ryan and his colleagues frequently and unfairly. The CBO did not calculate savings that health care reform will produce. On July 20th the CBO recalculated that the H.R. 3200 reform bill would not only be budget neutral, it will produce a surplus of $6 billion over time.
• The real threat to government spending is the system we have now. According to the Kaiser Foundation: by 2018 health care costs are expected to top $4.4 trillion if nothing is done.
• House and Senate committee reforms would reduce overuse of expensive healthcare technology and cut back on preventable medical error-two of the greatest cost drivers in the entire system. According to the Center for Health Research: comprehensive reform could save as much as $1.4 trillion over ten years.

Perhaps the worst lie Congressman Ryan is telling:“A recent study predicts two out of every three Americans will lose their current employer-provided insurance under the government plan.”
• The “recent study” he refers to is a study conducted by the Lewin group who is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group (UHG), one of the nation’s largest insurers. The Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a subsidiary of UHG that was accused by the New York attorney general and the AMA for helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. In January, UnitedHealth paid a $400 million dollar settlement covering conduct going back to 1994.
• According to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities it is Congressman Ryan’s “Patients’ Choice Act” that “would significantly erode employer-based coverage” while it “fails to create a viable alternative for people losing employer coverage.”

Lastly, Congressman Ryan decries government interference in health care. However, he completely avoids discussing that his plan for the uninsurable constitutes a huge government system itself. Nearly 100 million chronically ill Americans (representing up to 75% of health care spending) who cannot afford coverage except at colossal premium costs would be funneled into a state/government run health insurance exchange with prices and language determined by private carriers in each individual state. Ryan’s plan is devoid of the competition a public option offers and entrusts insurance companies to police themselves.

Ultimately, Congressman Ryan’s “Patients’ Choice Act” benefits for-profit, private health insurance companies by retaining and defending their central role in this billion dollar industry. Perhaps then, it is no coincidence that the insurance industry has been Congressman Ryan’s top contributor since 1989. In fact, he has received $1,143,560.00 in campaign contributions from health care industries over the last decade.

As 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every single day, Paul Ryan offers nothing new; he is obstructing real reform and offering us more of the same. His “Patients’ Choice Act” is a retread of two bills already introduced in 2008 and both were recycled by John McCain in his unsuccessful run for President. In contrast, H.R. 3200 has included 160 Republican amendments, which proved to be smart, constructive and bipartisan, but you won’t hear that from Paul Ryan.

I believe we will have comprehensive health care reform this year and I hope it will be a good plan. It is clear that my U.S. Representative, Paul Ryan, intends to play no role in helping to shape this historic legislation. He said last week on MSNBC, “let’s have an honest debate.” My reply to him is: you first.