Paul Ryan's Convention Speech

Here is a comprehensive guide of every single lie, misrepresentation or omission from the speech, in the order they were delivered.

A Republican Legacy

By the end of 2008, the Republicans in the White House and in the RNC were already thinking ahead to the midterm elections of 2010 and the next presidential election of 2012 as George W. Bush’s last, miserable year was winding down. Here’s what they were thinking.

First, the major recession brought on by Bush’s wartime tax cuts, his unfunded Medicare Part D program, and the debacle created by an under-regulated financial sector would saddle the new Democratic Administration with a severely damaged economy.

Second, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would drag on, since Bush and his neocon cohorts never planned an exit strategy, even though they were planning to invade Iraq before 9/11 even happened.

And third, they bet that America’s instant-gratification, memory-challenged populace would forget where the responsibility lay for the country’s problems. Americans would grow weary of the wars, angry at how long it was taking to right the foundering ship of state, and fearful about their job prospects in the dismal economy. Then, looking around the capital grounds, people would blame the new administration and Democratic majority for all their woes. Republicans subscribed to the thinking of Henry Mencken, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

In order to take advantage of their legacy, the Republican leadership decided to “just say no,” and use the threat of filibuster to oppose every piece of legislation proposed by the democrats to improve the economy and pull the country from the brink of another Great Depression. To bolster the chances of this craven strategy working, they played on the fears of the public by labeling the Administration’s attempts to prop up financial institutions, “socialism.” Republicans threw this term around so much it was almost funny. Everything from creating laws against texting while driving to improving the conditions in egg farms to prevent salmonella poisoning was socialism.

Of course the Republican minority’s most shameful episode and one that continues to this day was their reaction to president Obama’s program to improve healthcare and stem the tide of exponentially increasing healthcare costs. Here again, their strategy was supremely simple and supremely dishonest:

• propose nothing substantive of their own
• lie about what was in or intended by the bill moving through congress
• scare some of the most vulnerable members of society, claiming their fate would be decided by “death panels”
• vote “no, no, no” as one, over and over again.

In his book, “What Happened, Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” Scott McClellan, former White House Press secretary, said that under Karl Rove’s influence, governing the country became a continuous political campaign characterized by whatever deception was necessary. Richard A. Clarke, Bush’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, in his book, “Against All Enemies,” lamenting the then president's meager understanding of al'Qaeda, stated that Bush wasn’t much on reading. Well, let’s hope most Americans read more than their former president, because if they do, they’ll understand how little today’s Republicans really care about America.

Killing Grandma

In fact, section 1233 of the House bill would allow Medicare for the first time to cover patient-doctor consultations about end-of-life planning, including discussions about drawing up a living will or planning hospice treatment. Patients would, of course, seek out such advice on their own -- they would not be required to. The provision would limit Medicare coverage to one consultation every five years.

But that's not what the Republicans are telling you.

Former Republican lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey said on a radio show on July 16, that she had read the health care bill and discovered that "Congress would make it mandatory... that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care... all to do what's in society's best interest... and cut your life short."

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) put out a statement on the section of the bill in question, Section 1233, that said, "This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

And then there's Rush Limbaugh. Here's what he said on his July 28th radio show, “People at a certain age with certain diseases will be deemed not worth the investment, and they will just as Obama said, they’d give them some pain pills, and let them loop out till they die and they don’t even know what’s happened." Well, Rush is someone we've got to pay attention to when it comes to popping pills.

End-of-life planning is critical. Everyone should be knowledgeable about things like directives to physicians/living wills, do not resuscitate orders, medical powers of attorney, and the like.

It's completely irresponsible of Republicans to fear monger about this.

Health Care in the United States of America

America's health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, medical mistakes, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud.

Middle class Americans can't keep up with rising health insurance costs and even those with insurance dread the prospect of some serious/prolonged medical event that ends up bankrupting them. People without health insurance flood hospital emergency rooms where hospitals are only reimbursed for the cost of care by charging their insured patients more.

The cost of employee health care plans hurts the competitiveness of America's business and industry, and drives jobs overseas.

The US spends more on health care by far than any other industrialized nation, and yet health outcomes for Americans are no better and in many case far worse that nations with universal coverage for their citizens. Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France. It was 17% of GDP in the United States and it continues to grow.

You'd think that our leaders in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, would be working hard to correct this situation. Not the Republicans, who are playing to the fears of their fringe constituencies. Thus, the misleading and even patently false claims about the Obama health care reform plan:

Under the Obama plan, our "grandmothers will be encouraged to commit suicide." Give me a break! The bill includes a provision to cover minimal counseling on directives to physicians for end of life care and other helpful planning provisions to ensure people get the information they need to make sound decisions about their care.

"The Democrats want the government to pay for abortions." Absolutely false. Where do these people get these crap? None of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered, and one of them explicitly says that no public funds will be used to finance the procedure.

The Obama plan will "lead to rationing of health care." No reasonable analysis leads to that conclusion, but rational isn't what these claims are about.

Republicans are working hard to defeat health care reform, any health care reform, because, and Republican leadership has said this, they want to make health care reform President Obama's "Waterloo." That's right; they're more concerned about getting back at Obama than getting Americans decent health care. Shame on them!

Be sure to fact check anything you hear from the GOP (The Party of 'No') by going to Factcheck.org.