House Budget Committee chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has rejected President Barack Obama’s demand to raise taxes as part of Obama’s proposal to achieve $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenues to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”
Instead, Ryan backed Speaker John Boehner’s position, which is that any new tax revenues must be achieved without passing higher tax rates.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Ryan specified that new revenues should come through economic growth and tax reform, not tax hikes:
Speaker Boehner has outlined a bipartisan way forward to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and get our economy growing: common-sense entitlement reform coupled with pro-growth tax reform. We can find common ground on responsible spending restraint and greater revenue through economic growth, but we have yet to see either a serious plan or leadership from President Obama. Speaker Boehner and House Republicans have delivered both.
Earlier today, President Obama signaled an openness to tax reform, but said that “closing loopholes in deductions” would not cover the cost of extending the current tax rates for the top two percent of earners.
Obama reiterated that he interpreted last week’s election results as a mandate to raise taxes as a means to balance the federal budget. Ryan told ABC News yesterday that the electorate had not voted for higher taxes, since Republicans had retained control of the House of Representatives after opposing tax hikes.
Ryan’s support for Boehner signals growing unity among House Republicans behind the Speaker’s refusal to consider new taxes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also made a firm commitment to prevent tax hikes in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News last week. Bipartisan talks on the “fiscal cliff’ begin Friday.
If Chris Christie lit a fire under Republicans last night, it’s now up to Paul Ryan to provide the fuel to keep it burning for what promises to be a hard-fought two-month battle to win the White House.
The Republican vice presidential candidate is teed up Wednesday to deliver the “hard truths” Christie talked about in his rousing keynote address on opening night. While Christie is known as the GOP fighter, Ryan is the point-man for budget-balancing solutions the party claims to represent.
The Wisconsin congressman has been quietly preparing his speech for days. Members of Ryan’s staff contacted by Fox News earlier this week said they couldn’t say precisely how long it would be, but that he has “teased” some of the ideas in it before.
Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is best known for his controversial plans to overhaul Medicare and the tax system. They are likely the kinds of “hard truths” Christie raised Tuesday night, as the New Jersey governor claimed Mitt Romney and Ryan would lead a “new era of truth-telling” in Washington.
Before Paul Ryan was pinned as an “extreme” and “radical” ideologue, Democrats actually kind of liked the guy.
Several clips of prominent Democrats — including President Obama — praising Ryan have surged through the Internet in the days since Mitt Romney tapped the Wisconsin congressman as his running mate. They once called his ideas “serious” and “honest,” which is not what the Obama campaign and its affiliates are saying about him now.
Arguably the most robust praise came from Erskine Bowles, the White House chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton who recently co-chaired President Obama’s deficit-reduction committee.
In a late 2011 talk at the University of North Carolina, Bowles told the audience “this guy is amazing.”
Paul Ryan used his first solo campaign swing as Mitt Romney’s running mate Monday to hammer President Obama as a jobs killer, forcefully echoing Romney’s message, while Obama used a pair of nearby campaign stops to accuse Ryan of hurting drought-stricken farmers.
Ryan was dispatched to Iowa by team Romney to challenge the president as Obama kicked off a three-day bus tour across the Hawkeye State.
Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, was occasionally interrupted by hecklers during a speech at the Iowa State Fair but stuck to a meat-and-potatoes message of jobs and the deficit.
“As you see the president come through on his bus tour, you might ask him the same question that I’m getting asked from people all around America, and that is, ‘Where are the jobs Mr. President?’” Ryan said in Des Moines.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee–and potential running mate of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney–told Breitbart News this week that the party’s leaders are “absolutely” committed to repealing Obamacare.
“It would have been nice for the Supreme Court to repeal it for us,” he said, “but it’s no harder today than it was the day before the decision. We win, we repeal. It’s just that simple.”
Ryan, speaking exclusively with Breitbart News, added that there was no disagreement about repealing Obamacare among the various Republican leaders, or with the Romney campaign. “Not in any of the meetings I have been having,” he said.
Earlier in the week, conservatives criticized apparently conciliatory postures by the Romney campaign and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell and Romney have since confirmed their commitment to repealing Obamacare as a first priority after the election.
Asked whether Republicans had a plan ready to replace Obamacare, Ryan pointed to several plans that had already been proposed, including his own and that of Rep.Tom Price (R-GA). While there was common agreement on the need for a “patient-centered” system, Ryan said there were “differences of opinion” on the details of an alternative, particularly on the issue of whether to use tax credits to help people buy insurance.
“I don’t think those differences will be resolved between now and the election,” Ryan said. “There will be a cacophony of ideas.” He explained that Republican leaders would introduce reforms one-by-one, following repeal of Obamacare in the 113th Congress.
If Paul Ryan were to become president or vice president someday, or speaker of the House, he would still likely be remembered for the work with which his name is almost always linked: the House GOP’s alternative budget, officially known as “The Path To Prosperity,” but inevitably referred to in media shorthand as “The Ryan Budget” or “The Ryan Plan.”
It is a plan that has carried him to the nation’s front pages in the years since he introduced the first version in 2008 and indeed, it propelled him to being the Veep candidate with the most media coverage between March 16 and April 16, according to HighBeam research. He bested popular Sen. Marco Rubio, 27 percent to 23.5 percent, according to the analysis of media attention, released last week.
The Ryan Budget, unlike its predecessors, has special significance in 2012: This is a presidential election year and The Ryan Budget is sure to be targeted by Democrats as a repository of “gloom and doom” and, perhaps, embraced by Republican officeholders and candidates as a program they will enact if they maintain control of the House and win the Senate and presidency this fall.
CBS – Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Sunday he “would consider” running in the vice presidential slot on the 2012 Republican ticket, though is “so focused” on his current job that it’s “not even” in his mind.
Ryan, chair of the House Budget Committee, unveiled a budget plan this week that has been praised by GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney — and been dubbed the “Romney-Ryan budget” by top Obama administration adviser David Plouffe.
“I’m so focused on my job in Congress. If I wanted to be president or vice president so badly I would have run for president. I don’t — so I didn’t,” Ryan said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Still, Ryan wouldn’t entirely close the door on the No. 2 spot when pressed by host Norah O’Donnell.
“I would consider it but it’s not even something in my mind because it’s a decision someone else makes at a later time,” he said. “It’s a bridge I haven’t gotten close to having to cross so in the meantime I think it’s important to do my job.”
Democratic national leaders touted Kathy Hochul’s victory in an election for an open congressional seat in a western New York district that traditionally has been safe GOP turf as a clear sign of public opposition to the Republican plan to privatize Medicare.Analysts cautioned about reading too much into the election results from one congressional district, even one long controlled by Republicans. Still, they said the Democratic win should make Republicans nervous about voters’ reception to their Medicare proposal.Don’t count Rep. Paul Ryan among the nervous, the author of the budget plan involving Medicare, who defiantly predicted on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning that the Democrats would ramp up what he described as their “Mediscare” tactics. The Wisconsin Republican denounced the Democratic attacks as “demagoguery.”
Via the Weekly Standard, we’ve joked about this sort of liberal messaging before but I honestly didn’t think we’d see it. Surely, after years and years of leftist whinging about “the politics of fear,” they wouldn’t resort to imagery of Republicans actually killing frail old ladies.
“In over two decades of service in the Senate, Herb Kohl has done much to help the great state of Wisconsin and the lives of its residents. While Senator Kohl and I have had our policy disagreements in the past, he has always had my respect. It has been a privilege to work with him over the years, and I wish him the best in his future endeavors. I was surprised by Senator Kohl’s announcement and want to take some time over the next few days to discuss this news with my family and supporters before making any decision about how I’m best able to serve my employers in the First Congressional District, our state and nation.”
AP – House Speaker John Boehner, center, gestures while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill April 6.
House Republicans are planning to bring yet another stopgap budget bill to the floor in a bid to avert a government shutdown, as negotiations over a spending package for the rest of the year falter.
The proposal would be the third short-term budget bill in two months. The prospect of voting on another stopgap has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, some of whom have vowed to oppose one. But while dozens of GOP members defected the last time around, House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News he has enough GOP support to pass this bill without any Democrats.
“We don’t need one Democratic vote,” he said.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said earlier Wednesday that he would be willing to help Republicans whip up support for a short-term spending plan. However, he also said he opposes the specific package that House Speaker John Boehner has been pushing — a one-week bill that would cut $12 billion, while also funding the military for the rest of the year. And Boehner said Wednesday that’s exactly the plan he wants to put on the floor.
posted at 10:12 am on January 26, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
Actually, Reason TV goes for a more prosaic title with iPhone and oBama: Two Expensive New Models. Only it’s hard to tell the 2011 iPhone from the 2010 model, just as it’s difficult to tell the 2011 SOTU from its predecessor in 2010. In fact, it’s pretty easy to merge the two speeches into the same theme both used, which is to spend even more on federal government initiatives, as Ted Balaker demonstrates:
However, Eric Ostermeier at Smart Politics did a little more analysis between the two speeches and found some key differences. The biggest of these is that Obama managed to talk about the economy less this year than he did last year, even after losing a midterm election for ignoring the economy and joblessness for most of his first two years as President, emphasis mine:
WARNING: Freedom of SPEECH and of the PRESS is still the LAW.
THIS WEBSITE IS SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST. TAMPERING WITH THIS WEBSITE IS PUNISHABLE BY LAW AS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Scripture Call for God’s People:
II Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
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Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed
If Chris Christie lit a fire under Republicans last night, it’s now up to Paul Ryan to provide the fuel to keep it burning for what promises to be a hard-fought two-month battle to win the White House.
July 5, 2012 by Joel B. Pollak
Madeleine Morgenstern
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