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Thursday, August 30, 2012

When Janesville Planned For Recovery, Ryan Was Nowhere In Sight

After Ryan's speech at the RNC last night, the right-wing loons were out heavy trying to re-write history about the date the GM Plant in Janesville officially ended production. The most important date to remember is October 13, 2008. That was the day 1,280 workers will never forget when General Motors made the official announcement to Janesville workers that GM will stop production on Dec. 23, 2008. Only about 40 workers remained employed into May, 2009 to fulfill contract obligations in a partnership between GM and Isuzu.

Those dates are indisputable. But I thought Ryan had a lot of nerve to talk about economic "recovery" efforts for towns like Janesville that he described as nowhere in sight.

“Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight,”. -- Paul Ryan, RNC speech

The only problem with that is, when President Obama's White House Counsel came into Janesville AND Kenosha in June of 2010 to share in local economic recovery plans, Paul Ryan was nowhere in sight. Instead, he was out galavanting around the country plugging his hyper-partisan GOP "Young Guns" recruitment book. So I can fully understand someone who might think that since the area's congressman doesn't care enough to participate in local economic recovery efforts - why should anyone?

ADDITIONAL:

Huff Post - Media Calls Out Paul Ryan Acceptance Speech For Falsehoods

Think Progress - TP Uncovers a Lie almost Every 3 minutes

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was there when Obama talked about 100 more years. He gave us a lot of false hope. Obama never said or did anything for the plant after he was in office. Ryan was right. Please do not try and change history. I voted for Obama with real hope but won't make that mistake again. For the first time, I will vote Republican.

Lou Kaye said...

Spin it any way you like, but we can't change history about the fact that GM closed its doors in Janesville before Obama took office. What is important is what efforts people made afterwards to remedy and recover from the situation. FACT: Ryan wasn't right - he was nowhere in sight. When the going got tough, he left it up to others to discuss the situation amongst themselves. To wallow around say "oh but Obama promised they'd stay open" is a lazy shiftless argument of blame and more government reliance. Please, do not try to change history. The White House Counsel visit and meeting in Janesville and Kenosha is well documented. Instead, become part of solution.

Anonymous said...

Lou - have you listened to your pal Tim Cullen lately? He was on channel 3 last night saying that Paul Ryan did everything he could to save the plant.

Lou Kaye said...

I know Doyle, Cullen and JVL city officials offered a $400 million incentive package to save GM in 2009 and that Ryan supported the effort. But saying something like Ryan "did everything he could to save the plant" isn't enough for me w/o offering tangible evidence. Ryan and his supporters pride themselves in their ideology of government "doing nothing" so in that regard if he stays true to his principles, then yes Ryan did all he could. So, I would like to see tangible evidence, earmark evidence or other federal legislation that Ryan proposed specifically for the JVL GM plant before putting too much stock into what Cullen means by Ryan doing everything he could.

Lou Kaye said...

People have to start getting the drift of what policies really led to the offshoring of American manufacturing and the closing of auto plants like those in Kenosha and Janesville. Republicans like Paul Ryan pushed Club for Growth and National Association of Manufacturers legislation during a time when they held the majority in the House with GWB. He won awards for lobbying for them. Many of these laws were passed and signed into law over the course of the past 20 years while democrats generally scored low supporting these organizations. Yet, America's manufacturing sector has been cannabalized. Of course the reasons are more complex than this, but if Ryan wants to simplify blame and point to policies, he needs to point to himself.

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