GOP Response

GOP Response: Ryan Says U.S. is Headed for Economic Disaster

Shortly after Ryan finished the official GOP response to Obama, tea party favorite Michele Bachmann, (R-Minn.) issued a response of her own.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Tuesday in the official Republican Party’s response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address that without dramatic action to bring the budget deficit under control, the United States is headed for economic disaster.

“Our nation is approaching a tipping point. We are at a moment, where if government’s growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America’s best century will be considered our past century,” Ryan said in remarks made minutes after Obama finished his speech. “The days of business as usual must come to an end. We hold to a couple of simple convictions: Endless borrowing is not a strategy; spending cuts have to come first.”

The Wisconsin Republican congressman, usually fiery in his remarks, was remarkably subdued Tuesday night.

“Our debt is the product of acts by many presidents and many Congresses over many years. No one person or party is responsible for it. There is no doubt the president came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation,” Ryan said. “Unfortunately, instead of restoring the fundamentals of economic growth, he engaged in a stimulus spending spree that not only failed to deliver on its promise to create jobs, but also plunged us even deeper into debt.”

Speaking from a budget panel hearing room that will be ground zero in the upcoming battle over cutting spending, Ryan echoed familiar GOP arguments. His words were repeated by numerous Republicans across the Capitol, who said Obama’s proposal for a five-year freeze on the operating budgets passed by Congress each year for domestic Cabinet agencies doesn’t go far enough.

Republicans are also skeptical of Obama’s plan for investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development. They said in many different ways that Obama was just trying to disguise a new stimulus by talking about investments in the nation’s future.

Shortly after Ryan finished the official GOP response to Obama, tea party favorite Michele Bachmann, (R-Minn.) issued a response of her own. While Bachman’s speech had technical difficulties, as she was looking at a camera that was not carrying her speech live on CNN, her words were much more critical of Obama than Ryan.

“After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don’t have,” Bachmann said. “But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt. It was unlike anything we have seen before.”

Both Ryan and Bachman denied there was any competition between them.

“Unfortunately, this last weekend, the media decided to create a fiction to make it look like we were in competition with one another. We aren’t at all,” Bachmann said.

The speech was aimed at issues dear to the hearts of Tea Party activists including government spending, the economy and the health care reform law signed by Obama. Armed with charts tracking the national debt and unemployment, Bachmann blasted Obama for adding $3.1 trillion to the national debt.

“In the end, unless we fully repeal ObamaCare, a nation that currently enjoys the world’s best healthcare may be forced to rely on government-run coverage that will have a devastating impact on our national debt for generations to come,” Bachmann said.