More town-hall heckling for Ryan

Attendees at Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) town-hall meeting on Tuesday heaped more scorn on the powerful congressman for backing an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. 

Protesters chanted “Ryan stop lying!” at the House Budget Committee chairman outside his event in Kenosha, Wis., and several members of the capacity crowd interrupted Ryan as he defended his budget plan, according to WTMJ-TV.

Here’s more from their report: 

“If you’re yelling, I just want to ask you to leave,” Ryan requested. “If you’re going to scream out like that, it’s just not polite to everyone. We’ve got media here. Let’s prove to them that Wisconsinites can be cordial with one another.”

TODAY’S TMJ4 set up an interview with Ryan following the meeting, but it was scrapped by staffers and police over a security concern. The congressman changed the door where he planned to exit and left in a different vehicle than the one than he arrived in.

“There were just definitely some loud hecklers who came that gave the police a little concern,” Ryan told TODAY’S TMJ4 reporter by phone. “I left in another car with the police. My car, some people did surround. But, they didn’t cause any problems and I had a staffer who drove my car and we had really no problems.”

Ryan insists the hurried exit should not be “blown out of proportion.”

The incident comes as Democrats are looking to highlight angry town-hall moments against Republicans, hoping they will define the debate over entitlement reform and the 2012 budget. Republicans during the summer of 2009 used similar incidents at Democrats’ town halls to pin them down during healthcare debate.

Ryan, the architect of the House GOP’s budget plan, has been the primary target of the Democrats and their allies. A liberal blog posted video at another of Ryan’s town halls last week showing him being met with boos over his plan.

Similar incidents have occurred at other Republican lawmakers’ constituent meet-and-greet events in key states like Pennsylvania and Florida.

See video of the protests outside the event here.