Ryan Won Stimulus Funds, Earmarks For Programs Talk Radio Hated

Paul Ryan is only 72 hours into his role as national small-government poster boy, and his credibility just took a major hit.

The Boston Globe has reported on Ryan appeals to Big Government asking for millions from the stimulus he bashed, and even sought funding for the KRM commuter rail line, which is one of the programs Ryan talk radio mouth pieces love to hate, and which GOP legislators in the state killed during Scott Walker's anti-rail crusade.

Who knew Ryan was such a friend of federal spending, big government and the environment? I'm surprised these contradictions have not been more expansively reported by Wisconsin media over the years, though I have missed the stories.

From the Globe:

In 2009, as Rep. Paul D. Ryan was railing against President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package as a “wasteful spending spree,” he wrote at least four letters to Obama’s secretary of energy asking that millions of dollars from the program be granted to a pair of Wisconsin conservation groups, according to documents obtained by the Globe...

The documents show that Ryan’s attempts to take advantage of the stimulus funds even after he voted against them was more expansive than previously reported...

Ryan also received authorization for preliminary engineering funds for a commuter-rail system linking Kenosha, Racine, and Milwaukee, and a streetcar expansion project in Kenosha.