Paul Ryan tells Cincinnati crowd leaders must address debt, Iran ... and replacement refs

CINCINNATI – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan told a
town hall meeting crowd in Cincinnati on Tuesday that he and presidential candidate Mitt Romney will address the national debt, unemployment, and nuclear weapons in Iran if elected.

Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman and avid Green Bay Packers fan, also opened his remarks to a crowd of several hundred people at a steel company by making a pitch for ending the lockout of NFL referees. He said he couldn’t resist after his beloved Packers lost to the Seattle Seahawks on what turned out to be a bad call by a replacement NFL referee on a last second touchdown pass by Seattle.

But most of Ryan’s talk focused on a contrast between the GOP ticket and President Barack Obama.

“You can have four more years of the President Obama’s country in debt, doubt and decline or we can have a real recovery, we can have real growth with this economy, we can get these problems under control,” Ryan said. “We can prevent a debt crisis from ever taking this country down.”

Ryan said that growing national debt — now more than $16 trillion — will lead to future taxes on our economy as well as a growing bill for future generations and said Americans should be concerned that 48 percent of U.S. debt is owned by other countries.

Ryan will be in Kentucky with Joe Biden for the vice presidential debate at Centre College on Oct. 11. Half the debate will focus on foreign policy. And Ryan, on Tuesday, responded to a question about the dangers of Iran having access to nuclear weapons.

After his stop in Cincinnati, Ryan joined Romney in Dayton, Ohio for a Victory Rally
at the Dayton International Airport.