Guilty As Stim: Chris Hayes Digs Up Devastating Video Of Paul Ryan Stimulus Hypocrisy

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

As it turned out, Ryan had secured tens of millions of dollars in stimulus funds by writing letters praising the program. Ryan’s office explained that he was just trying to help some of his constituents out…with something that he says “doesn’t work.”

That’s pretty bad, but “a constituent made me do it” is the kind of answer that might satisfy people, especially the Ryan-enthralled mainstream media. Enter Chris Hayes, who set the table with a 2010 clip of Ryan blasting “borrow and spend” policies as a failed experiment, followed by some Bush-era clips of Ryan forcefully advocating for those exact kinds of policies, while also acknowledging that unemployment often drags on in a recovery. The fact that Paul Ryan is making arguments in these clips that could serve as campaign ads for President Obama isn’t the most surprising thing about these clips, though:

What is surprising is that, while Romney, Ryan, and the Republicans are running around attacking the President’s economic record, no one on the President’s side is making these arguments this well. Despite the fact that the stimulus did exactly what it was promised to do, and the fact that the President’s job creation record since the Bush Effect wore off is pretty damn good, the President and his team have downplayed them because the political media has made the calculation that those aren’t winning arguments, that if things are still bad, people don’t want to hear how much worse they could have been. However, flat poll numbers for Romney following recent poor jobs reports would seem to indicate that people get that argument, to some extent.

As Hayes and panel also pointed out, it’s not as if 2002 Paul Ryan came to Jesus after passing several stimulus packages under President George W. Bush. In 2009, he voted in favor of a competing $715 billion Republican stimulus package.

VIDEO at http://www.mediaite.com/tv/guilty-as-stim-chris-hayes-digs-up-devastating-video-of-paul-ryan-stimulus-hypocrisy/