On the day the federal government reached its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on Monday argued that Democrats would do far more harm to Medicare than Republicans. Rep. Ryan, R-Wis., told the Economic Club of Chicago that despite Democratic claims that the Republican plan to reform Medicare would hurt seniors, the Democratic plan would take away patients’ benefits by allowing an independent board to decide how to cut the program’s costs.
“Their plan is to give government the power to deny care to seniors,” Ryan said.
Ryan is the second House Republican leader in a week to make a major speech promoting the GOP budget proposal, which slashes domestic spending and converts Medicare to a voucher program.
Last week, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made the case for the Republican plan before the Economic Club of New York.
Republicans have tied their budget plan to ongoing negotiations over raising the debt ceiling in hopes of achieving significant cuts in domestic spending, at the very least. The government technically reached that borrowing limit Monday, but Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he will borrow from federal pensions to help pay the nation’s loans until Aug. 2.
The speeches come in the wake of aggressive attacks led by President Obama to portray the Republican budget proposal as one that would end Medicare “as we know it” and cut the entitlement’s level of benefits. Those cuts, Democrats say, will be made as the GOP fights to block a Democratic bill to end tax breaks for the nation’s top five oil companies.
“Ryan’s so-called Path to Prosperity is really a ‘Road to Ruin’ paved on the backs of American workers, seniors, children, small businesses and our economy,” read one missive from House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday.
Obama said the Ryan plan would leave seniors “at the mercy of the insurance companies,” and called instead for a “shared sacrifice” that blended spending cuts and higher taxes to resolve the nation’s budget woes.
Ryan’s budget speech Monday sought to counter Obama’s attacks. It was entitled “Shared Scarcity Versus Renewed Prosperity.”
Ryan argued in his speech that the higher taxes and increased spending Obama is proposing in his plan will hamper productivity and business and ultimately weaken the economy. Ryan instead called for slashing spending and government regulations that hamper business.
“Republicans are using these speeches as an opportunity to get their message out there and compete with the large megaphone the White House has,” said Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
The scathing criticisms flung by Republican and Democratic lawmakers underscored what little progress the two parties have made in recent weeks on finding a compromise that will satisfy enough GOP members to pass a debt limit increase before August.
With poll numbers showing many voters opposing a debt limit increase, a group of GOP lawmakers has begun to question whether the limit should be raised at all.
Failure to raise the debt limit could lead to a double-dip recession, Geithner warned last week.
