Paul Ryan is Romney’s VP pick, setting up stark choice
on budget issues
By
Philip
Rucker and Rosalind
S. Helderman, Updated: Saturday, August 11, 11:26 AM
NORFOLK — Mitt
Romney has selected Rep. Paul
Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate, introducing the
seven-term congressman and architect of Republicans’ budget-cutting plans at a
spirited rally on the deck of a battleship here Saturday morning.
In shirt sleeves and tie, Romney
promised that he and Ryan would restore the American economy by cutting
deficits and growing jobs. He called Ryan a man of integrity and character rooted
in his middle-class Midwestern upbringing and said he had chosen a
candidate with a vision for addressing the nation’s fiscal problems.
“He’s never been content to simply
curse the darkness,” Romney said of Ryan. “He’d rather light candles.”
Romney said that he and Ryan will
travel the country offering a campaign focused on “American aspirations and
American ideals.”
Bounding to the deck of the USS
Wisconsin— a not-so-subtle nod to Ryan’s home state — Ryan used his
introduction on the national stage to praise Romney as a “man for this moment,”
a leader capable of resetting the economy.
“Mitt Romney is a leader with the skills,
the background and the character that our country needs at a crucial time in
its history. Following four years of failed leadership, the hopes of our
country, which have inspired the world, are growing dim, and they need someone
to revive them,” he said. “Governor Romney is the man for this moment, and he
and I share one commitment: We will restore the dreams and greatness of this
country.”
By selecting Ryan, Romney has made a
potentially bold but risky move to reset the dynamics of the presidential
election.
He has chosen the intellectual heart
of the Republican party’s movement to slash deficits
and signaled a desire to place the nation’s looming fiscal challenges at the
center of the campaign’s final months.
But Ryan’s proposal to overhaul
Medicare has already become a favorite target for Democrats, who charge that it
would essentially end the popular retiree program and shred the social safety
net.
Reacting to the pick, Jim Messina,
campaign manager for President Obama’s reelection effort, called the Ryan’s
budget proposals “radical” and said they would ensure “budget-busting tax cuts
for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and
seniors.”
Elevated to chairman of the Budget
Committee with the Republican take-over of the House in the 2010 midterm
elections, Ryan authored a budget proposal that called for reducing deficits to
their lowest levels in decades by dramatically shrinking spending.
Notably, the plan called for
reshaping Medicare into a government payment that would allow seniors to
purchase private insurance, an attempt to curb the rising costs of the
entitlement program.
That idea will now play a key role
in critical swing states with large retiree populations, most notably Florida,
where Romney and Ryan are scheduled to campaign on Monday.
The pick will likely energize a GOP
base that sought a campaign with a clear vision for the country and not focused
exclusively on criticizing Obama. In Norfolk, a crowd of more than 1,500
lustily cheered nearly every line of his short address, responding with more
obvious enthusiasm to Ryan than to the man who chose him.
But Democrats have savored the
chance to place Ryan’s prescription for deficit reduction at the heart of the
presidential election, believing the details
of the plan will convince voters that Democrats offer a fairer path to
reduced deficits through a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes on the
wealthy.
“As a member of Congress, Ryan
rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit
and crashed our economy. Now the Romney-Ryan ticket would take us back by
repeating the same, catastrophic mistakes,” Messina said.
While Romney’s pick does not
replicate the surprise jolt of Arizona Sen. John
McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin four years ago, Ryan is
nonetheless a splashier choice than several other contenders who had been
considered safer options.
Two who were high on Romney’s short
list of VP contenders — former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty
and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman — were informed in recent days that they would not be
on the ticket, according to two Republican sources. Both were scheduled for
other events on Saturday.
Romney made the decision to choose
Ryan on Aug. 1, the day he returned to the United States from his foreign tour,
according to a campaign aide.
With the selection of Ryan, Romney
offers voters the starkest possible choice on how to address issues of spending
and taxing, embracing Ryan’s single-minded focus on reducing the nation’s debt
without raising taxes.
David Winston, a pollster who has
advised House Republicans, said the pick ensures that a Romney win would
represent more than just a referendum on Obama and would hand the new
Republican president a governing mandate.
“If you win by a good margin, and
it’s clear what you were running on, then you come into the presidency with an
ability to implement those policies,” he said.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen
(D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the pick
“will clearly sharpen the issues.”
“Elections are about the future
direction of the country, and this choice demonstrates that Mitt Romney is
doubling down on an economic agenda that benefits people like Mitt Romney at
the expense of the rest of the country,” he said.
Ryan’s
“Path to Prosperity,” versions of which were adopted by the GOP House in 2011
and 2012. The plans call for balancing the
budget by 2040 through deep cuts to virtually every social program, from
Medicaid to food stamps to Pell Grants.
Ryan has proposed raising
the Medicare eligibility age to 67 and capping spending on those who turn 65
after 2023. In the future, seniors would be offered a set amount with which to
purchase private health insurance on newly created federal exchanges.
To Ryan, the plan represented a
forthright response to a predictable crisis of mounting debt. Only by
addressing entitlement programs, he argued, could deficits be curbed.
“For too long, Washington has not
been honest with the American people. Washington has been making empty promises
to Americans from a government that is going broke,” Ryan said after
introducing the plan in 2011.
Democrats charge that the plan would
essentially end Medicare by turning it into a voucher program. Ryan counters it
would save the popular program by altering its unsustainable growth rate.
Ryan’s views on budgets have been
consistent in recent years — he has introduced versions of his budget since at
least 2009, when support for it even among Republicans was limited.
For Democrats, Ryan is a symbol of a
House majority that polls show is deeply disliked by the public. But he has, in
fact, worked to remain somewhat above the fray of the congressional debates of
the past year.
He played a limited role in last
year’s debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling and begged off a seat on
the special deficit reduction supercommittee, which
disbanded last fall in embarrassing failure.
For many voters unfamiliar with the
budget debate, however, Ryan will probably start out as an unknown. According
to recent polls, reviews of Ryan tilt positive in Wisconsin and nationally, but
not overwhelmingly so.
And large numbers, even in his home
state, don’t know enough about him to rate him favorably or unfavorably. In a
CNN poll this week, Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio was the top pick for No. 2 among
Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, followed by Ryan and New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie tied at 16 percent.
A 42-year-old ice fishing and
fitness enthusiast, Ryan could use his boyish charm to offer digs at Obama not
weighted with negativity, although he has had a tense relationship with the
president. Not long after Ryan unveiled his budget framework in 2011, Obama
invited the congressman to attend what the White House billed as a major
economic address at George Washington University.
Obama proceeded to shock Ryan by
eviscerating his plan while the congressman sat silently in the front row. “I
believe it paints a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic,” Obama
said. He said there was “nothing serious” about reducing the deficit while
cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires and nothing “courageous” about
asking for sacrifices only from those who cannot afford them.
Ryan complained later that Obama had
called him “un-American.”
But Ryan has appeared to develop a considerable
rapport with Romney in recent months. While Romney had spent considerable
time campaigning alongside each of the men considered top contenders, he seemed
to particular enjoy sharing a stage with Ryan during five full days the two men
spent campaigning together in the days leading up to the Wisconsin Republican
primary in April.
At the time, Romney chief strategist
Stuart Stevens acknowledged that the two got along together particularly well
behind the scenes and noted their “chemistry” in public appearances.
Ryan’s blue-collar roots could also
serve as a useful contrast to Romney’s own background of privilege.
Ryan survived on Social Security
benefits as a teenager after his father died of a heart attack. He later worked
at a McDonald’s and for a time drove an Oscar Meyer hot dog car.
Karen Tumulty,
Lori Montgomery and Dan Balz in Washington
contributed to this report.
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