In other words, after more than a year of obstruction by a Republican-controlled US House that has refused to act to address unemployment and underemployment, and that has rejected sound proposals for addressing the mortgage crisis, Ryan and his allies are attacking the Obama administration, Bernanke and the Fed for trying to do something.
That’s bizarre enough.
But even more bizarre is the fact that the attacks have come as fresh jobs figures confirm a pattern of improvement under policies put in place by the administration and the Fed.
Ryan’s new tack of attack may excite those Republicans who would sacrifice job growth and economic improvement for their own political gain. But it’s a stunning stance for the representative of a Congressional district that has been battered by factory closings in its major cities and some of the highest patterns of unemployment in his state. Unemployment rates for cities in Ryan’s 1st Congressional district remain among the highest in Wisconsin, as cities such as Kenosha and Janesville struggle to fill the void created by the closures of auto plants in recent years.
To be sure, Ryan is a rigid partisan. No one seriously expects him to cheer news that goes against the interests of his party and his own political ambitions.
But it is unsettling, indeed, that the representative of an industrial district that took a brutal hit with the collapse of the economic house of cards constructed by the George W. Bush administration and Congressional Republicans such as Ryan would conjure up a new attack just as things appeared to be taking a turn for the better.
The sad fact, confirmed again and again, is that Paul Ryan is more interested in playing politics than he is in improving the fortunes of working Americans—even the working Americans he is supposed to represent.
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via Why Is Paul Ryan So Angry About Reduced Unemployment? | The Nation.