Ryan: My Budget is a Political Winner

Paul Ryan is shocked that the president has attacked his budget proposal and is now painting the GOP as a party which wants to leave seniors to fend for themselves. At an event hosted by the think tank e21 and moderated by Fred Barnes, Ryan presented his response to the President’s Wednesday budget speech and defended the political viability of his own proposal.

Ryan seemed genuinely surprised that the President used his speech to attack the GOP budget. “I was expecting an olive branch speech” instead, Ryan felt he got “front row seats to President Obama’s reelection speech.”

Ryan always knew his plan would be politically dangerous, but he claims that the fact that the President joined in was unexpected: “I knew we were going to get a lot of partisan attacks, but we didn’t expect it from the commander in chief.”

Ryan frequently mentioned that the president’s willingness to address the Republican caucus during their retreat at Baltimore as a sign that he thought the president would be above the partisan fray: “The President said we can’t treat the other party as if they are hurting people... that’s the opposite of what we got yesterday.”

During the Q&A session, one reporter from Fox News managed to ask Ryan a very important question: even though the whip count on the GOP budget currently looks very good in the house, the fact is that it’s simply not going to pass the Senate as long as Democrats control it. Was there any hope of a grand bargain, perhaps with revenue raising taxes on the table? Ryan shot down the idea immediately, and stated that they would not support tax increases.

In his comments, Ryan seemed noticeably exasperated with the president’s speech: “It [the election] is not until November of 2012, it’s April of 2011!”

It’s impossible to know whether Ryan was simply feigning shock, or if the language from the president’s response really did surprise him as much as it did. “I was expecting the president to give a substantive, legitimate, critique of our ideas. We did not get that, we got a partisan broadside.”

Fred Barnes asked Ryan about the politics of his budget. Ryan argued that he knew his plan would be attacked, but that he believes the country is on his side:

I really do not believe that this is a political liability, here is why, people feel there is a fiscal and economic problem, most people know we are on the wrong track. The specifics maybe not so much, but that’s why we do town hall meetings.

Ryan’s statement suggests that he believes the current economic climate has left Americans more amenable to significant changes to the entitlement system. It’s a very big gamble.

Concerns that the country is on the “wrong track” are tied very closely to macroeconomic indicators such as the unemployment rate. If the unemployment rate goes down significantly, so do those concerns.

Ryan’s own statement also acknowledges that people have a vague sense that “something is not right” but they don’t necessarily know what is not right. Ryan is hoping that those vague feelings mean that people are ok with overhauling entitlements.

Ryan may claim to be genuinely surprised that Obama turned the GOP budget into a political opportunity, but by his own admission, Ryan believes it is a fight the GOP can win. It’s a hypothesis that will likely be tested in 2012.

Follow Noah on Twitter: @noahkgreen

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