Ryan takes aim at Obama in speech in Carnegie

With a Terrible Towel in tow, Wisconsin Rep. and presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan blasted President Barack Obama for his stewardship of the economy during a campaign stop at Beaver Steel Services Inc. in Carnegie Tuesday.

In his first Pennsylvania campaign stop since presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney formed what conservatives have called “America’s Comeback Team,” Ryan took decisive aim at Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act and its effect on Medicare in front of about 1,500 people waving American flags.

“In Pennsylvania, 38 percent of all seniors have chosen Medicare Advantage for their Medicare benefits,” Ryan said. “It’s a plan they have chose for themselves that they’d like. About half of them are going to lose this under Obamacare within five years.”

Rather than searching for Medicare’s long-term solvency, Ryan said, Obama viewed the popular program as a “piggy bank” for the Affordable Healthcare Act. He added that under the health care plan, current seniors would lose $3,600 a year in benefits, and many nursing homes would go out of business or stop accepting Medicare patients.

But opponents who showed up in Carnegie say it’s Ryan’s House budget that will destroy Medicare in its current form because it will cut more than $700 billion in funding toward the program and transform it into a voucher system.

Donald Cooper, a self-described member of “the 99 percent,” was protesting Ryan’s plan outside the rally. He said he feared the transformation of Medicare into a voucher system could significantly increase his cost of living.

“When you’re talking vouchers, it starts out, it’ll probably be OK in the beginning, but as the years go by, you’ll get less and less money, which means you’ll get less and less care,” Cooper said.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald echoed Cooper’s sentiments in a press conference held before Ryan’s rally where he said Medicare under Ryan’s budget plan threatened the standard of living for the county’s senior citizens.

“The fact that Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan would put [seniors’ quality of life] at risk by putting a voucher system in on Medicare and take Medicare away from our seniors and privatizing Social Security — we know what happened on Wall Street when all of them were in charge,” Fitzgerald said.

Standing in front of a sign reading “We did build it!,” a reference to a speech made by Obama in Virginia earlier this summer regarding infrastructure’s role in the U.S. economy, Ryan ripped Obama for attempting to “pick winners and losers” by providing federal government funding to businesses owned by campaign donors.

“You see, it’s this belief that we need a government-centered society driven by a government-driven economy,” Ryan said. “It doesn’t work.”

Referencing an increasing national debt and unemployment above 8 percent for 42 straight months, Ryan said Obama has reverted to a campaign that “distorts, distracts and divides this country.”

But unlike Obama, Ryan said, Romney brings executive experience and a record of leadership during his tenure as chief executive officer of Bain Capital, a Massachusetts-based private equity company, and during his term as a Republican governor in left-leaning Massachusetts.

“The measurement of a true statesman, a leader, at key moments of history have four key qualities: bedrock of principles, a moral compass, a vision for the country and the ability and the experience to execute that vision and put it in place,” Ryan said. “That, my friends, is what Mitt Romney is.”

Before concluding his speech, Ryan painted the November presidential election as a decision on the guiding vision of the country heading into the future. And he made it clear whose vision he felt was the right choice for the United States.

“This is our moment. This is our generation’s defining moment,” Ryan said. “For every generation you come from, it’s the most important election in your life because this is the time to show you’re Americans. And I’m here to tell you it’s not too late to get this right.”