Thousands donate $1.50 to Paul Ryan’s opponent after embarrassing tax tweet

House Speaker Paul Ryan had a rough weekend.

On Saturday, Ryan tried to dispute the charge that the GOP tax bill was a handout to corporations and billionaires at the expense of the middle class, by tweeting about a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, high school secretary whose take-home pay increased by $1.50 a week. It was an incredibly patronizing remark that drew immediate backlash and caused him to delete the tweet in humiliation.

But the internet is forever, and activists promptly made the $1.50 pay raise a rallying cry in favor of his Democratic opponent, Racine ironworker and union leader Randy Bryce.

According to a spokesperson from Bryce’s office, speaking to Shareblue Media, “From Saturday through 1 p.m. on Sunday, we raised $130,000 from 10,600 contributions.” Furthermore, 5,100 of those contributions were $1.50.

It is clear that Ryan’s laughable attempt to pretend the tax scam would benefit the middle class has completely backfired.

Ryan is desperate for the tax bill, which was rammed through Congress without regular order and without a single Democratic vote, to be a political win in a landscape where House Republicans are gravely threatened. He even tried to claim Democrats are only criticizing the partisan abuses of House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes as a ploy to distract from the supposed benefits working people were receiving.

But the benefits he is touting are paltry at best. Very few companies are offering permanent pay raises to employees as a result of the tax bill. Some are offering one-time bonus checks that are smaller than the forecasted increase in health insurance premiums the tax cuts will cause. And some corporations, like Kimberly-Clark and Harley-Davidson, are actually using the tax cuts to lay people off.

If Ryan thinks working people should celebrate a tax benefit of $1.50 a week, it is only natural that many of them would be putting that money toward getting him out of office.