Down With Tyranny has a post rightfully attacking Paul Ryan, (GOP WI-01) for his latest hypocrisy. While Ryan has been a staunch opponent of the stimulus plan and has even called for repealing the stimulus, he has suddenly found an unfunded stimulus project that he wants to support according to Walworth County Today. Here’s what they had to say:
“Rep. Paul Ryan is joining the village of Sharon to fight the loss of $547,000 in stimulus money used to build a storm-water retention system.”
This comes from the man who in an interview with Think Progress in early December had this to say about the stimulus plan:
Yeah, so, I would prospectively repeal the stimulus and put it toward better policy.
He was against it before he was for it. Mr. Ryan, you can’t have it both ways. Do you think this flip flop will go unnoticed among your constituents? Why don’t you admit that you were wrong in voting against the stimulus package and that without it, the economic disaster that the Obama Administration inherited from George Bush and your GOP colleagues, would have been even more severe.
While the funds had been awarded to the village earlier this year, the EPA and the DNR later found that the project was ineligible for the funds due to the project’s contracted start date prior to the official date for stimulus fund projects according to MyWalworthCounty.com.
To shore up his right wing support, Ryan endorsed the darling of the teabaggers today, Marco Rubio
No shock there, Howie. Ryan’s angling for a promotion in the near future, so he’s going to need as much support from the far-right fringe as he can get.
I don’t feel you know the whole story. The Village of Sharon was awarded stimulus funds. Then the EPA decided to take back those funds along with three other municipalities. The projects were all complete. So I would think Kudos to this congressman for standing up and helping our village when he really has trouble with the stimulus to begin with. He recognizes what is right and that doesn’t interfer with his feelings for the stimulus. Please get the facts before you beraid someone.
Hello Diana,
Thanks for your feedback. If you notice in the last paragraph of the posting I acknowledge that the funds had been awarded. In fact I say “While the funds had been awarded to the village earlier this year, the EPA and the DNR later found that the project was ineligible for the funds due to the project’s contracted start date prior to the official date for stimulus fund projects according to MyWalworthCounty.com.”. Personally I think the Village of Sharon should get the funds and that this is a travesty given that they had been awarded.
My point isn’t about that, it is about Paul Ryan’s lack of support for any stimulus funds. How he can then go and fight for the reinstatement of funds that he didn’t want in the first place is beyond me. As Paul Ryan himself said about the stimulus funds “Yeah, so, I would prospectively repeal the stimulus and put it toward better policy. I don’t think the Keynesian stimulus has worked very well. Those jobs were occurring anyways – those road jobs, through gas tax funding. … It hasn’t created the jobs. It hasn’t brought us to 8 percent unemployment.” http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/08/paul-ryan-stim-repeal/
Diana, he can’t have it both ways. If he is fighting for a municipality in his District to receive funds, he should have done so in the first place. To actively now support funds he was never for, is the utmost in hypocrisy.
MadCityMan, did you return your tax cut checks even though your probably didn’t support Bush’s tax policies?
Hi Forgot,
Nope, but I’m not an elected official who says one thing and does another. The people of Sharon will think that Ryan was fighting for his District from day one of the Obama administration when what he has been doing is being an obstructionist on funds for his District while raking in funds for his own political re-election.