Rep. Paul Ryan took the stage last night for a keynote address that left both the blog-o-sphere and mainstream media teams buzzing. Here’s how Fox News described it:
…to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
You know it’s bad when America’s “fair and balanced” network is calling out the GOP nominee for Vice President. For those playing at home, here were some of Ryan’s deceptions.
1. President Obama “funneled out” $716 billion from Medicare.
Wrong. The truth:
…this $700 billion comes from streamlining an over-worked and unnecessarily cumbersome system. Whereas Paul Ryan actually wishes to gut Medicare to pay for the lost revenues of his massive tax cuts for the rich.
2. Obama is to blame for America’s credit downgrade.
Patently false. It certainly wasn’t Obama that did it:
…as the National Journal put it, “it’s hard to read the S&P analysis as anything other than a blast at Republicans.” S&P called out the GOP for using the debt ceiling as a political football and for its flat refusal to consider new revenue as part of any plan to reduce long-term deficits.
3. Obama broke his promise to keep a Janesville GM plant open.
Obama never made that promise. And the plant was shut down in December 2008, before Obama took office.
4. Obama has amassed more debt than any other American president.
Wrong again. The NYT has previously fact-checked this:
Mr. Romney has made this claim before and, when asked to defend it, his campaign has said that he is referring to a subset of the nation’s total debt — the portion of the debt that is owed to private investors.
But those numbers don’t work either. The debt held by private investors stood at $6.307 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. Today it stands at $10.393 trillion.
5. “The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak.”
Is that why Ryan is giving the super rich and corporations $3 trillion in tax breaks? Aviva Shen at Think Progress adds:
…numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on.
