Paul Ryan admits here that the cuts he's going to propose to our social safety nets, or as he calls them "entitlements" will end up giving the Democrats some fodder for political ads against him in the next election, but claims they'll have to lie
April 3, 2011

Paul Ryan admits here that the cuts he's going to propose to our social safety nets, or as he calls them "entitlements" will end up giving the Democrats some fodder for political ads against him in the next election, but claims they'll have to lie and demagogue the issue in order to do so.

I think all they're going to have to do is let people read his plan for themselves and run back the recordings of interviews like this one. If he thinks turning Medicaid into a voucher system and privatizing Social Security are somehow going to "save" them, he's been drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid.

WALLACE: Last question, as you look ahead, and a lot of people would say look, the answer is you're not going to get this budget passed. It's really setting up an issue and a sensible debate for 2012. As you look ahead to the next election, aren't Democrats going to be able to say "Look at Paul Ryan, look at the House Republicans. They want to kill Medicare.
They want to kill Medicaid. They want to gut the programs that you depend on." Aren't you playing into the Democrats hands?

RYAN: We are. We are giving them a political weapon to go against us, but they will have to lie and demagogue to make that a political weapon. Look, we don't change benefits for anybody over the age of 55. We save Medicare. We save Medicaid. We save these entitlement programs. We repair our social safety nets and we get our country a debt free country for our children and grandchildren's generation, and we get jobs. We get economic growth.

They are going to demagogue it and it's that demagoguery that has always prevented political leaders in the past from trying to fix the problem. We can't keep kicking the can down the road. The president has punted. We're not going to follow suit and yes, we will be giving our political advisaries things to use against us in the next election and shame on them if they do it.

Sorry Paul, but I say shame on any of them if they go along with your plan.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon