During this week's vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan reprised a line Republicans have used repeatedly in making the case for a Romney presidency.

"Mitt Romney -- his experience, his ideas, his solutions -- is uniquely qualified to get this job done," Ryan said in his closing statement. "At a time when we have a jobs crisis in America, wouldn't it be nice to have a job-creator in the White House?"

The central argument at the heart of Romney's candidacy is that he knows how to create jobs and President Obama doesn't. To buttress that claim, Romney points to his career in the private sector, as a Wall Street buyout specialist and venture capitalist at the firm Bain Capital. Bain Capital, of course, specialized mostly in leveraged buyouts -- debt-financed investments in companies that often resulted in bankruptcy, off-shoring and layoffs.

Since those aspects of Romney's business career are less politically palatable, he focuses instead on the few start-ups he helped provide seed funding for -- brands we all recognize, like Sports Authority and Staples.

The problem, however, with spotlighting those businesses is that their success hinges fundamentally on a premise that is perhaps just as unpalatable as the worst excesses of private equity. Those large retail chains exploit the efficiencies of scale to offer the same goods and services that much smaller businesses do, but at much lower costs.

Large chains like Staples also keep their labor costs low by offering low-wage sales associate jobs that pay, in the case of Staples, an average of $8.54 an hour, according to Glassdoor.com. Retail sales jobs -- among the occupations with the largest projected growth over the next ten years -- pay a median annual salary of just $20,670, which isn't even enough to sustain a family of four above the federal poverty line, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, the median annual salary of the jobs with the largest growth over the next 10 years is $33,840.

Forty-one percent of the Staples workforce are part-time employees, according to the company's annual report, which describes its workforce this way: "Many of our associates, particularly in retail stores, are in entry-level or part-time positions with historically high rates of turnover." In July, the National Employment Law Project listed Staples as one of the 50 largest low-wage employers in the country.

So the question is this: When Romney champions his success at Staples as one of his main qualifications for the presidency, is he claiming that those kinds of jobs -- part-time, low-wage sales associate jobs that can't even keep a family of four above the poverty line -- are the kinds of jobs he'll create as president?

There is also an inherent tension in the economic prescriptions of Republican candidates like Romney when it comes to small businesses. On the one hand, Republicans contend that small businesses are the engines of our economy. On the other, they believe that whoever can more cheaply and efficiently deliver goods and services to consumers should win in the open market.

In the case of Staples, the number of office-supply stores in the U.S. decreased by about 50 percent in the first ten years after Staples was founded, suggesting that the large retail chain put a lot of smaller mom-and-pop stores out of business. The market share of those smaller and medium-sized stores plunged from 20 percent when Staples was founded in 1986 to just 4 percent in 1998.

:: Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes ::

Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel came under fire this week for sending an email to his employees demanding that they vote for Mitt Romney and threatening to downsize the company if they don't. But Siegel's email isn't an outlier. It fits a pattern of imperious CEOs attempting to marshal the support of their employees in pursuit of their own political interests.

Up w/ Chris Hayes has exclusively obtained an email sent by the CEO of a Florida-based software firm, ASG Software Solutions, to his over 1,000 employees asking them to vote for Romney for president and suggesting that their jobs may be at stake if Romney doesn't win. The subject line of the email, sent by ASG President and CEO Arthur Allen on Sept. 30, asks: "Will the US Presidential election directly impact your future jobs at ASG? Please read below."

Allen then suggests that the company may have to downsize, or be bought by a larger company, if President Obama is re-elected, and suggests that massive cuts and layoffs would ensue if that occurs.

"We have been able to keep ASG an independent company while still growing our revenues and customers. But I can tell you, if the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none," Allen writes. "If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don't want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come.

Allen adds: "I am asking you to give us one more chance to stay independent by voting in a new President and administration on November 6th. Even then, we still might not be able to remain independent, but it will at least give us a chance. If we don't, that chance goes away."

Up w/ Chris attempted to contact Allen several times via phone and email during business hours on Friday. His outgoing message said he was out of the country, so Up w/ Chris also placed calls and sent emails to several other officials at ASG during business hours on Friday as well. We have not received a response.

Here's the full text of Allen's email:

Subject: Will the US Presidential election directly impact your future jobs at ASG? Please read below.

To all ASG employees,

We have been stuck in an extremely sick global economy, but as we should all know by now, the global economy largely depends on the US economy. This sick global economy has been negatively influencing ASG since December 2008. No one could have ever have dreamed that the US economy would still be sick 4 years later, but it is. We have a chance, as individuals, to help turn the sick US economy into a healthy economy, and positively influence the global economy as well. This chance comes on November 6th, when we elect a new President and administration. The US and the world need to elect individuals who have business experience. Neither the world nor the US can stand to elect politicians any longer. In my view, and in the view of most business leaders, if you give politicians 100 questions, they will give you back 100 wrong answers simply because they have no basis for making those decisions. Would you hire a person with no experience to do brain surgery? Of course not, but that's what the US voters did in 2009. Why does the world keep hiring politicians to run our global economies when they have no experience? It just makes no sense, and yet the world keeps doing it over and over again. Let's take the lead on November 6th and show the world how it should and can be done.

Many of you have been with ASG for over 5, 10, 15, and even 20 years. As you know, together, we have been able to keep ASG an independent company while still growing our revenues and customers. But I can tell you, if the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none. I am already heavily involved in considering options that make our independence go away, and with that all of our lives would change forever. I believe that a new President and administration would give US citizens and the world the renewed confidence and optimism we all need to get the global economies started again, and give ASG a chance to stay independent. If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don't want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come. Remember, in the world of business, companies are consolidators or they get consolidated; so far ASG has been a consolidator, completing over 60 acquisitions in our 26 year history. When we buy a company, we eliminate about 60 percent of the salaries of the employees of that company. If we lose our independence and get consolidated, the same thing would happen to ASG's employees.

I am asking you to give us one more chance to stay independent by voting in a new President and administration on November 6th. Even then, we still might not be able to remain independent, but it will at least give us a chance. If we don't, that chance goes away.

I apologize for writing such a blunt email, but for those of you who have known me for years and years, you know that this must be serious, and it is. I am going to follow this email with an email to All Sales, offering all of our help to assist them in making Q4 the best quarter in ASG history. Business is hard to find, but it is out there if Sales just goes and gets it.

Mr. Allen

:: Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes ::

Koch Industries, the multi-billion-dollar company owned by conservative brothers Charles and David Koch, sent a mailing to its 50,000 employees earlier this month offering guidance on how to vote in this year's presidential election. The documents were obtained by In These Times magazine and provided to Up w/ Chris before publishing their report.

The packet sent to employees includes a letter, dated October 1st, from Koch Industries president and Chief Operating Officer David Robertson. Robertson writes:

Dear co-worker,

While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit. If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences. ... It is essential that we are all informed and educated voters. Our future depends on it.

The packet includes editorials blasting the Obama administration, written by Charles and David Koch for newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. And then there's the flier it includes, containing information on early voting options and voter registration deadlines. The flier contains this passage:

The following candidates in your state are among the candidates who have received support from a Koch company or KOCHPAC, the employee political action committee of Koch companies.

Just beneath that passage, the document lists the Koch brothers' favored candidates for president and vice president: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

Rob Tappan, Koch Companies director of external relations, sent Up w/ Chris the following statement:

To encourage employees to be informed about and engaged in the political process, Koch mailed a letter in early October to its 50,000 U.S.-based employees. It is also important to note that many companies, as well as organizations such as labor unions, also provide similar information to their members and fellow employees. Indeed, unions and newspapers go further than this and actually endorse candidates to their readers and members.

The communication to our employees makes clear that decisions about which political candidates to support are up to each employee and should be based on factors most important to him or her. In addition to the letter, employees were given information they often request – voter registration deadlines, early voting options for various states, and a list of candidates supported by Koch companies and KOCHPAC, Koch’s employee political action committee.

Because inaccurate and false stories were written about a similar letter we sent to Koch employees in 2010, we are posting the complete text of the letter below so that readers can see for themselves the true intent of the mailing:

And here is the full text of the letter from Robertson to Koch Industries employees:

Dear co-worker,

While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit.

If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation and other ills. This is true regardless of what your political affiliation might be.

To help you engage in the political process, we have enclosed several items in this packet. For most of you, this includes information about voter registration deadlines and early voting options for your state. At the request of many employees, we have also provided a list of candidates in your state that have been supported by Koch companies or by KOCHPAC, our employee political action committee.

I want to emphasize two things about these lists. First, and most important, we believe any decision about which candidates to support is – as always – yours and yours alone, based on the factors that are most important to you. Second, we do not support candidates based on their political affiliation. We evaluate them based on who is the most market-based and willing to support economic freedom for the benefit of society as a whole.

If you are concerned about our economy, our future and enhancing the quality of life for all Americans, then I encourage you to consider the principles of your candidates and not just their party affiliation. It is essential that we are all informed and educated voters. Our future depends on it.

Also included in this mailing are wallet cards to use as you shop for some of the most popular brands made by your co-workers, information about our newly updated MBM® Guiding Principles and some thoughtful editorials by Charles Koch, David Koch and others.

Sincerely,

Dave Robertson
President and COO
Koch Industries, Inc.

:: Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes ::

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, Mitt Romney sought to cast himself as a crusader for financial reform, championing tough new Wall Street regulations and sparring with President Obama over delays in the implementation of several key provisions at the heart of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Romney also sought to paint the president as an ally of Wall Street banks, charging that Dodd-Frank enshrined the status of the "Too Big To Fail" financial institutions, thus guaranteeing future taxpayer bailouts. Dodd-Frank, Romney claimed, "designates a number of banks as 'too big to fail,' and they're effectively guaranteed by the federal government. This is the biggest kiss that's been given to New York banks I've ever seen. This is an enormous boon for them."

There is, perhaps, a legitimate critique to make of the President's signature financial reform bill -- specifically, that it didn't go far enough in constraining the power of the nation's biggest banks, and that it should have broken up banks deemed "too big to fail."

Nonetheless, Romney's argument is disingenuous. For one thing, Dodd-Frank actually subjects those "too big to fail" banks to much stricter regulatory scrutiny and capital requirements. And it doesn't guarantee that they'll be propped up taxpayers (in fact, it gives federal authorities the power to wind down those banks if they are ever in danger of collapsing).

So Romney's claim is wrong on policy. But it's also politically disingenuous, because the very agencies responsible for writing and enforcing the rules at the heart of Dodd-Frank -- such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- have been under relentless attack from Republicans seeking to neuter or eliminate them since the day Dodd-Frank was passed in July 2010. And for their efforts, Republicans have been handsomely rewarded by their patrons on Wall Street.

The graph above represents the total number of donations given to the top 20 recipients of campaign cash from the finance, insurance and real estate industries, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Of the nearly $73.6 million given to those 20 candidates, including President Obama and Mitt Romney, more than 70 percent, or $52 million, has gone to Republicans.

Romney has received the most, by far. Donors in the finance, insurance and real estate industries have given him more than $28 million as of September. President Obam has received just over $12 million from those sources.

After the presidential candidates, the top recipients of donations from finance, insurance and real estate sources are Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker John Boehner. The top Democratic recipient of finance, industry and real estate cash is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Of those top 20 recipients, seven are Democrats, and 13 are Republicans.

:: Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes :: 

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, responded Saturday to baseless allegations that the Obama administration may have manipulated the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly jobs report to make it look better than it actually was, calling those allegations "literally absurd."

In an interview on Up w/ Chris Hayes Saturday, Stiglitz said the accusations leveled by Republicans and their supporters on Wall Street -- including Rep. Allen West of Florida, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch and former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes -- were outlandish and contradicted a broad consensus among economists of all party affiliations that the jobs numbers are not influenced by political calculations.

"No president, maybe except Nixon, would actually try to change what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does," Stiglitz said. "These are really independent statistical agencies, and the idea that they would do that is, I say, literally absurd."

Stiglitz recalled his time working in the Clinton White House, explaining that there was a long history of insulating the economic metrics from political pressure. "The history and the culture of these independent agencies is extraordinarily strong," Stiglitz said. "We felt absolutely very strongly, and I think this is bipartisan, that you don’t monkey with the numbers, because they would destroy your credibility. And the one thing that we still have is credibility in the numbers."

When, for example, the Bureau of Economic Affairs adopted a new methodology for calculating the Gross Domestic Product that resulted in lower GDP growth, the agency resisted considerable pushback from then-President Clinton, who was concerned about the potential impact on his re-election campaign. "The president was furious, because everyone wants a good growth number. They were coming up with a number that was lower," Stiglitz said. President Clinton, he added, "said, 'Can’t you stop this? Can’t you tell them to wait until after the election? We said 'No, they’re independent agencies, we can’t touch them.'"

Nonetheless, a number of prominent conservatives have continued to insist that the new jobs numbers, which show the unemployment rate has dipped below eight percent for the first time during Obama's presidency, must be skewed. Some have even gone so far as to offer alternative metrics, just as they have with national polls, which Republicans insist must be wrong because they show President Obama leading Mitt Romney.

Stiglitz said those efforts were symptomatic of a broader trend among Republicans.

"There’s this old debate about, 'we can’t choose our facts, we can choose our interpretation of the facts,'" Stiglitz said. "And what they’re trying to move to is the direction where we get to choose our facts."

:: Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes ::

Mitt Romney has drawn praise for a seemingly magnanimous gesture Thursday night. During his speech to the Republican National Convention, Romney said, "I wish President Obama had succeeded, because I want America to succeed."

Only, that wasn't how Romney felt in March 2009, just weeks after President Obama was inaugurated. Video aired on Up w/ Chris Hayes on Saturday shows Romney saying quite the opposite -- that he wanted President Obama’s"liberal policies" to fail:

During an interview with CNN's Larry King on March 19, 2009, Romney said:

I want liberal policies to fail. I want him to fail in trying to put in place a health care plan that takes away the private sector from health care. I want him to fail in this cap and trade program as long as China and Brazil and Indonesia are not going to play in it. But I want him to succeed as a president, meaning, I want him to succeed in strengthening our economy, keeping us free, bringing our troops home in success from Iraq and Afghanistan. But I don't want his liberal policies to succeed.

Those remarks are especially revealing given the Romney campaign's avowed strategy of appealing to swing state voters who may have supported President Obama four years ago and who, despite their disappointment, remain reluctant to abandon the president altogether.

Romney's convention speech was crafted, in many respects, as an exhortation to those voters. “Americans have been patient," Romney said. "Americans have supported this president in good faith."

The Republican nominee's 2009 remarks, however, would seem to undercut that.

Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes.

Republicans have championed Mitt Romney's record as a Wall Street buyout specialist as head of the private equity firm Bain Capital this week, celebrating the investment company as an example of Romney's financial acumen and ingenuity. However, Romney has consistently sought to distance himself from at least one controversial aspect of Bain Capital's record: sending American jobs overseas.

As The Washington Post reported in June, Bain Capital "invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India." Those investments would seem to undermine Romney's public statements as a presidential candidate about offshoring. “For me it’s all about good jobs for the American people and a bright and prosperous future,” Romney said in June.

A former partner of Romney's at Bain Capital, however, hasn't been nearly as skittish about the firm's record of relocating jobs overseas as Romney has. In a book published earlier this year, Ed Conard, who served as a partner at Bain Capital from 1993 to 2007, extolled the virtues of inexpensive offshore labor:

Let's not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is. We not only pay substantially less per hour, we also avoid the costs we would incur if these workers immigrated here. We don't pay for their medical expenses when they show up in the emergency room without insurance. We don't pay for their pension costs if they don't save for retirement. We don't pay for their children's public education. Nor do we pay for their out-of-wedlock children, their unemployment benefits and workers' compensation, their slip and fall torts, their wear and tear on our public infrastructure, and the cost of their drunk driving, drug use and other crimes. We outsource pollution, its adverse effects on our health, and its clean-up costs. Neither the employees nor their employers are here to vote and seek political handouts.

In an exclusive interview with Up w/ Chris Hayes in July, Conard predicted that Romney, too, would eventually embrace the entirety of Bain Capital's record once the campaign intensifies in the fall, and said he did not think Romney was "ashamed" of any of the work he did at Bain Capital. “You say ashamed, I see great pride,” Conard said. “When the debate really starts, in August, September and October, we’ll see. I think he’ll own it.”

Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes.

Republicans have sought this week to turn Mitt Romney's tenure as a Wall Street buyout specialist into a political asset, touting his record as the former head of investment firm Bain Capital. They've also spent the week championing the virtues of individual ambition and meritocratic achievement, proclaiming "We built this!" the theme of the convention.

But private equity firms like the one Romney led have benefited considerably from government subsidies, as the chart above demonstrates. Bain Capital benefited considerably from the tax code's preference and subsidy for debt-financed leveraged buyouts, as opposed to investments funded with equity.

According to data published by the White House in February, new investments funded with equity are taxed at an average effective rate of 36.8 percent. Investments funded by debt, however -- the types of investments private equity firms like Bain Capital specialize in -- receive a slight subsidy, of about four percent.

The tax code favors and encourages the use of debt, over equity, to finance investments. And Mitt Romney made considerable use of that particular tax anomaly as the head of private equity firm Bain Capital.

Sal Gentile (@salgentile) is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes .

Updated | Thursday, August 30: Includes additional comments from Roy during the program clarifying his remark.

 A policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Sunday that the Republican activists who write and adhere to the party’s platform, and who will gather in Tampa this week to formally nominate Romney for president, will have “very little” purchase on a Romney presidency if the former Massachusetts governor is elected.

Avik Roy, a health care policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said the GOP platform — which includes provisions like a “human life amendment” to the Constitution that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — should not be considered a reflection of Romney’s personal views.

“I think it is a statement of what activists in the party, the consensus among activists in the party believe should be the core of activist conservatism,” Roy said. “But that is different from what a candidate who is appealing to the center of the country is going to try to do.”

Asked how much purchase those activists would have in the White House should Romney become president, Roy said, “very little.”

Roy later clarified his remark, adding: "The base influences things for sure. So, they influence the terms of the debate, they influence the primaries, they influence who gets elected to congress, they influence who staffs an administration. But it’s also true that there is a need to win elections. There is a need to both move the debate in your direction, but also appeal to the people in the center, and that’s the tension. So, as activists your job is to move the debate in your direction. ... The candidates reflect how that debate changes over time."

Former Republican chairman and MSNBC analyst Michael Steele criticized attempts by Romney to distance himself from aspects of the Republican Party platform, as well as the activists who drafted it.

“I know a lot of folks in the base. I’m from the base, I know the base. They don’t want to hear their nominee, as they produce this platform, go, ‘Oh, that’s not my platform,’ or the Republican Party chairman say, ‘Oh, that’s not his platform, that doesn’t mean anything to him,’” Steele said. “They don’t want to hear that.”

Sal Gentile is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes. Follow him on Twitter at @salgentile.

The presidential campaign turned to the subject of abortion this week after Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, repeated the spurious claim that rape rarely results in pregnancy. "From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare," Akin said in an interview with a local television station in St. Louis. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin's claim about the rarity of pregnancies resulting from rape is, of course, false. Estimates of the number of pregnancies resulting from rape each year range from 3,000 to 25,000.

But the deeper, embedded assumption here -- that rape cannot truly be labeled as such if the victim becomes pregnant -- is not merely a bizarre misunderstanding of basic human biology. It's an insidious myth peddled by figures on the far-right for decades, and its lineage can be traced back centuries, to the earliest, most primitive theories about women, sexuality and reproduction.

In the second-century AD, the Roman physician Galen laid the groundwork for this myth with his theory that the reproductive systems of men and women were virtually identical. Galen wrote of genitalia, "Turn outward the woman's, turn inward, so to speak, and fold double the man's, and you will find the same in both in every respect."

That idea persisted in some form for centuries, influencing early legal theories about the relationship between pregnancy and sexual assault. A Medieval legal text from the 13th century, for example, contains this passage about rape: "If ... the woman should have conceived at the time alleged in the appeal, [the allegation] abates, for without a woman's consent she could not conceive."

The false principle at the heart of this theory was that women must experience sexual arousal in order for a pregnancy to occur. If the victim became pregnant, she must have consented, thus disproving the allegation of rape.

In the 17th century, the English Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale, who presided over a series of prominent witch trials, extended this principle to the courtroom, writing famously, "In a rape case it is the victim, not the defendant, who is on trial."

These antiquated notions about sexuality and reproduction persisted even into the 19th century, when the British physician Samuel Farr wrote in The Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, "For without an excitation of lust, or the enjoyment of pleasure in the venereal act, no conception can probably take place. So that if an absolute rape were to be perpetrated, it is not likely she would become pregnant."

This apocryphal connection between consent and pregnancy has been disproved countless times over the last half-century, but nonetheless persists in certain far-right circles. As recently as 1999, for example, Dr. John Willke, the former president of the National Right to Life Committee, wrote: "Assault rape pregnancies are extremely rare. … There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy."

Willke has long been a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement. So prominent, in fact, that in 2007, a leading Republican presidential candidate eagerly touted Wilke's endorsement, saying in a statement at the time, "I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement."

On Thursday of next week that candidate, Mitt Romney, will formally accept the presidential nomination of a party whose platform explicitly calls for amending the United States Constitution to outlaw abortions entirely, making no exceptions for incest, the mother's health, or rape.

:: Sal Gentile is a segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes. Follow him on Twitter at @salgentile. ::

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Long before he became one of the right’s most vocal critics of the idea that government spending could help boost the flagging economy, Rep. Paul Ryan offered a forceful, full-throated defense of stimulus spending — when then-President George W. Bush wanted it in 2002.

Ryan has denounced the 2009 Recovery Act signed by President Obama as “a wasteful spending spree” and “failed neo-Keynesian experiment,” and – as The Huffington Post pointed out this morning — dismissed as “sugar-high economics” the idea that government spending, through measures like payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits, can help shore up a faltering economy.

But in 2002, when then-President Bush was seeking a roughly $120 billion package of tax cuts, tax incentives for business and unemployment benefits to jump-start the economy, Ryan offered a vigorous defense of the plan. “What we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan said in video that aired today on Up w/ Chris Hayes. The remarks came during a House debate on the measure on Feb. 14, 2002.

Ryan’s comments reveal a strikingly different economic analysis than the one he has become known for in recent years as the “intellectual leader” of the Republican Party and, now, Mitt Romney’s running mate. In 2002, Ryan argued that unemployment would remain at elevated levels even after the economy began to recover, and that aggressive stimulus would be a necessary and effective antidote.

“What we're trying to accomplish here is the recognition of the fact that in recessions, unemployment lags on well after a recovery has taken place,” Ryan said at the time. “We have a lot of laid-off workers, and more layoffs are occurring. And we know, as a historical fact, that even if our economy begins to slowly recover, unemployment is going to linger on and on well after that recovery takes place.”

Ryan’s advocacy of stimulus spending wasn’t limited to Washington, either. When he returned home to face constituents, he used similar language to make the case for the Bush stimulus bill. “You have to spend a little to grow a little,” Ryan told constituents at a town hall in Wisconsin in January 2002, according to the Journal-Times, a local newspaper. “What we're trying to do is stimulate that part of the economy that's on its back."

And as New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait pointed out this morning, Ryan made the case for Keynesian stimulus in the form of income tax cuts in 2001, arguing for tax cuts that were “fast, deeper, retroactive to January 1st, to make sure we get a good punch into the economy, juice the economy to make sure that we can avoid a hard landing.”

Republicans have also repeatedly mocked calls by congressional Democrats to include renewed economic stimulus spending, such as a payroll tax holiday, as part of plans to reduce the deficit. Democrats have argued that short-term stimulus spending would help produce long-term revenue by boosting economic growth. Ryan has criticized that thinking, but in his 2002 remarks, he made exactly the same case: that short-term stimulus spending would produce budget surpluses.

“We've got to get the engine of economic growth growing again, because we now know because of recession, we don't have the revenues that we wanted to, we don't have the revenues we need, to fix Medicare, to fix Social Security. To fix these issues we've got to get Americans back to work,” Ryan said. “Then the surpluses come back, then the jobs come back. That is the constructive answer we're trying to accomplish here on, yes, a bipartisan basis.”

Ryan also argued in 2002 for helping workers pay for their health insurance and extending unemployment benefits. Since Obama has been in office, Ryan has voted against extending unemployment insurance.

“It's more than just giving someone an unemployment check,” Ryan said of the Bush stimulus bill. “It's also helping those people with their health insurance while they've lost their jobs and more important than just that unemployment check, it's to do what we can to give people a paycheck.”

Ryan called such measures “time-tested, proven, bipartisan solutions to get businesses to stop laying off people, to hire people back, and to help those people who have lost their jobs,” and urged congressional Democrats to break ranks and join Republicans in supporting the president’s plan.

“I've just recently read in our local Capitol Hill newspaper that members from the majority party in the other body want stimulus. They're breaking with their party leadership and asking for stimulus legislation to pass because in their home states they have a lot of people who are losing their jobs,” Ryan said. “I urge members to drop the demagoguery and to pass this bill to help us work together to get the American people back to work and help those people who've lost their jobs.”

:: Sal Gentile is segment & digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes. Follow him on Twitter at @salgentile. ::

In case you missed it, here's the chart we aired on Up w/ Chris Hayes today detailing Rep. Paul Ryan's major votes and their impact on the deficit.

Ryan, who was chosen today as Mitt Romney's running mate, is regarded as a visionary among grassroots conservatives, and one of the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. But there is much in Ryan's record that undercuts his image as a reformer and deficit-cutter, including his votes on the Bush tax cuts, Iraq War, Wall Street bailout and Medicare Part D, among others:

Major votes and their impact on the deficit by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney's new running mate.

Sal Gentile is segment and digital producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes. Follow him on Twitter at @salgentile.