Exclusive: Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan Spoke At The Koch Strategy Meeting

[kpete]

Source: Think Progress

Exclusive: Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan Spoke At The Koch Strategy Meeting

Last October, ThinkProgress helped break the story about secret political strategy meetings, convened by polluter billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, to coordinate the funding and direction of the conservative movement. Previous meetings have included Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, top hedge fund managers like Cliff Asness, business executives, Republican strategists, and various other political operatives. Following the revelation of these meetings, a group of progressive organizations protested the most recent meeting in Rancho Mirage, California last weekend. ThinkProgress revealed a partial list of the attendees, including GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, Americans for Prosperity officials like Alan Cobb, political consultant Michael Goldfarb, longtime lobbyist Nancy Pfotenhauer, and a number of donors, including Home Depot founder Ken Langone and billionaire heiress Diane Hendricks.

ThinkProgress has now learned of another attendee addressing the Koch meeting: House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s office confirmed his attendance this afternoon to ThinkProgress. Ryan, who has a long record of flying off to junkets for groups of bankers like the Club for Growth, is pushing forward with radical cuts to Medicare and Social Security in his “Roadmap for America’s Future.” In line with Koch’s peculiar supply-side side ideology of soaking the the poor, Ryan’s budget idea also calls for increasing taxes on the middle class, while cutting them for the rich. Other Republican legislators were at the event, including Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

The Politico’s Ken Vogel, who was threatened with arrest by Koch’s security detail, noted that retired Sysco chief John Woodhouse and former Jack Abramoff associate Patrick Pizzella were at the event as w

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/02/paul-ryan-koch/

[wilt the stilt]

1. sounds like a real nice bunch of people

one's that have your welfare at the top of their minds.

[ck4829]

2. "Billionaire heiress" and the Koch brothers at a meeting

We might as well just slap crowns on these people and declare them to be our lords.

[sulphurdunn]

3. The Republican Party

is not only a threat to our national security it is also a threat to the very survival of civilization. It is the enemy in every instance, all the time. The goal of progressives should always be to drive a stake through it and pin it fast to the ground where it can wiggle and squeal until it finally expires.

[lunasun]

4. Hope Ryan scored 'some cake to eat' for us peasants from the Kochs& friends!

His “Roadmap for America’s Future.” drives most us in a ditch at the end .....

[glinda]

5. Why isn't this group viewed as full of conflicts of interests for those

in positions in our Government as well as a "stealth group" attempting to overthrow our Government. Their interests' ends are an affront to survival of our Nation as well as the Planet.
They need to be help up to the public light quickly and frequently for all to see.