House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan is in Longboat Key today, appearing at a $500 a head fundraiser for Sarasota Congressman Vern Buchanan, Pinellas County Representative David Jolly and North Florida Republican Jeff Miller.
In anticipation of the visit, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired off a sharp broadside at the event, saying in a press release that the Ryan budget plan "that Congressmen Vern Buchanan, David Jolly and Jeff Miller have championed would be devastating for Floridians."
There's one little problem with that: Jolly voted against the plan.
Wasserman Schultz goes on to say in the release that the Ryan plan would "end end Medicare as we know it, increase premiums and provide for tax cuts for millionaires while raising taxes on middle-class families. It would also force our seniors to pay more for prescription drugs, cut vital funding for Pell Grants as well as early childhood education."
The Ryan plan is controversial, and Democrats have been successful in campaigning against it because of its proposed changes to Medicare, the government health care plan for the elderly. There are lots of elderly voters in Jolly's district in Pinellas County. And that's why he opposed it.
Jolly told reporters that he voted against Ryan’s proposal due to the changes it would make to Medicare, insisting he kept his word to voters in the March special congressional election. He joked about alienating leadership by casting that vote at a Tiger Bay event back in June. However, Buchanan and Miller did support the Ryan plan.
Obviously the DNC chair wasn't briefed by her staff about the Jolly vote. And so while he will be reaping the financial benefits of Ryan's appearance tonight in standing side by side with the GOP 2012 VP nominee, the fact is that Jolly did not champion his budget plan.
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2014.