Last spring Congressman Paul Ryan was booed when he met constituents at town hall meetings. Voters were unhappy with the Republican budget which Ryan engineered. The plan would extend tax breaks for the wealthy and phase out Medicare.
This summer the congressman is trying to avoid that kind of confrontation by charging admission to his town hall meetings. People who want to talk to him will have to shell out $15. That will keep out some of the riff raff and troublemakers. At the same time it will raise a little cash. How come the Republicans have all the good ideas?
Possible Democratic candidate Carl Perrin, while no admirer of Representative Ryan, likes his idea of charging for town meetings. Although Perrin has not yet committed himself to entering the presidential race, he did want to hear what the people were saying. He rented a hall and invited his supporters to come and ask softball questions. Instead of charging $15, he asked for only $5, assuming that most people were cheapskates, like him.
It didn’t work out. Only a handful of people arrived, some of them came because they thought he would be handing out cheap beer. Those people left when they learned it was going to cost $5. In all, the on-again, off-again candidate collected only $25, all of it from family members. He still has to pay for the hall he rented. If you would like to help, you can contribute to Perrin’s Paypal account.
