Soon, the reign of Speaker Ryan will end, bringing a sigh of relief to every person in America who cares about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Ryan’s retirement is imminent, and there will be many analyses of his time as a Congressman, a vice presidential nominee, and Speaker of the House. We at CAP Action will always remember Paul Ryan for this:
- Ryan embraced Trump as the leader of the Republican party because Trump ensured that Ryan’s lifelong dream would come true: a massive tax cut for the wealthy to be paid for by slashing Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security for those who need it most.
- After years of peddling privatization schemes for everything from Social Security to Medicare to the VA, all in the name of “the deficit,” he leaves behind mind-boggling deficits of his own making.
- What’s more, this very tax bill that was supposed to be a triumph for Republicans failed House Republicans in the midterms. Rather than working in the best interest of their constituents or members of their party, Republicans threw their most vulnerable House members to the wolves in order to please big donors—all under the leadership of Paul Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Ronald Brownstein summed it up well in The Atlantic:
“Paul Ryan, who had been among the most openly skeptical of Trump during the 2016 election, sublimated any private doubts to a posture of public deference and a policy of legislative cooperation. Now Ryan leaves Washington as the architect of the GOP’s biggest loss of House seats in any election since Watergate.”
BUT…HER EMAILS!
A White House review found that Ivanka Trump repeatedly used a private email server to conduct government business in 2017, and, strangely enough, we’re not hearing any chants of “Lock her up!” yet.
Perhaps Ivanka should receive the same standard of treatment as was enjoyed by Secretary Clinton: a 2-year, leaky FBI investigation and 11 straight hours of testimony before Congress.
Those investigations uncovered no trace of corruption on Hillary Clinton’s part. Will the same be found of Ivanka Trump (or her husband, who also used a private server while serving in his capacity as senior advisor to the president)? We wonder, considering the Trump family has long been systematically enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers and national security.
The media harangued Clinton over this exact issue in 2016. Will they maintain the same standard for the Trump family?