By Andrea Salazar
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) accused President Obama today of “sowing social unrest” as he travels across the country promoting his jobs bill.
Ryan said that as a presidential candidate, Obama pledged to put politics aside to tackle the country’s problems. However, the chairman said the president has not followed his own advice.
“Instead of working together where we agree, the President has opted for divisive rhetoric and the broken politics of the past,” Ryan said during a speech at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. “He is going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats, and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for punitive tax hikes on job creators.”
Ryan later defended his budget proposal, which came under severe attack earlier this year by Obama and congressional Democrats.
“The President has wrongly framed Republican efforts to get government spending under control as hard-hearted attacks on the poor,” Ryan said. “In reality, spending on programs for seniors and for lower-income families continues to grow every year under the House-passed budget – it just grows at a sustainable rate. We direct tax dollars where they’re needed most, and stop spending money we don’t have on boondoggles we don’t need.”
Instead of working toward “equality of outcome,” Ryan suggested working toward “equality of oportunity” by reforming the tax code, instead of raising taxes on the rich.
“Let’s stop trying to pick winners and losers in Washington, through the tax code or through spending, and just lower the rates and broaden the base so everybody’s treated the same and so that our companies are competitive,” Ryan said.