Paul Ryan gets booed at town hall meeting

Updated 12:51 p.m. Eastern Time

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the architect of the Republican budget plan, was booed at a town hall meeting on Tuesday in Milton, Wisconsin, while defending extending tax breaks for high-income individuals.

The liberal site ThinkProgress posted video from the event, which you can see at left. Ryan's office confirmed the location and date of the video to CBS News.

In the video, a constituent says "history shows that concentrating more wealth at the top has been the worst thing for our economy."

"The middle class is disappearing right now," he says. "During this time of prosperity, the top 1 percent was taking about 10 percent of the total annual income, but yet today we are fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire?"

The Census Bureau found last year that the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans had hit its widest amount ever.

Ryan told the constituent that he doesn't "disagree with the premise of what you're saying. The question is what's the best way to do this."

The constituent eventually says "there's nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down."

"We do tax the top," Ryan responds - prompting groans and boos from the audience.

The Ryan budget plan, which all but four House Republicans voted for, would eventually reduce the corporate tax rate and the top tax rate for the wealthiest Americans from 35 percent to 25 percent.

President Obama has called for an end to the Bush-era tax cuts, which would mean higher taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 per year and families making more than $250,000 per year. He has also called for lowering the top corporate tax rate. 

According to the Journal-Sentinel, Ryan was largely warmly received at a different town hall event on Monday, where a suggestion that he run for president was greeted with applause.

[lucifersshadow]

If they really wanted to solve the problem they would institute a flat tax. But saying that taxing the rich will hurt jobs is insanity when they are not being taxed that much now and there are no jobs.

[jcm521]

This is from the Republican "Seniors bill of rights": "The Republican Party's contract with seniors includes tenets that Americans, regardless of political party, should support. First, we need to protect Medicare"

They released this just about a year ago when opposing health care reform: they made the claim that health care reform would lead to cuts to Medicare.

Now that their scare tactics have gotten them into power, the budget bill they forced through the House simultaneously eliminates health care reform and drastically cuts Medicare.

[rmacgilv]

Was Brian Montopoli a member of the Journolistas? It sure seems like it as he spews Obama's talking points everyday in his blog.

[simpleconservative]

*********** you claim there was no benefit from 2000 to 07 but unemployment rates were under 5% . You point out that 52.5% of benefits from Bush's tax cuts went to those who paid 60% of all federal income taxes. The rest of your rant is simply ill informed and biased opinion. The single word that defines a conservative Republican's efforts is" freedom" . If young people really want social security and medicare to be there for the weakest among them, they had better support reforms like Ryan is proposing!

[jcm521]

So Ryan's budget is based on the assumption that unemployment would be under 3% by 2021. So how about we make a deal? We pass the budget. If unemployment is higher than 3%, we put tax rates back to what they were the last time unemployment was that low. After all, Republicans argue that it's the tax rate that determines unemployment rates...

For the record, that would put the top marginal rate at 92%.

[sierrablancalucia]

Finally an honest Republican--gut programs for the middle class while lavishing tax breaks on the rich.

[getcentered]

RobAla you are full of it!

President Bush and his supporters argued that high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity.

There is no evidence of this. From 2000 to 2007, the United States lost one in five (3.5 million) middle-class jobs. A majority of the new jobs created in the United States under Bush pay extremely low wages at less than $18,000 a year, usually without benefits. This is with corporate profits at an all time high since 1960.

The 2005 CBO data show that changes in law enacted since January 2001 increased the deficit by $539 billion in 2005. In the absence of such legislation, the nation would have a surplus that year. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts were finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits went to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.

People who vote for Republicans are just too angry with tragedian Republicans talking points to understand that a government with no money can't do any work for the people. The working class have been voting against their economic interests for decades. They continue to buy into the lies being sold to them by Republican politicians who can not point to one piece of Republican sponsored legislation that is pro-family, pro-consumer or pro-employee. Republicans consistently support and protect the interests of multinational big business and the rich, and yet poor and working class white stiffs remain loyal followers.

Republicans have become the peasants of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp - the parent company of Fox News - making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. U.S. buys Saudi Arabia's oil, and the bulk of his country's gross domestic product (GDP) comes from oil. Fox News reliably broadcasts misinformation on clean energy, and aggressively fights efforts to move America away from being dependent on fossil fuels.

I'm tired of Republicans. It was all a nice puppet show. Foolish elderly Republican voters actually think that Republicans are going to repeal the Heath Care Reforms and ban earmarks and bring "freedom" back.

Would you hire a confessed animal hater to run a pet store? No? Then why would you elect politicians who freely admit to despising government?

Republicans rally against regulation of industry, and then America sees how that turns out when BP spills a million barrels of oil in our seas. Republicans will rally against gay people, stripping them of civil rights, and then you find them tapping their toes in airport bathrooms looking for their gay lovers. Republicans will rally against non-existent communists but have no problem driving our economy to the ground with Karl Marx like spending of trillions of tax dollars that they borrowed from China for endless wars against enemies that did not attack us.

After the last ten years of watching Republicans one word stands out as defining them perfectly; hypocrite. A vote for a Republican is literally a vote for the absence of leadership.

Hands down, I'm voting for the Democrats for the next decade.

[RobAla]

Sounded like a pretty reasonable discussion, and a real town hall meeting - you know the kind where the people in the room are not hand picked and the questions are not limited.

Ryan is absolutely correct in stating that raising taxes will hurt job creation. How does President Obama not understand that increasing taxes on businesses and people making more than $200,000 will, result in higher unemployment? If a business has to use the money it has for hiring an additional worker to send to the federal government in higher taxes - it equals JOB LOST. If people making more than $200,000 have to use money for purchasing a service or good from a business to send to the federal government in higher taxes - it means that businesses have less activity and it equals JOB LOST. The President has to understand this, but he must be thinking that he can confiscate more money from less people.

We have two concepts of deficit reduction here:
1) Paul Ryan's Plan: Cut government a lot, requiring far less revenue to run the government. Lower taxes on business, but get rid of the tax loopholes. This enables businesses to be more able to afford additional workers, and additional workers paying taxes will send more revenue to the government. It also diminishes the power of lobbyist to control government, and gives more power back to the people.

2) President Obama's Plan: Cut the federal government only a little, causing a greater need for revenue to run the government. Try to make up the ground by increasing taxes on businesses and those making more than $200,000. It will result in higher unemployment, and that means less people paying taxes. He just hopes to collect more from less people. Without getting rid of tax loopholes, it leaves the lobbyists in power in Washington.

My vote is for option 1. Paul Ryan's plan leaves the Medicare as it is for those 55 and over, but offers options to those younger. We HAVE to do something, as continuing what we are doing is UNSUSTAINABLE (says the CBO and President Obama's Deficit Commission

[1ManNamedDan]

Yeah it will hurt the jobs that they AREN'T currently creating right?
That's PURE GOP BS - It's a lie that ha NEVER been shown in a historic graph to be true in a climate where demand is higher than supply and the current work force is threadbare and insufficient at current growth levels.
These Businesses did FINE BEFORE the Bush tax cuts and they will do just as well when it is again at a reasonable rate that allows America to continue to pay its bills.
Defenders of the wealthy! You guys have Balls but no brains. Shut up and let things RETURN to the way they were when this country was actually PROSPERING and able to afford to keep spending resources to make sure America was a MODERN country with healthy and EDUCATED citizens able to lead the Free World.

Hopefully any leader with enough common sense can see this is a thinly veiled attempt to keep the overprivileged from paying their dues to remain in the best country in the world. If you think they would be happier someplace else then fine, they have already outsourced ALL the labor and services they can. America can always create more businesses HERE that actually employ Americans - So threats to leave or not hire are absolute GOP boogeymen ********!
I Am NOT TAKING ANY MORE **** FROM GREEDY SHORTSIGHTED IDIOTS WHO THINK BUSINESSES WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT ALL THE POOR PEOPLE (WORKERS) WANTING TO PROSPER TOO!

[simpleconservative]

For the second time I vote for #1 number 2 is exactly what we laughed about as kids,Poo-Poo

[simpleconservative]

That was not booing and when all is said and done, Ryan is correct. If Democrats want more revenue to the treasury, they need to understand the concept every retailer knows. Cut the prices and volumes increase. It is beyond me to understand the reliance on these old worn out class warfare cliche's. It occurs to me that liberals really don't care how much money comes into the treasury as much as they care about control over our lives. The only other answer that can explain their obsession's is that they are truly economic illiterates without a clue as to how the economy really works! All that remains after that is a conspiracy theory that postulates Democrats realize that most of the productive class is conservative by nature and anything taken from them constitutes a hit to their financial ability to support conservatives!

[user000049586849302948603]

It wasn't booing; They were chanting "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,..."

[jcm521]

Every retailer knows you cut prices and volume increases. But every retailer also knows you raise prices and margin increases. Maximum profit comes at a balance of these two.

Taxes for the rich have never been as low as they are now. The conservative argument seems to be that whatever taxes are, they are too high. Until the federal government pays the rich money, they are overtaxed, and even then, we won't be paying them enough. I paid a higher tax rate as a high school student working for McDonald's than I did last year when my income was orders of magnitude larger.

I'm in the "productive class" as you put it (my income is well over the median family income, as is my wife's), and I know d**n well that for the good of this country my taxes should be higher.

PS: have you forgiven Reagan for the fact that I have to pay self-employment tax? That killer of small-business was his policy.

[slatep]

johndevinejr.. AND I BET YOU BELIEVE EVERY LIE OBAMA HAS EVER TOLD.!!

[RobAla]

Looks like the Democrat propaganda is working it's magic.

[user000049586849302948603]

If you don't agree with something, it's """prooooopagaaaaaanda""".