On Tuesday, the Boston Globe and Associated Press reported on documents showing that GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan had secured more than $20 million in stimulus funds for a local energy efficiency organization.
According to the reports, the documents showed that Ryan also brought in $5.4 million for local bus services. His requests came at the same time he was publicly calling the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree.”
However, in an interview with a local Ohio television news station, Ryan claimed he never secured funding through the program, saying “I never asked for stimulus.”
Watch it, courtesy of local ABC affiliate 9 News.
The Associated Press wrote a follow-up story to Ryan’s comments:
Ryan’s statement directly counters the evidence of four letters obtained by the AP which the congressman wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, praising energy programs supported by the stimulus and requesting funds for initiatives in his district.
Ryan’s private praise for Department of Energy programs and his written requests for stimulus funds contradict not only his public criticism of the 2009 stimulus bill, but also many of the budget priorities he has laid out, including cuts to investments in green technologies.
Raising further questions about the vice presidential candidate’s claim today that he never sought stimulus money, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck referred AP to previous explanations by the congressman’s office that by requesting funds Ryan was simply “providing a legitimate constituent service.”
Ryan is one of dozens of Congressional Republicans who have actively lobbied the government for loan guarantees and grants for clean energy companies in their districts — even while many of them railed on the stimulus program in the press.
Read Ryan’s 2009 letters here:
Update
Ryan has issued a statement explaining why he falsely claimed he never requested Recovery funds:
“After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled. This is why I didn’t recall the letters earlier,” he continued. “But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that. Regardless, it’s clear that the Obama stimulus did nothing to stimulate the economy, and now the President is asking to do it all over again.”
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Way down on integrity.
How did the GOP come to be run by such blatant fraudsters?
It’s the poor standard of lying that is so depressing. No invention, no finesse, no class. Just pure, unadulterated, risible, bulldust, but with the MSM populated by credulous imbeciles, there is none of the rolling around laughing that one would expect from normal people. It’s a global mediocracy as much as any other type of system-rule by the mediocre.
I know! You would think if he’s going to lie so blatantly he could do a better job. Mr. Ryan, please practice your lies in front of a mirror or a family member before you take them out in public, like Mitt does!
Well said, Mulga – It’s truly frightening to contemplate the level of banality that comprises our “conventional wisdom”.
So now both people on the ticket are LIARS..Wonderful!
Because we’ve openly stopped caring if it’s the truth or not, only if it’s entertaining.
I believe the first qualification for running for a Republican office is the ability to lie with impunity — in the face of all evidence to the contrary, deny history, even your own.
Sad but true. And the Romney-Ryan ticket fulfill that requirement remarkably.
I hope they don’t win but if they do, watch them continue the failed Bush policies while continuing to blame Obama for everything.
Looks like the “adults in the room” are all 4 years old. The gOP has finally put itself at the very bottom of the barrel in ethics, morals, competence and patriotism.
Looks like the “Liars Club” has been fully exposed…
A hypocritical double-header. Nice…
“I did not have stimulus relations with that Bill.”
–Paul Ryan
Hey, no mixing metaphors. Granted, Willie couldn’t keep it in his pants, but he’s our guy.
I have policy issues with his time in office, too, not just his sexual pecadillos. So, no he’s not my guy, and I’m the farthest thing from republican.
Ryan is such a phony!! He is tying to claim he is a ‘deficit hawk”,even though he voted for the stimulus package and got $20 million for his district.
He did NOT vote for the stimulus, but his district did get over 300,000,000 bucks in stimulus funds.
Well, can’t he be retroactively against that $20 million?
Since Romney has adroitly shown how to be against something you were for last year, last month or even last week, I guess that Lyin’ Ryan, as a good ol’ boy VP, must also follow suit.
Well, Romney retroactively lived in a completely different state for tax and political purposes, so why not? It’s not like it’s illegal or… oh wait.
Previous economic recoveries relied on boosted State and Local Govt. spending to pump $$$ into the economy. What do people expect when teachers, firefighters, policemen,road builders, and public workers are laid off in huge numbers…..a lower unemployment rate???
Let’s use GOP, don’t exclude Democrat, logic. He asked for ‘grants’ not ‘stimulus grants.’ You have to be able to say anything that has two meanings or vague enough for later defense. Too bad he won’t acknowledge that green jobs were created.
No mas pantalones.
Hilarious! :-)
His signature is there on multiple letters asking for the grant money as part of the stimulus. Watch — I bet he blames a staff member for this.
Ryan is lyin’
Nice.
Even nicer: “Ryan’s lyin’.”
“Woops, I did it again” Mittington Robme
Gaffe, that is. The voters had 8 long yrs. of George Bush’s sociopathic compulsive lying. And we are NOT going down that road again! With the scraps of our democracy that we DO have left, we must all order vote by mail ballots, fill them out with a straight Dem vote, and mail them in a week prior to election! No long lines ginned up by Republican operatives, no problems getting to the polls due to bad weather. Let’s all work together for the common middle class good! Then maybe Mittington will give up his tilting at windmills, and Ann can concede she was NUTS to dream HE could “save” our country! What we need is to be saved from zealots like the Robmeys!!
Why is it that someone like Fareed Zakaria gets pilloried over an admittedly dishonest but relatively inconsequential act, but SOBs (mainly Republicans) on the political stage virtually never get held accountable for far more egregious acts of dishonesty?
Lier, lier pants on fire…!
If it’s a mistake, I assume he’s going to return the misbegotten funds? **Crickets** No…?
I wouldn’t believe a word that either Romany or Ryan says about exactly what they would do if elected to office. Whatever the Koch brothers want will be the gop plan. Does anyone know what companies actually received Ryan’s stimulus money and what those companies did with that money? Bigger executive bonuses?
VP of the United States and we are to believe he forgot receiving $20 million for his district? He’s either a liar or his memory is severely handicapped. Either way, how could the nation trust him? Pathetic.
That’s the gold standard these days for Rightwing politicians. Although anyone with an IQ over 50 who has any knowledge of the workings of the Rightwing pathopsychology knows precisely how you will act, favouring the rich and screwing everyone and everything else, you must bare-facedly lie to deny it, or give cynically hypocritical false impressions. Then, once you’re elected, the gloves (and the mask) can come off.
Oops. Another convenient memory lapse, or inconvenient truth, if you will. ;0)
Just like he ‘forgot’ to file a trust worth $1-$5 million bucks on his taxes.
I bet there would have been a real stimulus effect if it had gone to the American People! This was deliberate! The money changers gave themselves a bonus for robbing us blind. Why???? Because they own the country, and Congress is Bought. Now… folks. Wake up and change it.
Oh that’s right — Staff messed up.
Fail.
There won’t be a word said about it on Rush’s show, or Fox News, or any of the conservative backed programs. Just here. He’s safe.
I worked in a constituent services office for a politician. This answer is garbage. Requests for millions of dollars are not handled as routine business, especially if the member is actually going to acknowledge them in a positive way. This is Ryan engaging in pork barrel politics, and nothing less.
Another day, another delusional, pathological liar with an (R) after their name.
Ryan’s response reads more like, “Yeah, I got busted…but it’s all Obama’s fault!”
I can’t believe the double-speak coming out of the Romney campaign.
This is nothing new people! Republicans may SAY that federal spending needs to be cut, but they ALWAYS have their hands out for federal money when it comes to their pet projects. My state’s Republican (Tea Party favorite) Sen. Pat Toomey sent a joint letter with Republican Governor Tom Corbett to President Obama asking for federal money to help rural areas effected by flooding in April 2011.
That’s Federal spending on ‘other people’, who, as far as the Right are concerned, are the enemy.
Come on people, “I ‘ll take responsibility for that..”?!?!?! Take responsibility for what? You did with that money exactly what it was intended for. This crap isn’t even humorous anymore. These men don’t care about the Country, they care only about fulfilling the bucket list of Romney, to be President, not for any thing of worth,…but simply just because he wants to be.
The GOP candidates have lied at every turn about every issue and every action they have taken over the last decade.And they still have a shot at the White House.Scary!
You would almost think that he hasn’t been asked about this before. Specifically in 2010 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/84498727.html
“Ryan, who is traveling in the Middle East, could not be reached for comment. But a spokesman provided this statement: “If Congressman Ryan is asked to help a Wisconsin entity applying for existing Federal grant funds, he does not believe flawed policy should get in the way of doing his job and providing a legitimate constituent service to his employers.”
Of course he probably just forgot that he was already confronted about this issue two years ago!
Maybe all the rigorous P90X workouts killed some of those useful brain cells…
I never asked for any stimulus Money. If that is true who is the Raul Ryan who signed the letters asking for the Stimulus Grants?
Maybe we have two Rerpresentitives from Wisconsin both named Paul Ryan. One of them is LIEING throught his teeth.
How can we believe anything Ryan and Romney say because it seems most of the time it is a bold faced lie.
Oh, of course, we should have known…the staffer did it! And I suppose, Cong. Ryan, that the rascally staffer is the one making you lie about the stimulus money not working when it, in fact, it DID work just as your letters…excuse me, the letters the staffer tricked you into signing…said it would?
Republicans are the only people who can create a problem and then turn around and campaign against it.
Well….isn’t it the common thing among them, not to pay tax, but to be first in line to grab big money for themselves or their non tax payers friends?
Don’t know the name of this practise…but it isn’t nice.
Why should “workers” taxes become handouts to the rich? Time to put that money where it belongs. Helping students…and the elderly…not grants to the rich.
Could we all just get over this nonsense with Ryan and Romney and just call them what they are, which is liars.
We have 130 trillion or more in off shore accounts “American Workers” that we made for the rich. That needs to be put back into our society or throw out the paid for politicians that let it happen!
The REAL interesting fact– a fact I wish someone would call him out on– is this: In one of his letters, Ryan says that “believes that the portion of project will . . . create or retain approximately 7,600 jobs . . .”
This is EXACTLY what the stimulus money was for: to create or retain jobs!! For him to dismiss all of this as just being basic “constituent service requests” AND that it “did nothing to stimulate the economy” is a LIE, and he KNOWS it because he observed that they VERY MONEY he was requesting was STIMULATING the ECONOMY!
The thing everyone is missing is this was not a constituent unless you think corporations are people. He is as big a liar as Romney.
One point, is anyone surprised and will most of the GOP base, made up of religious wing nuts and tin foil hat wearing wack jobs even know
Seriously, it’s the ultimate political trap, the “I do not recal” answer. Ryan’s forgetfulness on requesting money from the Stimulus is just as bad as voting “yes” on legislation that is against one’s principles. Ooops, Ryan is guilty on both. Romney should’ve pick Pawlenty, b/c he is so boring people would fall asleep trying to investigate his past…. bigpoppapolitics
Great team the Romney/Ryan ticket as lying comes natural and when both feel voters are so stupid it works. Ryan was busy the last 3 years in Congress as he fought everything the President asked for and Ryan had no time for Jobs/Recovery but made alot of money for his book sale as he had do much time on his hands.
So, now he is saying he successfully begged for millions of dollars for a constituent and the money didn’t create one job. Sounds like the tax cuts for the rich with one exception – Ryan is lying again.
From the words from the TV show Seinfeld: It’s not a lie if you believe it. We now see a 2012 GOP Presidential ticket of two lying liars. Vulture/Voucher 2012. Stay classy, Paul.
I love how he pivots to the supposed lack of effectiveness of the stimulus; as if that makes the lie acceptable. Do any of these clowns have a shred of moral fiber?
5:28 “then people get their benefits cut”?
That’s odd I hardly see how removing millions from Wisconsin teachers salaries and benefits isn’t cutting benefits… of course I’m to believe that republicans had nothing to do with that, right?
So, to prevent austerity measures benefits get cut and once it happens they get cut again? That’s basically what he’s saying weather or not idiot republicans are smart enough to read through the bullshit is another story.
Simple question: Then why is his signature on the letters requesting the stimulus?
“Pants on fire”
I will give this much to Paul Ryan. He is a fast learner in the art of telling a lie. Even the art of lying to explain the original lie. He will fit right in with Romney in that department. When their lips are moving they are lying — now how sad is that?