Republican lawmaker's budget plan gets Obama's attention

[Better Believe It]

Republican lawmaker's budget plan gets Obama's attention
By Perry Bacon Jr
February 5, 2010

Rep. Paul D. Ryan says he is determined to make sure the Republican Party is viewed as "the alternative party, not the opposition party."

That is a goal President Obama embraced when he visited House Republicans at their policy retreat in Baltimore last week, and he singled out Ryan as someone he would like to work with -- even mentioning budget legislation the Wisconsin Republican co-wrote.

Released two days before the unusual back-and-forth session between Obama and the GOP, the bill sponsored by Ryan and five other House members would seek to reduce the deficit and spur economic growth by cutting the tax rate on corporations, shifting future Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to private insurance plans, and both raising the retirement age gradually to 70 and reducing the growth of benefits to make Social Security solvent. Even Democrats have acknowledged that it is one of the few plans offered by a member of either party that would lower the long-term budget deficit.

Ryan, who said he had met Obama only briefly a couple of times, said he was surprised that the president talked about him and his ideas in the session. "I think he was paying me a compliment," the soft-spoken Republican said in an interview in his office and smiled as he spoke of Obama. But Ryan didn't see a lot of room for compromise.

"House Republicans are again trying to turn back the clock to the failed policies of President Bush," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-Pa.) said the Republican plan would "end Medicare as we know it."

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a co-sponsor of the legislation, responded that Obama predicted the kind of criticism Democrats would lodge against the bill, even as he lamented it as "how our politics works right now."

"There is a political vulnerability to doing anything that tinkers with Medicare. And that's probably the biggest savings that are obtained through Paul's plan," Obama said in Baltimore. "I raise that because we're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterized, whatever proposals are put out there, as, well, you know, that the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens."

Please read the full article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404238.html?hpid=topnews

[RoyGBiv]

1. Crashed. Burned. Smoking.