Have I mentioned that Romney and Ryan are liars and hypocrites? Here's yet another confirmation of both terrible traits:
Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message.
On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,” Ryan wrote.
In addition to undercutting his political message about health reform, the letter may also add to an emerging narrative that Ryan has a double standard when it comes to critiquing major Obama policy achievements. Shortly after Romney announced that Ryan would be joining him on the Republican ticket this year, the Boston Globe revisited a story showing how Ryan quietly lobbied the Obama administration for stimulus grants. Ryan voted against the proposal and denounced it to the press without disclosing his requests for stimulus cash.Ryan first denied responsibility for the stimulus grant requests, but later confessed that his office had sent the letters.
I have no problem with Ryan asking for ACA money and stimulus money. (He's certainly not alone among Rs who voted against it and were all too happy to get monies for their constituents and take credit for the money.) It's what the money is for: to help people. But doing so while decrying it as socialism and government takeover and promising to get rid of it all? I call him a hypocrite only because I'm trying to refrain from calling him much worse names.
