On Saturday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan took to Twitter to brag about how the tax bill backed by he and several other members of the Republican party had increased a public school employee’s wages by $1.50 weekly — and no, he didn’t make a typo with the decimal placement.
As CNN reports, Speaker Ryan’s now-deleted tweet referenced an Associated Press article noting that some employees have seen increases in their paychecks following the passing of the GOP tax bill. As such, Ryan decided to back the article up with his own story about how the tax bill supposedly increased a public high school employee’s wages by literally a dollar and some change.
“A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week … she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year,” Ryan tweeted.
No, the tweet wasn’t satire or from some kind of Paul Ryan parody account either. Despite assertions from multiple Republicans who say the bill will provide tax breaks to middle class Americans, as the New York Times reports, an analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that this isn’t really the case. Instead, in general, “higher income households receive larger average tax cuts as a percentage of after-tax income,” the analysis says. Moreover, for most Americans, the tax cuts will only be temporary.
With all this taken into consideration, the Internet didn’t wait to wonder out loud why Ryan thought of any of this as being particularly brag-worthy.
Moments ago, @PRyan deleted this tweet after we told him just how out of touch he was. Show Paul Ryan what you think of his tax bill. Chip in $1.50 now to help us repeal and replace Ryan permanently this November.https://t.co/c3Fii4Q0Jn
— Randy Bryce (@IronStache) February 3, 2018
$1.50 a week for 52 weeks equals $78 per year, times 125 million workers that equals $9.75 billion a year.
Yet the tax cut costs $1.5 trillion — with a t — over ten years.
Where’d the money go? https://t.co/RQKEPM75GC
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 3, 2018
Paul Ryan: A secretary is saving $1.50 a week from the tax bill.
Also Paul Ryan: These aren’t crumbs.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) February 3, 2018
Many also didn’t hesitate to point out the *sizable* donation Ryan received from the Koch brothers (a conservative billionaire family) immediately after the tax bill was passed. (An amount of money that could probably be used to buy multiple Costcos, thank you very much.)
As a thank you for passing a $1 trillion corporate tax cut, Paul Ryan received $500,000 in campaign contributions from the Koch brothers, which would probably cover the cost of buying a Costco. https://t.co/piiWqzOEGo
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 3, 2018
Paul Ryan deleted his embarrassing tweet of a blatant admission because he and Republicans don’t want you to know the truth: the #GOPTaxScam is a gift to corporate America and the top 1% at your expense.
He also doesn’t want you to know he got $500.000.00 from the Koch family. pic.twitter.com/ENXxASfAMP
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) February 3, 2018
Yeah okay, Paul Ryan — keep on reminding yourself of that $1.50 (or $78 a year, if you do the math) to make yourself feel better.