Last night, Paul Ryan...

...compared the United States to, among other countries, Ireland:

They didn’t act soon enough; and now their government [has] been forced to impose painful austerity measures: large benefit cuts to seniors and huge tax increases on everybody.

But as Paul Krugman points out:

Ireland was running a budget surplus on the eve of the crisis, and had quite low debt. Its problems now have nothing to do with fiscal irresponsibility in the past; they’re the consequence of weak financial regulation and the government’s too-generous bank bailout.