Ryan: Attack On My Budget Roadmap Orchestrated By White House

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)–House Republicans’ top budget guy, and the author of a long-term budget roadmap that would slash Medicare and Social Security–says that attacks against his plan were orchestrated by the highest levels of the Democratic party, all the way up to the President.

The attack, Ryan told former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, “came out of the Democratic National Committee, and that is the White House.”

Ryan believes he’s a target purely for reasons of misdirection.

“[Democrats] had an ugly week of budget news,” Ryan said. They are precipitating a debt crisis, with deficits that get up to 85 percent of GDP and never get to a sustainable level. They are flirting with economic disaster.”

And, in a quip that might rile liberals, who place a great deal of the blame for the country’s fiscal problems at the feet of the Bush administration, Ryan says that under GOP rule, America was “sleepwalking” towards a crisis. But with Democrats in power, everyone woke up.

“The way I look at it, we were sleepwalking down this path anyway,” Ryan said. “The Democratic overreach woke people up. It was a splash of cold water in the face of every voter. Now we have a new, more serious conversation. And I’m not going to back down.”

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