Paul Ryan takes deficit-reduction plan to voters
KENOSHA, Wis. - Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is normally guaranteed two things at his town meetings: the crowd will be supportive, and it will be small. He won his last election in this mostly rural district by 70 percent.
But at the 19 town meetings he has been holding during the past week and a half, fire marshals and police officers have had to turn dozens of constituents away.
It seems everyone wants to hear about his deficit reduction plan, which Republicans passed singlehandedly in the House just before they left Washington earlier this month.
"I think last time we had 18 people," Ryan joked as he scanned the crowd in Lake Geneva Tuesday.
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The attendees allow him to get through his trademark PowerPoint presentation about the nation's rising debt and his "Path to Prosperity" before they express their concerns about the plan's changes to Medicare and its taxes reductions for the wealthy and corporations.
"Your plan screws the next two generations!" exclaimed a woman to applause at a packed town meeting in Kenosha. Outside, dozens of protesters chanted "tax the rich too!"
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After a town meeting in Twin Lakes, Ryan told us that people who don't like his plan simply misunderstand it. But many of the questioners seemed very well informed. At a town hall in Lake Geneva, a resident named Dean ticked through a number of Ryan's votes -- yes on the auto industry bailout, yes on a prescription drug plan for seniors and yes on the Bush-era tax cuts -- all of which were unpaid for.
"Why didn't you care about deficits then?" Dean asked.
A majority of the attendees were senior citizens, and Ryan assured them that Medicare would not change for them. His plan would only affect Americans who are below the age of 55.
But that did not comfort many older constituents who said they were worried how their children and grandchildren would afford health care when they are elderly. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Ryan's Medicare plan would leave seniors responsible for 68 percent of their own insurance costs by the year 2030.
"Medicare is broke in nine years," he warns every audience. "Let's break up this monopoly."
The response to Ryan's plan hasn't been all negative. In fact, he got just as many cheers as he did boos at most of the town halls he held Tuesday.
In Lake Geneva, a woman stood up to tell him she loved him and said he had "cojones" for proposing such a bold plan to reduce the deficit. A man in Twin Lakes urged him to run for president.
Ryan did not appear to be perturbed by the naysayers. In fact, he told us he considers himself the "Paul Revere of fiscal problems," alerting a sleeping nation, presumably, that a debt-driven crash is coming.
Other Republicans around the country have tried to spread the same message to skeptical crowds.
Republican Rep. Dan Webster, a freshman lawmaker representing Orlando, Fla., was called a "liar" by one constituent when he said that "not one senior citizen is harmed by this budget."
An exasperated Rep. Sean Duffy, another member of the Wisconsin delegation, got irritated at a town hall when one constituent interrupted him as he tried to explain how Medicare would change under the GOP plan.
"When you have your own town hall, you can stand up and give your presentation," Duffy snapped.
And Rep. Allen West, another Florida freshman, told an angry constituent "you're not going to intimidate me."
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Of the four town meetings he held Tuesday, Ryan faced his most skeptical crowd in Kenosha. The seven-term congressman's constituents, who call him Paul, would yell out his name to try to get his attention for a question. Numerous times, Ryan had to ask the 300-person crowd in the community college auditorium to have a civilized debate, and he even told one rambunctious attendee to leave if the interruptions would continue.
Though Ryan remained calm and in control most of the day, he sounded frustrated after fielding questions for hours. As he wrapped up the final town hall, Ryan tried to explain to his still-skeptical crowd that he's trying to be a problem solver.
"The easiest thing for me to do would be to do nothing and just complain," he said. "It's time to start rewarding politicians with ideas to solve the country's biggest problems."
