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Home Page > News > Paul Ryan defends Mitt Romney’s "victims" comments says they’re missing out on potential

Paul Ryan defends Mitt Romney’s "victims" comments says they’re missing out on potential

Meanwhile Ryan is beefing up his own Congressional campaign ads

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 8:06 AM

Updated Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 2:29 PM

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Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is seen during a campaign stop, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 in Dover, N.H.

Photo by AP Photo/Jim Cole

Responding yesterday to Mitt Romney's comments that almost half the American electorate are dependents who believe they're entitled to government programs, running mate Paul Ryan was forced to take a much softer approach with a New Hampshire crowd yesterday.

'By promoting more dependency... people miss their potential,' Ryan told a town hall forum of supporters at the McConnell Community Center in Dover. 'We should not be measuring the progress of our social programs... based on how many people receive them. We should measure the success of our social programs based on how many people we transition off of them.'

According to the Boston Herald Ryan never directly addressed Romney's comments nor did the assembled crowd ask him about them.

Instead Ryan stuck to the campaign themes of reducing the national debt, promoting economic growth, creating jobs and portraying Romney as a businessman with crisis fixing skills.

'I’m kind of known as a budget-cutter in Congress,' Ryan said in response to one questioner.

It was Ryan’s first public appearance since news broke of a politically disastrous hidden camera video showing Romney telling a room full of wealthy voters at a $50,000.00 dollar a ticket event that 47 percent of Americans 'believe that they are victims. They believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it,' the former Governor said.

Romney later admitted that his bluntly dismissive comments were 'off the cuff' and not 'elegantly stated.' Later it emerged that in the same video Romney claimed that the Palestinians 'have no interest' in reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

To date Romney has not apologized for stating that almost half the electorate feel entitled to social protections — and many of his most ardent supporters at Ryan's campaign stop told the press he shouldn’t have to.

'The truth hurts,' said William Tappan told the Herald. 'He shouldn’t have said it because it’s not good politics. However, it’s the truth.'

'You have to cut him a little slack,' agreed fellow Romney supporter Peter Zavas. 'He was having a fundraiser. He was trying to rally people up.'

But conservatives have been divided on the wisdom of Romeny's claims. Writing in The New York Times yesterday commentator David Brooks wrote: 'The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.'

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PatriciaMarya | Sep 19, 2012, 01:43 PM EDT

Is the irony of all this talk of non-tax payment being missed: Romney has offshored his income to AVOID being taxed; yet he calls out people who legally don't make enough profit on their incomes to have to pay additional taxes! I live, at age 72, only on Social Security of which 70% goes to rent alone! The last time I bought a brand new dress was the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1986! I wear black socks so that the hole in my shoe is not so noticeable. Yet I was a volunteer during 9slash11, continue to volunteer for teen-writing groups, etc., have worked all my life and am a college graduate. We can underwrite countries like Yemen and North Korea (yes, that North Korea) and on and on where the dictators bank that cash in their Swiss bank accounts and they never do anything to improve their countries so that their populations are helped. That is OK. We give tax dollars to the U.S. Agency for International Development so that American companies can off-shore, yet God forbid someone like me is on Social Security. Basta, enough.

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McNamara31 | Sep 19, 2012, 01:35 PM EDT

Romney was among "his own kind" and speaking the language they understand quite well.His Gordon Gekko ethics still believe "Greed in Good" especially when the profits are only shared with "their own kind".Why is it that the middle class pays upwards of thirty five percent in taxes and billionaire hedge fund managers pay only 15%? The answer is: all those hefty corporate donations buy the tax codes and deregulation's that mean millions to them. And Paul Ryan is a sell-out to all things Irish.

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seanfer7 | Sep 19, 2012, 01:16 PM EDT

Now pencil neck think I didn't understand those damning statements Now he has divided Americans with 55 < 45 and 47 v 53% Like any person with a bit of common sense would vote for these bums

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Nicomax | Sep 19, 2012, 12:37 PM EDT

"It's the truth" being bandied about by MItt Defenders is wrong on two counts: 1) He conflated two 47% indicators- one being the 47 % BHO often receives in polls, and the 47% that pay no federal income taxes. They are mainly two different cohorts- Many who pay no income taxes are likely Romney voters, and many supporting BHO are quite well off; 2) All those not paying income taxes are shiftless, totally dependent on entitlements, and take no responsibility for their lives. Tell that to the 68 yr old single male, who retired from driving a bus for 40 years and is now living primarily on Social Security and a savings account paying .7%. As for the rest of the dinner tape, it only proves that Mitt Man is not too swift in many other areas of world affairs which we can only hope a major candidate for POTUS would be. Sounds like in the future Mitt will be spending most of his time speaking at business conferences, and Mormon assemblies.

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Lynchy | Sep 19, 2012, 12:19 PM EDT

It´s not as if anyone ever believed Romney or Ryan could empathise with or understand the lives of those less fortunate than themselves.

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pilib04 | Sep 19, 2012, 12:15 PM EDT

My guess is that Ryan is busy working on his third congressional re-election video and doesn't have time for this nonsense. The Robme campaign has already imploded.

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Eschetic | Sep 19, 2012, 12:14 PM EDT

We expect nothing less - or more - from "the abs" from Wisconsin. Isn't if funny though, how neither he nor his running mate notice how THEIR OWN family fortunes were FOUNDED on the SAME kind of government assistance through the "GI Bill of Rights" and Small Business Administration loans!? Conservatives tend not to notice their own hypocrisy (they are human too) but it would be a nicer world if they applied the same standards to themselves they apply to others.

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Diamonddille | Sep 19, 2012, 12:00 PM EDT

I think that Romney is aware that if you reward Non-Producers and punish the producers, that you just get more Non-producers. We have too many Non-Producers, drawing Welfare, unemployment, social Services and food stamps, running our debt to where it is endangering our Nation. Common Sense policies and ethics has to be put in, to prevent the abuse going on,that punishes the producers.

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FastEddy | Sep 19, 2012, 11:25 AM EDT

There is never a need to apologize when one tells the truth. ... Perhaps some other term should be used? How about taxsucker? ... BTY: No where in any of President Romney's remarks did He ever use the word "parasite". This is a media driven non-event.

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cillowen | Sep 19, 2012, 10:56 AM EDT

redistribution has been at play long before obama said it in the tape that Walter Mitty Romney dug up. The push at levelling the playing field for Blacks and Women in the 1970s was the then government's program of forcing (nudging) company's to hire B & W and to quickly move them along and into technical and managerial positions - I being one who did so. Some of the ladies so pushed appeared shy about same but in time got over it. REDISTRIBUTION was and is. Thank you Mormon Mitty.

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1661996usmc | Sep 19, 2012, 09:54 AM EDT

How many of the 1% that are age qualified feel they are entitled to Social Security and Medicare even though they do not need either?

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BrianO | Sep 19, 2012, 09:51 AM EDT

Still waiting for articles on Obama, I guess he is perfect in all 57 states, ever heard him off teleprompter, I'm sure it would be easy to write a hit piece to be fair and balanced that is. To the article Ryan wants people to be independent of government and have pride in their lives, what a concept, unless you are a lover of big government overlords controlling a dependent populace.

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hollabackgurl | Sep 19, 2012, 09:43 AM EDT

"Romney Campaign Sends In Champion Of The Poor Paul Ryan, For Damage Control."

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tom/peggy | Sep 19, 2012, 09:39 AM EDT

Now we find the tape was edited, well not exactly the tape malfunctioned at a crucial point. Obama's change we can believe in NOT.

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raoulwine | Sep 19, 2012, 09:38 AM EDT

Once again - If you report the news, be truthful and accurate. Romney did NOT use the word parasite. The truth hurts, to be PC he probably shouldn’t have said it. However, it is the truth, and needs to be said AND heard. I'm more concerned about a President who is running a country with a 16 trillion dollar deficit. And last night on Letterman, said he does not remember what it was when he took office, and it is nothing to worry about in the short term. WHAT?? That scares me, and is not how I can operate my budget.

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