Leading House Republicans have been at pains to distance themselves from legislation sponsored by their top budget guy, Paul Ryan, that would partially privatize Social Security and turn Medicare in to a voucher program. But speaking at an event at the Brookings Institution this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer insisted that if the GOP is interested in eliminating deficits, they’re stuck with the Ryan plan.
“As much as his party’s leadership tries to distance itself from his plan, Paul Ryan’s program, or something very much like it, is the logical outcome of the other party’s rhetoric of cutting taxes and deficits at the same time,” Hoyer said.
Hoyer commended Ryan for putting together a serious, though politically unpalatable plan, and suggested that other members of Congress–particularly Republicans–are trying to have it both ways by demagoguing fiscal responsibility without putting their names to a proposal.
The Ryan plan, Hoyer said, “doesn’t raise a single tax, but as a consequence it significantly changes Medicare.”
(The Ryan plan would, in fact, result in tax increases for the middle class.)
Hoyer went on, “That strikes me–in terms of cutting Medicare very deeply to accomplish the objective without any thought of additional revenues from any source, strikes me–as I think it would strike most Americans, as very much the wrong solution.”
