U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, (center) leaves Twin Lakes Village Hall after a listening session. He is talking to Twin Lakes Trustee Sharon Bower. At left is Ryan's press secretary, Conor Sweeney
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the west of the I region’s congressman, was in Twin Lakes and Silver Lake today as part of a series of listening sessions he has been conducting all week.
The Twin Lakes session drew about 20 people, the Silver Lake meeting about 15.
To start both off, Ryan gave a PowerPoint-aided presentation about what has happened to the economy. Here it is in two parts from Silver Lake:
Here are some other tidbits from the Twin Lakes session:
- Ryan lamented the short amount of time congressmen are now often given to review some major bills, such as the stimulus spending bill. He said House of Representatives rules call for a 48-hour interval between a bill being introduced and it being voted on, but that rule is being circumvented. “These bills are just being written in the speakers office …,” Ryan said. “You just have a few hours before you vote on it. It’s really getting out of hand.”
- Ryan had nothing good to say about Cap and Trade, which Wikipedia calls an ” approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.” He called the program, proposed by the Obama administration, the wrong way to seek greener energy and noted that it has not gone well in Europe. He said he is concerned the policy will end up hitting Wisconsin particularly hard by on the one hand penalizing manufacturers and also making coal generated energy more expensive. Manufacturing is one of the state’s leading economic sectors and coal fired energy plants are located in Pleasant Prairie and Oak Creek. Instead, the federal government should drill for oil on federal land and use the proceeds to spur green energy research, Ryan said.
- While he admitted the county’s current health care system is broken in many ways, Ryan disagreed with the Obama administration making moves that appear to Ryan to be aimed at a government run universal health care system. He said a system with a government run and private system running parrell would likely end up with the government system dominating, since the government also regulates the field. “It’s a stacked deal,” Ryan said.
- In Twin Lakes, when discussion between two audience members grew heated, Ryan smoothly returned civility by walking into the audience, and insisting that shouting at each other “doesn’t really work at these things.”
- Ryan said he recently talked to Mark Neumann, who once held the congressional seat Ryan now occupies. Ryan said Neumann told him he plans to run for governor. An audience member lamented that Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has already stated his intention to run for governor as a Republican also, setting up a possibly contentious primary between two high-profile candidates. The audience member would rather Neumann ran for the U.S. Senate again. “Mark has to listen to his own counsel,” Ryan said.
