Paul Ryan’s Inaccurate RNC Speech

By: Sarah Betancourt

“Whatever the party, join Mitt Romney and me,” is the weakest attempt at bipartisanship the extreme right-wing conservative Paul Ryan gave as he accepted the vice-presidential nomination tonight at the Republic National Convention. Ryan continued down the list of GOP speaking points as he attempted to rally the crowd in Tampa, Florida.

Two highlights from the speech that have been previously analyzed by the media:

“After all that work, and in a bad economy, it sure doesn’t help to hear from their president that government gets the credit. What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that.”

Ryan continues to follow the lead of his predecessors, pulling President Obama’s July 13th remarks out of context. The context of Obama’s remarks fall under the category of defending government programs that help small businesses succeed- specifically tax-payer funded support in infrastructure.

“The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it.”

The Affordable Care Act calls for reducing the future growth of Medicare spending over 10 years Republican’s claim of $700 billion lying around is simply untrue, when in fact only $244 billion sits in the trust fund as of the end of 2011. The problem lies in the inherent declination of funds in these trusts. Factcheck.org cites, “Without the spending cuts in the Affordable Care Act, the Part A trust fund was expected to be exhausted in 2016. With the ACA cuts, that date was pushed back to 2024.” Ryan seems to be forgetting some key details.

By: Sarah Betancourt

Sarah Betancourt is a Boston-based journalist who has written for In These Times, Open Media Boston, Spare Change News, Boston.com, the Boston Globe Environment Blog, and has had work appear in video on the National Geographic Water Currents Blog. She writes primarily about Boston politics, labor, Generation Y issues, and environmental policy.