Incoming Budget Committee chairman — and fiscal commission member — Paul Ryan (R-WI) will not be voting for the White House Fiscal Commission’s report, he told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today.
“Obviously I’m not going to vote for it,” Ryan said. “I think I pretty much telegraphed that.”
Ryan was at pains to praise the commission’s chairmen, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, for their efforts, but ultimately criticized the plan dramatically — in particular, he says, because it reinforces President Obama’s health care law.
“It not only didn’t address the elephant in the room — health care — it made it fatter,” Ryan said. “This just makes the fiscal situation worse in my opinion, by not just keeping Obamacare but actually entrenching it more, and expanding it and accelerating it.”
“I think it makes health care dramatically worse,” Ryan added later. “I’m trying to be guarded in my comments, because I really respect what Erskine and Alan have done.”
So far, seven of the commission’s members have announced they will vote for it: Alice Rivlin, David Cote, Ann Fudge, Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) and the two chairmen. Two members — Ryan, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) — have announced they will vote against it. The commission will hold their vote tomorrow. Fourteen of the 18 commission members need to vote ‘yes’ to guarantee it a vote in Congress.
Update: Mike O’Brien of The Hill Tweets that Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) support the report, bringing the total number of supporters to 9.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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