Town Hall Attendees Boo Paul Ryan for Defending Current Tax Rates for the Rich

Business Insider:

Rising star Paul Ryan seems to have had a rough outing when talking to seniors in Milton Wisconsin today.

The video, posted by liberal site ThinkProgress, shows an antsy group of seniors question Ryan about current levels of taxes on the rich.

Specifically, he's asked why the rich can't pay more in taxes -- even if we do cut spending -- and at about 1:25 he said "we do tax the top," which is what prompts the chorus of boos.

Transcript via Think Progress:

CONSTITUENT: The middle class is disappearing right now. During this time of prosperity, the top 1 percent was taking about 10 percent of the total annual income, but yet today we are fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire? And we’re fighting to not raise the Social Security cap from $87,000? I think we’re wrong.

RYAN: A couple things. I don’t disagree with the premise of what you’re saying. The question is what’s the best way to do this. Is it to redistribute… (Crosstalk)

CONSTITUENT: You have to lower spending. But it’s a matter of there’s nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down.

RYAN: We do tax the top. (Audience boos). Let’s remember, most of our jobs come from successful small businesses. Two-thirds of our jobs do. You got to remember, businesses pay taxes individually. So when you raise their tax rates to 44.8 percent, which is what the president is proposing, I would just fundamentally disagree. That is going to hurt job creation.

Gateway Pundit:

Too bad these leftist idiots don’t know more about economics or we wouldn’t be in the place we are today.

Tax cuts have always worked to build the economy.

During the Bush years, despite the 2000 Recession, the attacks on 9-11, the stock market scandals, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was able to reduce the budget deficit from 412 billion dollars in 2004 to 162 billion dollars in 2007, a sixty percent drop. In 2004 the federal budget deficit was 412 billion dollars. In 2005 it dropped to 318 billion dollars. In 2006 the deficit dipped to 248 billion dollars. And, in 2007 it fell below 200 billion to 162 billion dollars. During the Bush years the average unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, the economy saw the strongest productivity growth in four decades and there was robust GDP growth. This was due to the Bush tax cuts.