Rep. Paul Ryan on Obama Administration's Fuzzy Math

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," April 20, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And tonight in "Your America," there is a new report that suggests the White House has been cooking the books on the job numbers. Now an analysis from Biggovernment.com reveals that the administration has been using some fuzzy math in order to sell its stimulus plan as a success.

Now let's take a closer look. Now first we know that according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on April 2nd, that there are currently almost 130 million nonfarm employees currently in the U.S..

Now next we know that an April 14th assessment by the Obama administration claims that the Recovery and Reinvestment Act has, quote, "raised unemployment by 2.8 million jobs."

Now that means without the stimulus taking away those 2.8 million jobs there would be a grand total of almost 127 million nonfarm employees in the U.S.

But get this, Big Government points out that is seven million less than the Obama advisers said would exist without the stimulus back in January of 2009.

Now in the Romer-Bernstein report issued on January 10th, 2009 they claimed that nearly 134 million employees would be working in the U.S. if the Recovery Act is not passed. In other words, this report from Biggovernment.com suggests that the administration conveniently slashed nearly seven million jobs from its January '09 prediction in order to be able to claim that the stimulus in fact created those 2.8 million jobs.

All right, makes sense?

Joining me with reaction and much more is Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.

All right. Is this just —

REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS.: Hey, Sean.

HANNITY: Look, this to me seems like they willfully, purposefully have distorted the numbers to lie to the American people. Am I misreading it or is this accurate?

RYAN: No, you — no, you've got it right. I was really amazed that Bernstein and Romer put this out in the first place because their economists. They ought to know better.

They knew they oversold the stimulus. They knew that they said this thing would prevent unemployment from going above 8 percent. And when you make a measurement like that you have to use that number that you just used.

It didn't. Unemployment went above 10 percent. We lost eight million jobs since this recession started. Four million jobs we've lost since the stimulus was passed.

They knew that that's the case so they had to come up with these new statistics —

HANNITY: All right, when you say "they" —

RYAN: — to try and —

HANNITY: When —

RYAN: And mislead people.

HANNITY: All right. When you say they knew — so when the president —

RYAN: The economists at the White House.

HANNITY: The economists at the — did the president know?

RYAN: I would like to think he listens to his advisers.

HANNITY: All right, so — so basically when he was telling America, using the fear tactics, that we faced a disaster, a catastrophe.

RYAN: Right.

HANNITY: Unless we passed the stimulus, this —

RYAN: Right.

HANNITY: They basically — what you are saying and what this report is saying, they said anything they needed to say to get the stimulus passed. Is that the same on health care? Is that the same on cap and tax? Can we trust that they're being honest with us?

RYAN: Look, they came here to the hill and said if you don't pass this stimulus unemployment is going to go way up pass 8 percent. You pass the stimulus it will stop unemployment from going above 8 percent.

Well, what happened? Unemployment went up to 10 percent and beyond that. We lost four millions jobs since the stimulus was enacted. The point I would make — and this is the reason why not a single Republican voted for this, is if borrowing and spending a trillion dollars — which is what this adds up to when you add interest costs — was a secret to prosperity and job creation, we wouldn't have job problems.

We'd have full employment. Because we're already borrowing and spending more than we have in the history of our country. And so look, this is an economic agenda that I would argue is not based on good economic policy or fundamentals. It was really more about satisfying spent-up spending demand that these people had in Congress that they couldn't — you know, basically —

HANNITY: All right.

RYAN: — fine until Barack Obama got in office.

HANNITY: All right, so the president is now out there saying, they ought to be thanking me. Meaning critics of his economic plan.

RYAN: Right.

HANNITY: But we know that the Bush tax cuts expire. They are saying that's not a tax increase even though it's going up — what — four percentage points, a little over four and a half.

RYAN: Tax rates go up.

HANNITY: All right. So tax rates go up. It's going to 39 1/2 percent from where it is right now.

RYAN: Right.

HANNITY: OK. Then we've got a VAT tax being floated. Then we're going to see Medicare taxes go up.

RYAN: That's right.

HANNITY: We're going to see taxes go up because of the health care plan. We're going to see state income taxes go up. So how much can the average American expect to pay in taxes as a percentage of their income as a result of these policies?

RYAN: OK. So here's the tally. So far since the president has taken office he and this Congress has put into law $670 billion in new taxes. That's in law now. Fourteen of those tax increases hit people making less than $250,000. That's about 300 billion of those tax increases.

Now the president has given us a budget that purports to add about $1.8 trillion in higher taxes on top of that. That includes the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. That includes all these new health care taxes which are now in law. That's $500 billion.

HANNITY: All right.

RYAN: They are basically taxing us all over. Depends on who you are.

HANNITY: Yes.

RYAN: But if you make income, your tax rates are going up. If you have investments your tax rates are going up. If you're a small business, your tax rates are going up. You name it.

HANNITY: And so I do on my radio show this "Man on the Street" segment. We've done it on this program, too. And I asked people — just happened to have a couple of people who voted for Obama. I said well, tell me about what you want to thank the president for because he says we ought to be thank him.

And he said, well, everybody now has health care. Free health care. People are now calling elected representatives saying —

RYAN: I know. Yes.

HANNITY: And hospitals, where's my free health care? Why do you think —

RYAN: I'm getting calls in my office.

HANNITY: Is it that people believe what the government tells them? Did people believe the president? Was it unknowing on their part?

RYAN: The president has the bully pulpit. He's been saying that this is going to give everybody in America health care. The entitlement doesn't start at 2014. Remember we had 10 years of tax increases in Medicare cuts to pay for six years of spending. That spending doesn't kick in until 2014 on the health care.

But all the other things — premium increases, tax increases, Medicare cuts — that start — they start phasing in right now. So what people are going to get is not what they think they're getting based upon the rhetoric that was used to sell this health care bill.

HANNITY: I don't know. Where's journalism in America? Nobody told the American people — by the way, this is 2014. It's not happening now.

Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for being with us.

RYAN: You, too, Sean. Take care.

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