Paul Ryan, Rand Paul Clash Privately Over Budget

WASHINGTON -- Before releasing his budget publicly, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave Senate Republicans a private briefing about the plan in early April. During that meeting, Sen. Rand Paul, a Tea Party-backed freshman from Kentucky, challenged Ryan in front of the rest of their party, according to two GOP aides briefed on the meeting.

Sen. Paul said Rep. Ryan's plan did not do enough to cut spending and relied on too much deficit spending for too long, according to the aides.

Ryan gave it right back to him. The budget committee chairman went directly after Sen. Paul’s five-year budget plan, which he had clearly studied closely. Ryan’s criticism went roughly like this: yes, he said, you slash the Department of Education and make fast, dramatic cuts, but you don’t deal with entitlement spending. In the out years the deficit would sky-rocket, he said, making an air chart with his hand moving through the air and pointing sharply upward.

A GOP aide sympathetic to Sen. Paul said that Rep. Ryan’s criticism unfairly isolated a single part of his plan and treated as if it represented Paul’s global approach to deficit reduction. Paul does plan to announce a proposal for cutting entitlement spending, the aide said, but wanted to put the domestic spending plan out first.

The private challenge from Sen. Paul reflects criticisms of Rep. Ryan’s plan Paul also made to HuffPost. Paul thinks that Ryan’s approach doesn’t go nearly far enough.

“Here’s how bad it is: The president’s proposal, his ten year plan, is 46 trillion in spending. Paul Ryan’s alternative, which everybody is going crazy over, is still 40 trillion dollars in spending,” Paul told HuffPost. “My problem with the whole thing is that all of the proposals basically increase spending.”

Rand Paul said that Paul Ryan’s plan relies too heavily on deficit spending. “The president adds, I think, 11 trillion to the gross debt and Ryan’s plan adds eight trillion. I don’t think anybody up here realizes that we can’t withstand trillion dollar annual deficits,” he said.

A Ryan spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The House recently approved Ryan’s spending plan, but it was rejected by the Senate. A compromise budget that dramatically cuts government spending expires at the end of September.

Comments

[DonJuan1943]

07:44 PM on 04/23/2011

Both of these gentlemen have limited views of the situation and its potential solutions. The "solutions" proposed by both men make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. And neither man's ideas do anything to assist in long term reduction of the dent. They do not give a rat's patootie about anyone except the folks at the country club.

[AustinCrazed]

10:33 PM on 04/24/2011

You seem to be lacking in the information department. Rand Paul may have an R by his name but Obama and Paul Ryan are much closer of a comparison. They are of the same corporate greed breed and will continue raping this country while the Paul family is trying to protect the little guy.

[knewsreply]

07:31 PM on 04/23/2011

I thought Representative Ryan didn't understant the needs of working Americans, but does Senator Paul's have less understanding than Rep. Ryan? Ryan's and Paul's comments make me ask a question that I hope someone can answer, "Does Ryan get his financial support from the rich and does Paul get his financial support from the super rich?

[seventeengeese]

05:45 PM on 04/23/2011

Oh, oh. Sounds like a Bagger v. Libertard Cage Match.

Delish.

[dennis1943]

05:33 PM on 04/23/2011

Why Rand Paul has any political clout at all is beyond me.For that matter,same goes for his father.But at least his father has experience...................

[greetings101]

02:27 PM on 04/23/2011

his eyes are really big - i'd be scared if he was talking directly to me.

[statementOfIncensed]

01:51 PM on 04/23/2011

Yeah! Cut that Department of Education, you self-accredited physician Rand Paul you! No personal vendettas there, for the man who created a fictitious institution in order to confer upon himself the credentials required to practice medecine. No, there's no way such a man could have a personal vendetta against the Department of Education.

[JessWonderin]

01:48 PM on 04/23/2011

If Paul Ryan married Rand Paul would he be Paul Paul??

[jf1936]

01:42 PM on 04/23/2011

Senator Paul is right, congressman Ryan is wrong.

Rand's summary of the bottom line is the real truth here: Obama plans to spend 46 Trillion, Ryan wants to spend 40 trillion, and we can afford neither.

But what do we care, we're too busy talking about Paul Ryan's hair and Donald Trump's obsession with Obama's birth certificate and all this other crap.

Rand Paul is right - we need to cut the defense budget by 47 billion right off the bat and cut the federal deficit by $500 billion THIS YEAR if we want any chance of getting back to fiscal sanity in this country.

Oh wait, I can't say that, he's a (gasp) Republican!! We're only allowed to be non-partisan if the person we're agreeing with is a Democrat! (insert sad irony here)

[greetings101]

02:35 PM on 04/23/2011

how many times have you seen a republican agreed with a democrat? we just had democrats agreed to republicans $39 billiion in cuts; and what did republicans compromise? that's right nothing. so you should base your arguments on facts my friend.

[jf1936]

09:13 PM on 04/23/2011

huh? The Republicans were vying for $61 billion in cuts and agreed to 39. What they just did is the definition of compromise, how is that not rooted in fact?

[NRMLUNIT]

12:19 PM on 04/23/2011

When will Ryan come to realise that there are one or two who have a problem with his "PLAN". Maybe he should re-visit his own plan to see what is in it and where there just might be a problem. If anyone has visited his website and read his plan you know it's going to keep him busy for quite some time.

[Lindytindy]

10:34 AM on 04/23/2011

They have no plan. It's all just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic so it looks like they are doing something. And really they've already done enough. They will end up giving more money to the banks when the next collapse occurs, they will end up destroying our entitlements, and signing more trade agreements that de-industrialize us more, sending more jobs overseas, turning the USA into a commodities market opportunity as they sell off our assets. All so they can continue to make war on behalf of the corporations as Orwell's nightmare unfolds. We are the Fourth Reich, Obama is helping that along by continuing Bush's fine work to destroy our basic rights, like the opinion he shared yesterday about how 'Manning broke the law', really? No evidence, no charges, no trial...this is how it starts. Well it started long ago and got a huge boost with the Patriot Act.

[NRMLUNIT]

12:23 PM on 04/23/2011

"Moving the deck chairs on the Titanic" is a gem from Sarah. Give us more. She is just ssssssoooooo witty

[drini]

02:22 PM on 04/23/2011

the actual quote, which to my mind is better, is: rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[pita143]

09:54 AM on 04/23/2011

Ryan plan is NOT a Budget plan. It is a plan to aid his Corporate Sponsors by gutting agencies that protect our clean air and water and other regulatory agencies. Ryan's plan could lay off over 250,000 people. And economics 101 tells us you can not close a budget gap, or pay down the debt by reducing your income. The excessive Tax Cuts for the wealthy and the lost of all the income generated by the spending of those who will be laid off will turn this economy around and run us right into a depression.

You can NEVER close a budget gap, or pay down the debt by reducing your income, aka, Taxes.

[AustinCrazed]

10:46 PM on 04/24/2011

You are correct. You can't do it by reducing income but you can by reducing spending. Rand Paul's plan would balance the budget in a very short period of time and save the safety net while not forcing people into the welfare system due to high inflation. All of our children will have taxation without nrepresentation if they must pay our debts. The problem is NOT a lack of income.

[kankankan]

09:52 AM on 04/23/2011

better than Ryan's plan or Obama's plan

the progressive budget closes deficit sooner without abolishing Medicare
http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf

[kankankan]

09:50 AM on 04/23/2011

if we are serious about deficit reduction, just go back to what we were doing when we had a surplus in 2000....repeal all spending and tax cuts that occurred during W years..only cuts to Medicare that need be are cutting Medicare Advantage programs that cost 14 percent more than Medicare traditional and the Pharma-boondoggle Medicare Part D (if you think that is too harsh, means test and help the 15 percent who really benefited, but negotiate with drug companies), cut defense spending back to late 90 levels, raise taxes to Clinton admin levels...were taxes so onerous then? was social safety net destroyed then? Yes economy doing worse than late 90s, so we will have to do more, buy ondoing W year policies and living like it was 1999 would go a long way towards getting us back on track

[pita143]

09:57 AM on 04/23/2011

I agree. Stop ALL Corporate Welfare. Workers do not get paid until they prove they have worked, the same should hold true for Tax Credits for companies. You produce jobs, you get a tax credit, you expand your business and create jobs, you get a tax credit. If you return an outsourced operation to the USA you get a bigger tax credit, if you return a manufacturing operation to the USA you get a HUGE Tax Credit and first dibs on any Government Contract you can fulfill.

You don't get a penny until you earn it, just like your average worker does.

[AustinCrazed]

10:53 PM on 04/24/2011

When will people learn that the government is not capable of economic and social engineering? Everytime their policies fail miserably and everytime they fail they cry "EMERGENCY we need to create 2 more agencies to figure out what went wrong when we meddled last time." But at least here we have you to suggest some more ways that they can meddle and they will probably adopt your ideas so that they can explain the next big failure on public pressure, while they continue to destroy the currency to kill of the poor. Good thinking.

[uniquindividual]

11:24 AM on 04/23/2011

It worked then

http://zfacts.com/p/1195.html

Unfortunately this is a different now...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SXu-IBM6k3I/AAAAAAAAEXE/Q2KYO8ce_9Q/s1600-h/TradeDeficitGDP.jpg


http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/us-health-spending-breaks-from-the-pack/

[okiedemocrat]

09:42 AM on 04/23/2011

Good Hair vs. Toupee Hair.

[jf1936]

01:38 PM on 04/23/2011

that pretty much exemplifies the level of ignorance we're dealing with in this country. We are discussing the entire fiscal future of our nation and all people like you with your 60 iq have to say is "durp we got here good hair vs. toupee lookin' hair, yepper"

[kcin]

08:41 AM on 04/23/2011

Those who benefit the most from our economic system should be expected to keep it solvent.

Net worth in the US increased $2.1 trillion just in the last quarter of 2010. Yet the Radical Right is focused on decreasing our income by cutting taxes for those who gained the most, then paying for those cuts by taking money from everyone else.

We were solvent before Reaganomics. It is time to return to the fiscal policies that made us prosperous:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1940_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy10&chart=H0-fed&bar=0&stack=1&size=l&title=US%20Federal%20Debt%20As%20Percent%20Of%20GDP&state=US&color=c&local=s

This chart shows the impact of Reaganomics on our Debt (down is good, up is bad). It also shows the positive impact of the Clinton tax rates.

The answer is simple. Increase taxes on those who can afford it. After all, none of them made this money on their own. They made it from our system, using our citizens and resources, and it's all protected by our military.

It's time to end Corporate Welfare and restore Tax Fairness!