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Politico...
Paul Ryan’s proposal
poses a predicament for GOP
By Alexander Burns & Alex Isenstadt
4/5/11
The dramatic 2012 spending plan unveiled Tuesday by House Budget
Committee Chairman Paul Ryan amounts to a test of political will for
the GOP’s most vulnerable lawmakers, some of them only a few months
into their maiden terms.
The decision before them boils down to this: Will they stake their
seats on a risky vote to overhaul the federal budget, including the
popular Medicare entitlement program?
So far, the most popular answer is: maybe.
“I am still looking over the details of the chairman’s proposal,” Rep.
Bobby Schilling, a surprise 2010 winner from western Illinois, said in
a statement. “Though I may not agree with every proposed cut, I am glad
an open dialogue about our nation’s fiscal crisis is taking place.”
A spokeswoman for Blake Farenthold, one of the most endangered members
of the historic freshman class, said the congressman is “concerned
about making sure that cuts are in line with his commitment to South
Texans” and “does not have a firm position on the Ryan budget bill as
he is reading through it.”
Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy called Ryan’s plan a “bold proposal” yet
stopped short of endorsing it. New York Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, elected
last November to an upstate swing district, praised Ryan’s blueprint as
“serious” but added that she’ll be “reviewing the proposal in more
detail.”
Another upstate New York freshman, Rep. Richard Hanna, said he’ll
“spend the next several days studying chairman Ryan’s proposal and
other budgets offered by my colleagues.”
Either a sudden surge of studiousness is sweeping through battleground
districts, or these Republicans can smell the danger.
There’s plenty of reason to be cautious: An NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll last month showed fewer than a quarter of Americans
supported cutting funds for Medicare and fewer than a third wanted to
cut Medicaid — numbers that Republican pollster Bill McInturff called a
“huge flashing yellow sign to Republicans.”
And Democrats are openly cheering the prospect of a 2012 election
fought over entitlements. Within hours of Ryan’s budget release, the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee branded it a “privatization
scheme” that would result in “ending Medicare.
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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