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A defining moment for Paul Ryan's hometown: General Motors, after nearly a century of making Chevrolets on the banks of the Rock River, shut down its oldest assembly plant and erased 6,000 jobs.
Janesville, a town of 60,000 roughly 40 miles southeast of the capital city of Madison, is one of a dozen communities nationwide rocked by the near-collapse of General Motors.
This area's unemployment rate spiked to 12 percent in the immediate aftermath of the local plant's closure that April, and it remains just under 10 percent — higher than Wisconsin and the nation as a whole.
Even if the automaker reopened, city economic development director Vic Grassman says wages would be far lower because of union agreements struck before the plant was idled.
As the GM plant headed for closure, Ryan — who has represented Janesville in Congress for the past 14 years — made a rare departure from his free-market orthodoxy that frowns on government intervention.
He backed the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, a bailout Romney has loudly said was a mistake, and teamed with Democrats in Madison and in Wisconsin's congressional delegation to unsuccessfully lobby GM to keep the plant running.
"It wasn't for lack of effort," said state Sen. Tim Cullen, a Janesville Democrat who praised Ryan's quiet efforts. "Paul was doing all this work and he told me about it, but he never put a press release out about it."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ryans-hometown-route-back-prosperity-17025203?page=2#.UC4Dvdlt520