House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said the payroll tax cut extension is stalled in Congress because “the president’s party leaders are more or less not engaging” in conversations with Republicans about paying for the measure.
“If you just extend this without paying for it by cutting spending, then you’re accelerating the bankruptcy of Social Security,” Ryan said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I do believe this will get extended, but when we make offer after offer…yet they still insist on not coming to agreement, it’s difficult to see exactly how this is going to pan out.”
Ryan also talked about Medicare and said his plan to reform it will “save and strengthen” the nation’s health-care program for seniors.
“Medicare is going bankrupt,” he told host George Stephanapoulos. “We’re showing that there’s bipartisan consensus in Congress on how to preserve the Medicare guarantee, how to save and strengthen the program.”
He said Obamacare will gut Medicare by taking a half a trillion dollars from the program to spend on the new health-care law. Further, he said Obamacare “puts a board of 15 unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of cutting Medicare.”
Addressing the controversy surrounding the requirement that Catholic institutions provide contraception coverage in their insurance plans, Ryan accused President Barack Obama of “doubling down” by shifting who must pay for the coverage.
“To paraphrase the bishop’s letter, it’s a distinction without a difference,” Ryan said. “It’s an accounting gimmick or a fig leaf. It’s a real teachable moment for America. They’re treating our constitutional First Amendment rights as revocable privileges from our government, not as inalienable rights from our creator.”
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