Krugman on Ryan's SOTU Response

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) offered the Republican response to President Obama's state of the union speech last week and stretched the facts according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

President Obama’s State of the Union address was a ho-hum affair. But the official Republican response, from Representative Paul Ryan, was really interesting. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Mr. Ryan made highly dubious assertions about employment, health care and more.

Non-partisan fact-check website Politifact.com agrees with Krugman regarding a claim by Ryan about health care reform.

The government's non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed the bill and concluded it was a slight deficit-reducer both in the short and long term. But Ryan contends the CBO report is based on gimmicks and double-counting. We looked into, and discounted, several of Ryan's arguments in support of those claims. But we also found that Ryan pointed to legitimate concerns about assumptions made by the CBO -- particularly whether reduced Medicare payments are sustainable -- assumptions that even the CBO and Medicare's chief actuary noted may be suspect. The fate of those cuts may largely determine whether the new health care law ends up in the red or black. For now, though, those cuts are law, so we concluded that Ryan has overplayed his hand. We rated his claim Barely True.

Factcheck.org reaches a similar conclusion about Ryan's response.

--Ballard Burgher