Paul Ryan: You aren't better off now
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
(CBS News) GREENVILLE, N.C. - As Democrats head to Charlotte to nominate President Obama for a second term, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan made an appearance on the other side of the state to hammer home his message that Americans are not better off than they were four years ago.
"We're gonna hear a lot of words from Charlotte this week. But here's the kind of words we're not gonna hear. We're not gonna hear evidence and facts about how people are better off," Ryan told a crowd of over 2,000 people at East Carolina University. "You see, the president cannot run on this record. He's run out of ideas. And so that is why he's going to be running a campaign based on envy and division, based on frustration and anger."
Ryan led the Republican messaging effort on Monday while nominee Mitt Romney was out of the public eye preparing for the presidential debates. Ryan's remarks were targeted at inconsistent answers over the weekend from top Democrats in response to interview questions about whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago - the quadrennial question that faces incumbents running for reelection. Asked the question on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland answered, "No, but that's not the question of this election."
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The Wisconsin congressman told the crowd that Obama's campaign has taken a negative turn, relying on attack ads, because the president has no record to run on.
"Let me quote President Obama four years ago: 'If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.' Ladies and gentleman, that is exactly what Barack Obama is doing today," Ryan said. "In fact, every president since the Great Depression who asked Americans to send them into a second term could say that you are better off today than you were four years ago, except for Jimmy Carter and for President Barack Obama."
He ticked off a list of measures - the unemployment rate, businesses bankruptcy filings, and delinquent mortgage payments - that he said were actually better under Carter than they are now. Carter lost his bid for a second term in 1980 to Republican Ronald Reagan.
"Simply put, the Jimmy Carter years look like the good old days compared to where we are right now," Ryan said.
He also rebutted an Obama campaign ad released this morning that says Romney's policies will increase taxes on the middle class. "He'll say that we just want tax cuts to go to really wealthy people and at the expense of everybody else," Ryan said. "Here's how this game works in Washington, and by the way, Republicans in the past are just as guilty as Democrats. What happens is, you pay your taxes, you send your money to Washington, and then special interest groups come and they get the little carve-outs in the tax code, and then if you do what Washington approves of, they might give you some of your money back. We just want you to keep your money in the first place."
Ryan said a Romney administration would plug special interest loopholes to allow tax rates to decrease by about 20 percent, but Romney and Ryan have declined to specify which loopholes they would close.
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In Hutchinson, as part of President Obama's tax breaks and his budget to help create green technology along with state tax breaks resulted in the building of the Seiman's wind turbine manufacturing plant that created over 200 new jobs. In the past year, more jobs were created. Seimans also built a plant in Newton, KS over a year ago that builds smaller windmills that can be put on the roofs of businesses so that they can generate a portion of their own electricity that created around 60 jobs.
A brand new KOHLS will open in mid September and the hire over one hundred employees, and a 21st century Fairfield Inn and Suites will open in Hutchinson at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 7th, with 89 rooms and suites and put 20 new employees to work.
And next spring an Olive Garden restaurant will go up along with another hotel.
The Hutchinson businesses also put over 150 construction workers to work.
My son, who was laid off in in early 2007 while George W Bush was still president was hired as a desk clerk and IT person at the new Fairfield Inn and Suites. Several of his friends, also 22-25 years old, were hired at Kohl's and Seimans.
Another friend was recently hired as a special mechanic at a GMC car dealership in Kansas City.
I know that in large states with higher unemployment and a much larger state deficit, including California and Florida, have not added as many jobs or recalled a large percentage of laid off employees, but I know that in Florida the unemployment picture is a little better because I have a second cousin who lives there.
my country has the beginnings of a national health care system available to every american. despite the best efforts of you and you cohorts in congress, social security still exists and it supplements my income quite nicely, no thanks to you.
i am a republican. probably been one for longer than you've been around and i just can't bring myself to vote for my treasured parties candidates. this year my party seems bent on dis-enfranchising the voters that we shed blood for so that some "good ol boys" can remain in power. a perty that is trying to undo medical, reproductive and voting rights of more than half of my countrymen.
those vales might be neo-conservative values, but they aren't republican values. just as i waited for my country to toss joe mccarthy, im waiting for your turn to arrive. being a patriotic american. i just know that will happen sooner rather than later.
i know i'm just one tired old marine and it won't make much different, but i just can't bring myself to vote for you. i'm voting for that republican... barrack obama
stock market was dipping below 8,000 and the price of gas
was nearing $5.00 a gallon with no relief in sight. Unless
Ryans's plan is to use the 'mind eraser' from Total Recall
people will not forget or forgive the last Republican
president, maybe that is why he was not there at the RNC
to remind people of those failures.
This is the EXACT same thing that Bush said over and over in his 2000 campaign.
Bush said: "We can reform the tax code, so that families can keep more of what they earn
Bush said: "Today, our high taxes fund a surplus. Some say that growing federal surplus means Washington has more money to spend. But they've got it backwards. The surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money.(compare these two bush statements to Ryan's statement)-------
FACT: Instead of using the surpluses to pay down the national debt republicans cut taxes, twice, resulting in a doubling of the debt, and an interest payout nearing $9 TRILLIOIN.
Stated simply; the Bush/Cheney tax cuts resulted in an actual tax INCREASE that keeps INCREASING every year.------
On foreign Affairs: Bush promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "IF WE DON'T STOP EXTENDING OUR TROOPS ALL AROUND THE WORLD IN NATION-BUILDING MISSIONS, THEN WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM COMING DOWN THE ROAD. AND I'M GOING TO PREVENT THAT. ===== History speaks for itself.
FACT: Neither President Bush nor VP Cheney spoke at the republican convention yet Ryan wants to use the same campaign tactics that bush used in 2000.
We've tried trickle-down economics for 3 decades. We've fallen for the Cut taxes ruse for even longer.
Why does Ryan want to repeat the bush tactic? The answer is simple; he knows there are many potential voters listening to his speech that have extremely short or absent political memories and without the ability to see, or even think, past their noses.
Dow today about 13,000.
If you have a 401k or IRA, YOU ARE better off than 4 years ago!
How'd that work out for you boosh lovers?