Yesterday, Paul Ryan, Republican from Wisconsin and Speaker of the House of Representatives, posted to Twitter the following:
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.
The claim checks out: a one-year Gold Star membership costs $60 per year, so, saving a buck-fifty per week, this secretary can shop at Costco all year and, with the remaining $18, buy close to a half tank of gas, too! It's even better than that, however. Republicans are always telling us that people know best how to spend their hard earned dollars, and I can imagine that the secretary's neighbor, less fond of Costco, might like to have a latte at Starbucks every month, while her sister-in-law socks away $78 in a Health Care Savings Account for when she gets breast cancer.
The mystery, of course, is why Speaker Ryan thought the secretary's story was a good advertisement for the tax package the Republicans passed earlier this year. The Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, had deployed the word "crumbs" to describe the savings realized by a "typical" taxpayer, and Ryan, who criticized her for that, must have eventually comprehended that he was validating her point, because after a few hours the tweet was deleted. His epiphany was likely abetted by some of the tweeted commentary.
Hey Paul Ryan, a lot of teachers have memberships at Costco to buy supplies their schools won't pay for. Get out much?
Marie Antoinette: "Let them eat cake."
Paul Ryan: "Let them shop at Costco."
Forget Costco memberships. You can buy Paul Ryan's soul on eBay for $1.50.
Coincidentally, there is this week at Costco a sale on Paul Ryan's awareness.
And you get a Costco membership!
And you get a Costco membership!
And you get a Costco membership!
[This tweet was accompanied by a GIF of Oprah gesticulating wildly at her audience.]
What could she buy each week with the extra $1.50?
1/2 bag of Albanese Gummi Bears
17 minutes of the movie Hostiles
1/2 gallon of gas
1.5 items on McDonald's value menu
1-1/4 lb all beef hot dog at Costco
100% of Paul Ryan's integrity
I know I have nothing to fear
Now that Costco is paid for this year;
And I won't complain
While Paul Ryan drinks champagne:
I have money left over for beer!
I know that among my millions of readers there must be a few with refined sensibilities, so I won't quote my absolute favorites, but, to indicate the general flavor, one of Ryan's respondents imagined him posting his tweet and then, feeling satisfied with himself, retiring to an easy chair in his home half way up the colon of one of the Koch brothers, where he proceeds to pleasure himself while reading Ayn Rand. My own meager contribution to the fun--though someone somewhere has probably already commented on it--concerns the gratuitous detail of how the secretary works at a public school. Had she worked at a private school, or a business, it would not have mattered in the least for the "argument" being advanced, and it must have been included only to suggest that the tweeter is a real Man of the Common People.
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