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.