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Paul Ryan on Obama: He's 'Sowing Social Unrest

Paul Ryan on Obama: He's 'Sowing Social Unrest

“...Instead of working together where we agree, the president has opted for divisive rhetoric and the broken politics of the past."

In a speech given at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday morning, Paul Ryan said Obama’s method of rallying public support for his $447 billion jobs package was “sowing social unrest and class resentment” and could be “just as damaging as his misguided policies,” reports Politico.

As Business Insider points out, Paul Ryan used to be the politician that Obama liked to use "as an example of the type of policy-minded Republican he could work with." However, the feelings were not reciprocated Wednesday morning when Ryan made it very that he believes the president is stoking an atmosphere of division that is making working together all but impossible.

“Instead of working together where we agree, the president has opted for divisive rhetoric and the broken politics of the past,” Ryan said before a crowd at The Heritage foundation. “He is going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats, and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for punitive tax hikes on job creators.”

The "budget wonk" went on to accuse President Obama of using “class-based rhetoric” in his re-election campaign, Politico reports. Obama’s tactics, Ryan said, make “America weaker, not stronger.”

“Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were the hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy, and resentment,” Ryan added.

“This has the potential to be just as damaging as his misguided policies. Sowing social unrest and class resentment makes America weaker, not stronger. Pitting one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country – corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless," Ryan added.

Contrary to claims from the White House and many members of Occupy Wherever, Ryan said that the real class warfare that threatens the U.S. is “[a] class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society. And their gains do come at the expense of working Americans, against entrepreneurs, and that small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.”

“It’s disappointing that this President’s actions have exacerbated this form of class warfare in so many ways,” Politico quotes Ryan saying.

Before Ryan officially made these comments, Hotair's Ed Morrisey took the opportunity to reexamine one of the claims made by the White House that some have labeled as "class warfare."

"Obama promised that his initial plan in 2009 would help up to 9 million homeowners stave off foreclosure, but it’s actually only helped less than a million," Morrisey writes.

Watch the Wolf Blitzer interview where he takes Jay Carney to task on the president's claim (h/t Hotair):

This led Morrisey to scrutinize the president's latest proposal:

Just to be clear, Obama’s new [economic] plan does not help people who are facing foreclosure, since one of its prerequisites is that homeowners cannot have missed more than one payment in the last twelve months and must be caught up on their payments.

It will help people whose mortgages exceed their equity by simply stretching out the mortgages for a longer period, allowing them to pay less each month on the mortgage — and supposedly that will get them to spend an extra hundred dollars or so a month and boost the economy.

It’s the Cash for Clunkers approach again, only with some ersatz class-warfare rhetoric tossed in, even though this isn't helping anyone keep their house at all [emphasis added].

It would appear that Ryan and Morrisey are in agreement in regards to the president's "fuzzy math" proposals--including the one where he has called on the wealthy to pay their "fair share"in income in taxes.

“According to the President’s logic, we should give up on trying to reform our tax code to grow the economy and get more revenues that way,” Ryan said. “Instead, these goals are taking a backseat to the President’s misguided understanding of fairness.”

“The president’s political math is a muddled mix of false accusations and false choices,” he added. “The actual math is apolitical: By the time my kids are my age, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects, the size of government will be double what it is today.”

Watch the entire presentation by Paul Ryan:

(H/T Hotair, Business Insider, Politico)

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Becket Adams

Becket Adams

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