Ryan Explains Opposition To Fiscal Commission's Plan

In a USA Today editorial on Monday, the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee outlined his opposition to the plan released last week by President Obama’s debt commission.

After calling the commission “a success” for sparking a “critical debate about the biggest problem facing this country,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) criticized the plan’s failure to address health care costs and said that the plan would “take us in the wrong direction” on health care entitlement programs.

Ryan also found fault with the commission’s proposal to eliminate tax deductions as a way to offset the cost of lowering tax rates for both individuals and corporations.

Tax increases, Ryan said, “would stifle growth and prosperity.”

Currently, the U.S. is mired in a strugging economy in which the unemployement rate is nearly 10%.

Although Ryan voted against sending the plan to Congress, he acknowledged that he is “eager to build upon” several components of the proposal “when we write next year’s budget.”

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