House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the House GOP’s budget, said on Wednesday that he fears President Obama’s budget will maintain the status quo.
“The status quo’s not working too well,” Ryan said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We have massive deficits, a crushing debt, a slow economy, high poverty rates. So is he going to break the status quo? Is he going to take on real entitlement reform? Is he going to kick start true negotiations? That’s the question that is open in my mind. I don’t hear much of that, though, so my fear, based on what I now know and what I’ve heard, is that it’s more of a status quo budget.”
But Ryan resisted going after Obama’s proposal too aggressively before he has seen all the details.
“The good news in all this, and I want to be constructive here, is at least we’ve got everybody putting a plan on the table,” Ryan added. “We haven’t had that for four years. So now the Senate has given us a budget. Don’t like the budget. They don’t like ours. That’s fine. And at least the President, two months late, is putting his budget on the table. So now we’re going to have to start looking for where the common ground exists.”
The President’s budget does embrace changes to entitlement benefits, including adopting Chained CPI. Obama is scheduled to discuss his budget proposal at 11 a.m. ET Wednesday at the White House.
