Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) formally accepted the Republican Party nomination for vice president Wednesday and leveled a stinging attack on President Obama’s leadership over the past four years.
Ryan used the primetime address before the Republican National Convention in Tampa to highlight the current administration’s myriad failures and lay out an alternative vision for the future of the country.
"It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new," Ryan said, harkening back to then-candidate Obama’s run for office in 2008. "Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind."
He asked voters to consider why—with millions of Americans out of work or underemployed, and millions more in poverty—the next four years would be any different from the previous four under the current administration.
Ryan blasted the president’s signature legislative achievements in office as examples of "why a presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a disappointing close."
The $800 billion stimulus package: "A case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst."
Health care reform: "More than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that have no place in a free country."
Neither have done anything to substantially boost the struggling economy, which is why the president has resorted to a negative campaign to distract from these failures, Ryan argued.
"I have never seen opponents so silent about their record, and so desperate to keep their power," he said. "They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left."
Ryan called the president to stop blaming the previous administration for his own shortcomings, and urged the American people to hold him responsible for the past four years.
"The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy that we are living," he said.
Ryan reiterated the GOP pledge to repeal Obamacare and reform Medicare to preserve it for future generations, saying he welcomed the debate.
"In this election, on this issue, the usual posturing on the Left isn’t going to work," Ryan said of Democratic effort to paint him and his Republican colleagues as granny-slayers. "Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program, and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate."
He slammed the president’s "you didn’t built that" remarks, explaining why small business owners would take offense at the suggestion that "government gets the credit" for their hard work.
"All they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place," Ryan said. "Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them."
The American people need not "settle for the best this administration offers—a dull, adventure-less journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us."
The Obama administration’s failure justified a change of leadership, Ryan said, and Mitt Romney is the ideal choice to provide a new direction for the country—a "fine man" who was "worthy of leading this optimistic and good-hearted country."
A Romney-Ryan administration, he insisted, would own up to the challenges that lie ahead.
"Here is our pledge," Ryan concluded. "We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. We will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility."