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| Rep. Paul Ryan, on the offensive, returns home for listening sessions |
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| Written by CSI media | ||||
| Friday, 28 October 2011 09:23 | ||||
 Rep. Paul Ryan makes a point during a presentation at an April 2011 listening session in Lake Geneva. File photo by Dan Plutchak/staff. JANESVILLE -- Following a highly publicized speech Wednesday in which he criticized Pres. Barack Obama for fueling class warfare, Rep. Paul Ryan will be back home Friday, hosting listening sessions in Janesville, Elkhorn and Kenosha. Janesville: 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Pontiac Convention Center, 2809 N. Pontiac Drive, Janesville Elkhorn: Noon to 1:30 p.m., Monte Carlo Room, 720 N. Wisconsin St., Elkhorn Kenosha: 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Gateway Technical College, Madrigrano Auditorium, 3520 30th Ave., Kenosha. “These listening sessions provide a great opportunity for me to discuss the major legislative proposals before Congress, answer questions, and address the concerns of First District residents. With the nation’s debt exceeding $14 trillion and job creation virtually stagnant, Wisconsinites remain eager for solutions and hopeful that leaders in Washington will help get our economy back on track," Ryan said in a news release. Ryan's harsh words for Obama came ahead of a government report released this week showing that the richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the past three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study. According to the Associated Press story on the report: Average after-tax income for the top 1 percent of U.S. households almost quadrupled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 percent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 percent increase. The report, based on IRS and Census Bureau data, comes as the Occupy Wall Street movement protests corporate bailouts and the gap between the haves and have-nots. Demonstrators call themselves "the 99 percent." "The distribution of after-tax income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979," CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said in a blog post. "The share of income accruing to higher-income households increased, whereas the share accruing to other households declined." The top 1 percent made $165,000 or more in 1979; that jumped to $347,000 or more in 2007, the study said. The income for the top fifth started at $51,289 in 1979 and rose to $70,578 in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, those in the 20th percentile went from $12,823 in 1979 to $14,851 in 2007.
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Michelle
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... 1. How much will it cost citizens to get into the session? 2. Is he planning to actually LISTEN or just shoot off his mouth? 3. Is he prepared to answer very tough questions and answer them without having his strings pulled? 4. Why should we believe one word out of his mouth? |
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