For days, Democrats have been suggesting that Paul Ryan lied in his speech while highlighting the promises President Obama made as a candidate during a visit to a General Motors manufacturing plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Ryan answered his critics this morning on NBC’s Today show.
“What they’re trying to suggest is that I said that Barack Obama was responsible for our plant shutdown in Janesville,” Ryan said. “That is not what I was saying. Read the speech. What I was saying is the president ought to be held to account for his broken promises.”
Here is the text of the claim from Ryan’s speech:
President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.
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.
As the Examiner’s Conn Carroll has pointed out, Obama promised and failed to keep Janesville GM plant open
