Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

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bobalot
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Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by bobalot »

Earlier this week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) embarked on a series of town halls across his southern Wisconsin congressional district. Ryan has gained notoriety in recent weeks as the architect of the Republican budget which extends tax breaks for the wealthy and phases out Medicare. House Republicans voted 235-4 in favor of the plan.

During a town hall meeting in Milton, a constituent who described himself as a “lifelong conservative” asked Ryan about the effects of growing income inequality in our nation. The constituent noted that huge income disparities contributed to the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and thus wanted to know why the congressman was “fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire.”

Ryan argued against “redistribut[ing]” in this manner. After the constituent noted that “there’s nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down,” Ryan argued that “we do tax the top.” This response earned a chorus of boos from constituents:
CONSTITUENT: The middle class is disappearing right now. 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? And we’re fighting to not raise the Social Security cap from $87,000? I think we’re wrong.

RYAN: A couple things. I don’t disagree with the premise of what you’re saying. The question is what’s the best way to do this. Is it to redistribute… (Crosstalk)

CONSTITUENT: You have to lower spending. But it’s a matter of there’s nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down.

RYAN: We do tax the top. (Audience boos). Let’s remember, most of our jobs come from successful small businesses. Two-thirds of our jobs do. You got to remember, businesses pay taxes individually. So when you raise their tax rates to 44.8 percent, which is what the president is proposing, I would just fundamentally disagree. That is going to hurt job creation.


Ryan’s constituent is correct to point out that income inequality is accelerating in the United States and tax cuts aimed at the wealthy are exacerbating the problem. Between 1980 and 2005, “more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent.” Indeed, as Ezra Klein points out, the extension of the Bush tax cuts plays a major role in our projected federal deficit. Ryan, who advocates permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, uses the resulting federal deficit as justification for phasing out Medicare and slashing the social safety net.

Still, Ryan’s outraged constituents are representative of the country as a whole. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 72 percent of Americans wanted Congress to raise taxes on wealthy Americans making more than $250,000 per year.
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These are Paul Ryan's own constituents. I don't think the Republican deficit plan is a vote winner. I'm starting to think they really miscalculated on this one.
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Phantasee »

Advocating the permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts and then using the resulting deficit to slash the social safety net....Wisconsin... man, it's like they only have one play book out there. Scott Walker did the same shit too.
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by PeZook »

It's interesting how Ryan equates small businesses with wealthiest people in your nation.

He's actually correct that small business employs the most Americans ; But most businessmen are also not particulalry wealthy, so it's a false to dilemma to say "We can either tax the rich, or help small business".
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Sea Skimmer »

The top income tax bracket starts at 373,000 dollars for 2010 tax year. So that will catch up some small businesses owners, but only ones doing really well or who just plain suck at filing taxes. Of course we could just add a new bracket for people making much larger sums and fucking see how many of them actually flee to the turd world.
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Covenant »

He's not making a lot of sense. When my small business filed it's taxes it didn't file them as an individual, it filed them as an S-Corp. We paid fuck-all in taxes and I wish my actual person could be considered an S-Corp for the purposes of taxation.

So he's just confusing the issue. What small business is paying it's taxes as an individual? And why?
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Broomstick »

Yo! My "small business" is me, so I think I fall into that category.

On the other hand, I'm making less than the poverty income line, so I'd hardly fall into the "wealthiest" category.

In other words, the small businesses that Ryan is talking about are people like me, who are dirt poor. Small businesses that are functional and successful, those doing well enough to be "wealthy individuals", aren't filing as individuals. They have a different structure, and are taxed differently.
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Crossroads Inc. »

The cracks are FINALLY starting to show in the house of cards the far right has built up to maintain the link between "Taxing the rich is BAD" and "We represent the common man, not the rich!"

For ages they have strung along this illusion that SOMEHOW taxing "The Rich™" automatically hurts small business. They trot out "many jobs are from small business" and "small business are the back bone of our economy!" which, is kind of true... But you can see people starting to finally say, "What the Fuck does the taxing the rich, have to do with small business??? Small Business ARN"T rich"

If idiots like him ONLY wanted to give mega tax cuts to the rich, the right could swallow that, but when you say "Give huge tax cuts to the rich, AND slash every social program left in America" you can see the brains on the right Finally starting to melt under the bullshit.
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Themightytom »

PeZook wrote:It's interesting how Ryan equates small businesses with wealthiest people in your nation.

He's actually correct that small business employs the most Americans ; But most businessmen are also not particulalry wealthy, so it's a false to dilemma to say "We can either tax the rich, or help small business".
That smacks of a talking point. It is identical to a debate I got into with Gary Lambert. First, he had a massive problem remembering that WE were "John Q Public" because he kept answering our objections with "That is not what John Q Public wants though" or "That is not how John Q public sees it."

He defended his support for the Right To Work bill, based on an economic study he claimed to have seen that suggested wealthy small business owners would hire twice as many people if they could do it at lower wages which would double job creation.

When I asked him exactly how wealthy he thought small business owners were, he evaded with a VERY similar statement. He said "What we need to remember here is that two thirds of our employers are small businesses. They are the ones with the money, they are the ones who stimulate the economy."

Wait we need to remember that? As though we already knew and agreed to that entire pile of misrepresentation :wtf:

He also regularly claimed to agree with the premise, and then would proceed to state an entirely different one.

I got sick of his complete unwillingness to acknowledge his constituents sitting right in front of him, and decided lob a political grenade at him, pretty much to fuck his reelection. After he claimed he was just trying to make sure that John Q Public had a choice. I stopped him and said "So, your position could be characterized as pro choice" and AFTER the laughter died down, he claimed "Oh well i agree with the premise of freedom of choice. I am not in bed with the whole right to life movement.Nobody is.
Badump Teesh...
I am personally against abortion, and I would do everything in my power as senator to prevent it, but I would not want to see a law making it illegal. That takes away freedom of choice, it's unamerican"
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Sooo he agrees with the premise but would oppose it by any means necessary?? Clearly he needs to look up the definition of agreement.

The similarities here of course in no way surprising. I was one of two non union members at the townhall meeting, and the organizers definitely coached the audience heavily on what to say to Lambert, and then when he showed up, attempted to maintain the illusion that we hadn't started the meeting an hour ahead of his arrival.

I imagine the same thing happened in Wisconsin. You have generals prepping infantry to wear down a representative and then they pop up and nail him with surprisingly salient points. in return you have senators erecting imaginary strawmen with false statements of support and alignment, a whole earnest "I'm just trying to do the right thing here" persona, and THEY'VE been prepped too.

Neither side is showing their hand, but my impression is that at the moment, the Republicans DO have a stronger one. I mean this is a resource war. In our state, it's readily acknowledged that the "Right to Work" movement would serve only to create a temporary set back for unions. Their funding is disrupted over the next year or two while existing agreements between employers and unions to fund unions are dissolved and unions are forced to "accept" donors they already had back, without anyway to recruit them (RTW makes "coercion" a felony so, obviously that's a really tricky problem now.)

So Unions, which are sort of like the poor man's special interest group are crippled while the Wealthy are having their taxes cut, enabling them to further protect their interests by donating to campaign funds and conservative think tanks.

Honestly I DON'T Think these are signs of cracks, or a house of cards ready to fall for conservatives, I think they are securing the resources they need to fight the next election effectively.

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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Highlord Laan »

Broomstick wrote:Yo! My "small business" is me, so I think I fall into that category.

On the other hand, I'm making less than the poverty income line, so I'd hardly fall into the "wealthiest" category.

In other words, the small businesses that Ryan is talking about are people like me, who are dirt poor. Small businesses that are functional and successful, those doing well enough to be "wealthy individuals", aren't filing as individuals. They have a different structure, and are taxed differently.
Well, there you go then. Incorporate yourself as a "small business" the incorporate your uterus as a sub-section of your business organization and violla! Tax breaks! :D
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

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Unfortunately, my uterus is old enough that further depreciation is not realistic - I should have listed it as an asset a few decades ago...
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by TheHammer »

Where is Ryan getting this 44.8 percent tax rate from? Everything I've seen regarding this is that 39.6% is the top bracket - the same as under Clinton...

More "creative" Republican number crunching?
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Koolaidkirby »

TheHammer wrote:Where is Ryan getting this 44.8 percent tax rate from? Everything I've seen regarding this is that 39.6% is the top bracket - the same as under Clinton...

More "creative" Republican number crunching?
maybe he's including state tax?
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by Illuminatus Primus »

Sea Skimmer wrote:The top income tax bracket starts at 373,000 dollars for 2010 tax year. So that will catch up some small businesses owners, but only ones doing really well or who just plain suck at filing taxes. Of course we could just add a new bracket for people making much larger sums and fucking see how many of them actually flee to the turd world.
Yes. People miss that a major innovation under Reagan in taxes is chopping the number of brackets dramatically. Adjusted for inflation, the highest rate circa Eisenhower would be like 1.2 million per year today [with several intermediates to 250,000 per year].
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Re: Paul Ryan booed at Town Hall by constituents

Post by The Spartan »

Koolaidkirby wrote:
TheHammer wrote:Where is Ryan getting this 44.8 percent tax rate from? Everything I've seen regarding this is that 39.6% is the top bracket - the same as under Clinton...

More "creative" Republican number crunching?
maybe he's including state tax?
Except you get a Federal Tax Credit on State Taxes. Hell I get a credit on my return because Texas has a sales tax.
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