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Ryan Lectures YSU Audience on Nation’s Fiscal Crisis
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan brought his passion and power point charts to Youngstown State University this morning as he warned students and supporters about the severity of “the fiscal crisis facing this country,” the nation’s $16 trillion national debt.
“We need to get ahead of this problem,” Ryan implored, as big screens placed near the audience showed a series of charts. Beginning with the national debt during World War II, when “Americans basically lent their money to America to fight that war” by purchasing war bonds, the congressman from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee moved through ensuing decades with graphic projections.
“Once the national debt hits 250% of our economy,” the economy will crash, he warned. “This is the path we’re one. We know it is coming.”
Ryan said the debt crisis is different from the fiscal meltdown in 2008, which was “unexpected.” He referred to the financial industry bailout that year as “ugly legislation” and argued the difference today is that President Obama knows the debt crisis is coming.
“He waits for those of us who are putting solutions and ideas on the table and then he attacks,” Ryan said. “That is not leadership.”
The vice presidential nominee emphasized how “48% of our debt is owed to other countries,” mostly to China, which “compromises our sovereignty and our independence.” He said that’s why the Obama Administration has failed to crack down on China’s currency manipulation, which adversely impacts foreign trade.
“Democrats and Republicans messed this up when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” Ryan acknowledged. “But look at where we are since the president came into office … a 45% increase on the individual burden of debt for every American.”
“We need to fix this problem before it tackles us,” he said.
Mitt Romney would bring to the White House a “five-point plan for the middle class, Ryan explained, beginning with job growth. Developing domestic energy sources, providing more job training and policing trade laws – “holding cheaters accountable – are points in the Romney/Ryan plan, he said.
“And let’s never forget, most of the jobs in America come from small business,” he added, which is burdened with high taxes and too much government regulation.
At one point during his campaign stop here – billed as a town hall meeting – Ryan joked that his congressional office often gets constituent mail addressed to Tim Ryan, the Democrat from Niles, and vice versa. And he repeatedly related the economic blows that his hometown, Janesville, Wis., has suffered – General Motors, Chrysler and Delphi all closed huge plants there – to the Mahoning Valley.
The vice presidential nominee took six questions from the audience, the first from David Hughes, president of SpecialtyFab Inc. in North Lima, who said he wants to see more clarity in federal policies. Ryan responded by calling Obama the most partisan president he has ever seen, one who has demonizes his opponents.
Romney’s five-point plan “are ideas rooted in historic bipartisan plans of the past,” he said, launching into a discussion of the Republican presidential candidate’s proposal to reduce everyone’s federal income tax by 20% and make up the revenue loss by closing the loopholes that high-income earners use.
What Obama “wants you to believe is ‘I’m just going to tax these right people’…and it will take care of all our problems,” Ryan said.
“The math doesn’t work.”
The next question came from Marisha Agana, Tim Ryan’s Republican opponent in the newly drawn 13th congressional district, who had to introduce herself to Paul Ryan from her seat in the audience. (Parenthetically, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, the freshman Republican running in the adjacent 6th congressional district, spoke from the stage before introducing Paul Ryan.)
Agana, a pediatrician practicing in Howland, questioned Ryan about Medicare reform. He responded by repeating a top GOP campaign theme – Obama is raiding $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare.
At no time was the word “voucher” used by Ryan when discussing Medicare reforms he has proposed. Democrats argue that Ryan’s plan would essentially give seniors a “coupon” to buy insurance on the open market, and cost individuals more than $6,000 a year.
The third question was posed by a college student from Akron who asked how Ryan would “enthuse my age group to vote for you.”
In response, Ryan returned to the national debt. “I would say, ‘Look at this chart and look at your future.’ Decades of politicians from both political parties have made decades of empty promises to get elected. …The bill is coming due.”
A woman who said her husband owns a small business tasked Ryan why the federal budget is not balanced.
“Because politicians are being politicians,” he replied. “You know how to fix this. You elect Mitt Romney president of the United States.”
That brought the crowd to its feet with its loudest applause.
No one asked Ryan about the terrorist attack in Libya, nor did the nominee mention the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the policies that led to the conflicts or how Romney would stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Also going unmentioned was Ryan’s views on abortion.
A teacher asked about reforming public education, which led Ryan to advocate for parental choice. He did not use the term charter school or mention open enrollment but alluded to both.
“Get Washington out of the way, let local control prevail and let those [education tax] dollars go to the parents and the child so we can have the best possible outcomes,” he said.
The last question was the most detailed, dealing with the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies. Ryan accused the Fed of practicing “bad fiscal policies to make up for the fact the president is driving the economy into a ditch.”
He ended with another reference to his hometown, its similarity to the Mahoning Valley and the GOP ticket’s determination “to get these manufacturing jobs back here. …We want to make sure we make more things in America and sell them overseas,” he said.
“We want to save the American dream for ourselves and our grandchildren.”
MORE: Ryan Pleases Supporters, Obama Campaign Responds
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.