Myth: Paul Ryan grew up in a middle class family.

[cali]

Ryan wasn't really raised in a middle class family. This is the family business started by his great grandfather in 1884.

http://www.ryancentral.com/history.html

His grandfather was a U.S. Attorney appointed by Calvin Coolidge.

He spreads bullshit about his background- just like he spreads it about everything else.

Yes, his father died and his family got Social Security benefits, but Ryan comes from a privileged background.

[Avalux]

1. We need to keep this front and center....

the GOP is framing Ryan as a middle class guy who is well-liked by blue collar workers. HAAAA!

[cali]

2. yep, it's bullshit.

[cali]

3. kick. two rich white guys from privileged backgrounds.

I'm not saying that you can't be wealthy and have compassion and "get it", but I am saying you can't be wealthy repubs from privileged backgrounds and have compassion and "get it".

[part man all 86]

4. R & R has a whole new meaning with these two.

[Frustratedlady]

29. Rich & Richer? eom

[Patiod]

5. But he got up early to drive the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile

to make money for his poor family. Then in the afternoon, he would go fishing with the guys from Oscar Meyer, presumable to put food on his starving widowed mother's table.

Or at least that's what Morning Edition told me this morning

[sulphurdunn]

17. He had a summer sales job

with Oscar Meyer while in college. He drove the hot dog hotrod once. He also worked as a senate intern while there. Social Security also helped pay his way through school, and the irony of that is apparently lost on Entitlement Boy.

[Patiod]

36. And on those "liberal" "socialist/communists" at NPR

Such a crock of shit. I am serious - they painted a picture of a childhood where plucky young Paul got up at 4am to drive the weinermobile and work with the good old-fashioned salt-of-the-earth Wisconsin meat purveyors, who knocked off in the afternoon to fish, and being a good old country boy, he usually went a-fishin' with them.

[K Gardner]

6. This needs to be plastered everywhere. The media needs to be FORCED somehow

to deal with the real narrative and not the fake one. Good find.

[cali]

7. Like the company slogan?

Big company, small company values.

[K Gardner]

11. ROFL !!! eom

[sadbear]

8. Silver Spoons

Aristocrats, plutocrats, kleptocrats.

[ananda]

10. The Bushes were like that too.

Just so out of touch...

[smirkymonkey]

26. These two make the Bushes look like the Brady Bunch.

They are more evil than I ever could hve imagined.

[AzDar]

9. I did not know this.

[hedgehog]

12. According to Wiki, he used the SS benefits he received from ages 16-18

to pay for college. I would infer that those monthly checks went straight to a savings account. Nothing wrong with doing that, just don't pretend you got there by yourself!

[MADem]

25. He's been getting a gubmint check since he was 28. Talk about biting the hand that feed him! nt

[trof]

37. No, since he was 16. S/S survivor benefit.

[MADem]

38. I meant in his adult years--I know he got the benefit checks and applied them to college, supposedly

but I think the real question here is this:

"How many years were there that this pompous blowhard DID NOT RECEIVE some sort of US government check!"

[TahitiNut]

13. Just another reason for his antipathy towards "big government" ... and the EPA, in particular.

It'd be interesting to know how many taxpayer dollars found their way into Ryan Central's coffers.

[cali]

14. I'll try and find out.

great question.

[HiPointDem]

20. their company wouldn't exist without the feds. started with contract work for the railroads (all

built on public land grants), continued into doing work on the federal highway system (expansion financed by the states and feds), and no doubt continues with any kind of similar work it can get today.

That's how they made their stake.

[MADem]

15. Well, the stinking son of a seabiscuit has been mooching off the gubmint since he was 28.

It's real easy for someone who is already vested in the gubmint retirement system, and is guaranteed a paycheck that will keep him comfy in his old age, to gripe about waste and what OTHERS do.

If he really wants to cut gubmint spending, start with the porkbarrel retirements that Congress hands out.

Insist that representatives work 50 weeks a year, instead of having childish "recesses" at every opportunity--stop treating the representation of the American people like a fucking grammar school playground.

Herman and Eddie Munster need to be sent packing. They are a nightmare for the American people.

[Sedona]

16. From the OP Link

Ryan Incorporated Central has been shaping the earth since 1884. The Company started in Janesville, Wisconsin with a team of mules building railroad embankment in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. As it grew, it added road work and mining in the early 1900's. By the 1940's the Company had become a full-service grading contractor serving both private industrial and public transportation customers, including some of the original work at what would become O'Hare Airport. During the 1970's and 1980's, Ryan expanded its services to include landfill construction and waste remediation, and in the 1990's added golf course construction. Today, Ryan Incorporated Central is one of the nation's premier mass excavation and site-work contractors with expertise in residential, commercial, transportation, entertainment, energy and environmental work. This including extensive experience in power and industrial site-work, state-of-the-art municipal and industrial landfill construction and capping and full service golf course construction. The Company's project size ranges in dollar value from $10,000 to $50,000,000.

As the Company has grown its capabilities, it has also expanded geographically having successfully completed projects in over 25 states. While Janesville, Wisconsin is still the Company's corporate headquarters, it now has offices in Elgin, Illinois and Hagerstown, Maryland and a permanent presence throughout the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.

From horses to motor scrapers, from railroad embankments to power plants, landfills, subdivisions and golf courses and from Wisconsin to Virginia, the company has evolved and grown over 125 years

[shotten99]

18. I'm from Janesville, WI

and went to the same high school Paul went to. His cousins played Little League with me. He and his family are snobby, cliquey elitists who treat themselves like local royalty. Never had any time for them and sorely miss Les Aspin.

[ellisonz]

27. And there it is...

[HiPointDem]

19. The social security death benefit for minor children was not means-tested. Anyone who fit

the profile got it: Dead parent/guardian who'd paid into the system & had minor children.

It wasn't a welfare-type payment; people seem confused about that.

[Aerows]

21. Ryan is every bit the privileged

young boy that Romney is, and they are both as entitled. BOTH grew up in households and lives as assumed aristocracy. Neither of them would know what to do if they had a hardship in their life beyond their cell phone batteries being out of a charge.

[Odin2005]

22. He his your standard Old Money Libertarian ideologue.

[YoungDemCA]

23. Kinda like the "Rick Santorum grw up blue collar" myth....

..when it turns out, his GRANDFATHER was the one who grew up "blue-collar."

Or Bush being a good ole boy from Texas....

[cali]

24. kinda but more so.

[uponit7771]

28. wwwooooowwww!!!! Two huge bastard liars!

[hootinholler]

30. So his Great Grandfather built it?

The familial fortune that is.

Further, he built it off of Public Spending! They were building railroad gradients, for which massive amounts of land was given to RR companies by the Fed. Later they were grading roadbeds, more direct public spending.

I wonder what assets they (his branch) had available while collecting SSDB. Not that there was a means test then.

[cali]

35. And don't forget his father was a prominent attorney

And yes, Paul had an inheritance from the family biz.

[K Gardner]

31. LA Times - Ryan Comes from Influence and Money from Inheritence

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-ryan-millionaire-20120811,0,606000.story

Wow.. you'd never guess from the Pitch we've heard.

[Douglas Carpenter]

32. this story needs to go viral to counter the "liberal media" nonsense about his humble blue collar

beginnings.

[cali]

34. That would be great

His beginnings are anything but humble.

[TheKentuckian]

33. Well, according to the TeaPubliKlans "middle class" extends from one penny above the poverty line

up to maybe ten million a year. It is consistent with their worldview and even if it is beyond pushing the envelope, even by their reckoning, we know all they do is lie and try to figure out how to frame the absurd as "common sense" while spinning bullshit yarns about the magic of elbow grease and bootstraps.

[Scuba]

39. K&R Poor little privileged Pauly.