Ryan Deletes Tweet Celebrating School Secretary’s ‘$1.50 A Week’ Paycheck Increase

Update: Shortly after this post was published, Speaker Ryan deleted the tweet in question, shown in text-only format below. 

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Saturday celebrated a public school secretary who said her paycheck had grown $1.50 per week larger as a result of Republicans’ tax bill.

A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week … she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year. https://t.co/yLX1Bod1j0

— Paul Ryan (@PRyan) February 3, 2018

The take home pay increase, reported by the Associated Press in an article Ryan published on his Twitter account, stems from new withholding guidelines from the IRS, the result of Republicans’ tax overhaul.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in January that the Treasury Department estimated 90 percent of wage earners would see an increase in take home pay as a result of the withholding changes, the report noted.

But the top Democrats on both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee — Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), respectively — wrote to the Government Accountability Office three days prior to that announcement to request an analysis of the new guidelines, saying the change could cost Americans in the long run.

“I look forward to GAO’s independent review of these tables, which will expose whether the Trump administration is tampering with Americans’ paychecks, resulting in a whopping tax bill next year,” Wyden said, as quoted by CNN.

Ryan also posted a quote from a man the AP said “got an extra $200 in his paycheck last week, which he said will help offset a $300 increase in the cost of his health insurance.”

“I have heard time and again that the middle class is getting crumbs, but I’ll take it!” https://t.co/yLX1Bod1j0

— Paul Ryan (@PRyan) February 2, 2018