You want to abolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, you want to outlaw abortions and same-sex marriage, you want to give more of this country to the plutocrats, expect to be heckled.

Jeff, absolutely. There's nothing "respectful" about moving a budget plan forward to abolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, or legal abortion and same-sex marriage. Paul Ryan deserves to be heckled.

Heckling is never helpful to either side, debates and discussions are. Even if you do not agree, being rude is not acceptable from grown adults.

Asking a question of a candidate is o.k. if it's question and answer time, heckling is for babies and ingrates. Our country is in real trouble, it's time to stop the spending and get some fiscal responsibility or we'll all be "heckling" from the bread line.

Maybe you should all read the actual Ryan plan before just repeating what you've heard from the liberal media. If you feel like your actually smart enough write articles for the patch then maybe you should open your eyes and do a little research yourself. This country needs people to actually fix problems and present fixes to those problems like Paul Ryan.

"Liberal media" where, Todd? The same liberal media that gives Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump airtime to foment conspiracy theories about the president's birthplace?

The liberal media that consistently calls Ryan a "bold" and "wonky" policymaker, when he's pushing for regressive cuts that defund almost every part of the government EXCEPT the military?

The liberal media that is owned by companies like GE, which profit from enormous defense contracts?

I'd love to see some of this liberal media you seem so scared of, because the "liberal media" that we've got seems pretty boring and centrist, if not outright right-wing propaganda--but hey, they can't all be FOX, right?

Todd, drastically cutting the social safety net during a time of recession/weak recovery and high unemployment would grind the economy to a complete halt. Cutting the social safety net for people most likely to consume products in an economy that is 70% consumer driven could throw the economy into a depression. It's a dumb idea that sounds good to people like yourself and Paul Ryan who prefer simplistic solutions that take from the poor to give to the rich, who can only buy so many houses and so many yachts, but economists know better.

I'm just glad I wasn't at the Iowa State Fair. It would be hard to listen to a liar say how much he cares about the middle class when he supports an additional transfer of wealth from the struggling middle class and the working poor to the rich.

What Paul Ryan proposes in his budget transfers money from the social safety net, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment compensation, to provide another tax cut to the rich and build up the U.S. Defense Department. None of those things would do a thing to cut the budget. The Ryan budget merely reorders our priorities to reward the rich and punish the elderly, disabled, unemployed, and the poor.

*What Paul Ryan proposes to do in his budget is this: transfer more money from the struggling middle class and the working poor to provide additional tax cuts to the rich. He also wants to cut the social safety net, including Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment compensation. Those are programs that help the poor, the elderly, and the disabled to survive during hard times.

Paul Ryan also wants to provide additional funds to the U.S. Defense Department. None of Ryan's agenda would cut the budget. Ryan would simply reorder our priorities to reward the rich and punish the elderly, disabled, poor, and the unemployed.

Peter Brady, au contraire. I love Romany. That's where the gypsies come from.

I am not sure where heckling anyone is going to get anyone anywhere. These people had a right to hear what Rep. Paul Ryan had to say. I am a Ron Paul supporter and would be sadly disappointed if I did not get to hear what he said because of hecklers. If you are a Ron Paul supporter be respectful, just as he is.

Heckling is rude, but some people are madder than hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Heckling may be the only legal way they have of demonstrating to those in power just how fed up they are.

A few years ago I attended a program that was held mainly so Senator Harkin could be thanked in person for his role in securing funding for a medically related program in Des Moines. When he spoke he was more than just heckled by Tea Party types.
He was shouted down time after time and was even called a communist.

+1, David Leonard! Bravo. Shouting people down is what Bill O'Reilly does on the O'Reilly Show mocked by Stephen Colbert. And Bill O'Reilly is one of the more sensible people on Fox News.

The above comments seem like they are from members of both camps and not the general public. That is what is wrong with forums such as this. Let the real people respond, not campaign staffers.

How do you know they were tea party types, what exactly is a tea party type. Oh that's right, it is a person who believes the government should take no more than the bare minimum and that since we earned the money it should be ours to spend not governments to steal and redistribute how it sees fit.

Yes, Troy, the middle class and the working poor do have something left to take: the social safety support network that keeps them from falling into Third World poverty status. The Ryan budget would add over $2,000 to the tax bill middle-class families pay every year.

Wealthy CEOs regard their own employees and public employees as the enemy (Romney, for example) and pay them serf-like wages with few or no benefits. They are already robbing their workers to enrich themselves. Romney/Bain Capital takes that robbery a step further by buying companies, forcing them to borrow more money than they afford to borrow, contributing a hefty part of that loan to Romney's fees and profit-taking, gutting the company's resources and forcing the company into bankruptcy, and laying off up to 30,000 workers at a time.

Private equity companies like Bain are infamous for paying little or no taxes on their predatory acquisitions and ill-gotten gains. (Source: "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America," by Charles H. Ferguson)