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Author of Debt Ceiling Austerity Plan Spotted Drinking $350 Bottle of Wine

  • Spence Cooper
  • July 29, 2011

Author of Debt Ceiling Austerity Plan Spotted Drinking 0 Bottle of WineBoth Washington and the country are contentiously divided over spending cuts and tax revenues as the nation holds its breath while members of Congress scurry through the halls on Capital Hill to make last minute deals over raising the country’s debt ceiling.

Now regardless of your party affiliation, or your position on raising the debt ceiling, a climate of austerity has swept across the country where high unemployment persists and record numbers are on food stamps.

Suffice it to say: people are watching.

With Congressional approval hitting an all time low of 6 percent, you’d think as a Washington politician the last thing you’d want a potential voter to see is you casually enjoying, not one, but two bottles of expensive wine ($350 each) at an upscale Washington, D.C., restaurant.

So it should come as no surprise that when Susan Feinberg, an associate professor at Rutgers Business School, dined at the very same restaurant and saw Representative Paul Ryan — author of a Republican budget plan that some see as leading the elderly to economic slaughter — sipping from a bottle of $350 wine, Feinberg was bound and determined to let everyone know.

Feinberg writes: “Ryan’s dinner raised my eyebrows that night at the restaurant where I was enjoying a special birthday dinner with my husband. Ryan and his companions occupied the table directly across from us, and soon after arriving, they ordered two bottles of the most expensive wine on the menu, a $350 French grand cru Burgundy.”

Later, Feinberg decided to give Ryan a piece of her mind:

“After finishing our dinner and paying our bill, I approached Ryan’s table and asked the congressman how he could live with himself: drinking $700 worth of wine, the equivalent of a week’s wages for many Americans, while actively working to take away their health care benefits. Ryan’s only response was that he had no idea how much the wine cost. This struck me as ironic, coming from the GOP’s lead budget architect.”

It turns out Ryan was telling the truth, because one of Ryan’s dinner companions, a hedge fund manager, ordered and later paid for the wine. But Ryan’s lack of judgement is a head shaker.

Who in their right mind would drink $700 worth of wine in public while negotiating spending cuts that, as Feinberg sees it, saddles others with all the burdens of “austerity”. You’d think politicians would think twice about even dining out, let alone be seen drinking a $350 bottle of French grand cru Burgundy.

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