Ryan: Thumbs Down to Deficit Panel Plan

In today's debate with David Brooks, Rep. Paul Ryan claimed the GOP was open to compromise. Why then is he voting against the deficit panel's new bipartisan plan?

In the course of David Brooks recent debate with Paul Ryan on the size and scope of government, Brooks argued that the Republican party had reached a point where it avoided any and all compromise. Brooks said:

And my problem with the Republican Party right now, including Paul, is that if you offered them 80-20, they say no. If you offered them 90-10, they’d say no. If you offered them 99-1 they’d say no. And that’s because we’ve substituted governance for brokerism, for rigidity that Ronald Regan didn’t have.

During the debate itself, Ryan spoke highly of the different plans being floated to try and deal with the deficit. He said that the presence of some of these deficit plans presented a split within the Democratic Party between the progressive left and the centrist left. He stated that "I'll take an inch, rather than a mile, if I can take an inch in the right direction."

News outlets on Tuesday have also reported that Ryan intends to vote against the fiscal commission's deficit reduction panel because it accepts the premise that the new healthcare law does not add to the deficit.

This is certainly a point of contention where there can be a debate. However, since the deficit commission slays every other sacred cow in the liberal camp, isn't this the textbook definition of a case where Ryan gains an inch in the right direction by voting for it?

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