Paul Ryan Earns A Real Opponent For The First Time In His Political Career

Paulette & Paul, a figher for Wisconsin families & a fighter for K Street lobbyists

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan has been the face of the Republican House caucus' ugly and shallow financial and health care "policies," which really amount to nothing more than obstructionism and egregiously distorting President Obama's ideas for cleaning up the mess the GOP left the country in. Ryan has happy to alternate with another unctuous piece of work, his tag team partner Mike Pence, distorting the issues on Hate Talk radio, tweeting away the days and scooping up huge corporate bribes from the Medical-Industrial Complex and Big Insurance-- but he has steadfastly refused to meet with his constituents for a real talk about the health care debate.

A couple of days ago Paul Soglin at Waxing America pointed to the hypocrisy of a career-long shill for Big Business and a darling of the K Street lobbyists-- who has taken more money from the Finance Sector than any other politician in Wisconsin ($1,651,445) and another $685,714 from the Medical-Industrial Complex-- suddenly declaring himself a tribune of the people.

It was Ryan who attended the April 15, 2009 'Tea Party' in Madison, decrying government spending to a modest Capitol steps crowd after voting for the record stimulus spending package last fall.

It was Ryan who voted for the George W. Bush plan that deprived the federal government of using its bulk purchasing power in negotiating the price of prescription medications with the giant pharmaceutical companies. That decision increased the cost of health care to the federal government and taxpayers as well as health care recipients by tens of billions of dollars.

Now, Ryan, through the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel portal, enters the debate over heath care reform: Government puts itself, not patients, in control of care. While the statement is incorrect, what is more interesting is Ryan's observation that:

"Right now, the nucleus of power lies with third parties-- insurers, employers and bureaucratic administrators."

It is curious that for all these years Ryan never chose to take up the health care banner on behalf of patients in their struggle with the 'third parties.'

Ryan had a dozen years to fight for patients and consumers. So long as the battle was against the private sector lobbyists who supported his campaigns he was silent.

Now that reform is in the air, he muddies the waters by claiming to be the champion of the people.

Recently Blue America started a StopPaulRyan fund-raising page and we've been praying for a good, solid opponent to weigh in against Ryan. It looks like our hopes are being answered-- in spades. Paulette Garin, a member of the National Single Payer Alliance and the Wisconsin state Coordinator for both Progressive Democrats of America and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, has taken the plunge and filed her candidate papers with the FEC, making her Ryan's official opponent. She's been spending all of her time campaigning for health care reform rather than for Congress but yesterday she faced off against Ryan in the only contest he's agreed to participate in-- a goat-milking event at the Racine County Fair. Paulette beat him.

We'll be hearing lots more from this strong and determined progressive woman real soon and we'll be adding her ActBlue page as soon as it's up. Meanwhile, though, please consider a donation to StopPaulRyan while you watch Paulette speaking about health care at a rally in Madison last week: