Shutdown Diary: Paul Ryan's Plan Gets Tea Party Pushback
Are House Republicans still seeking Democratic concessions on the Affordable Care Act? Or have they switched their sights to even bigger targets: federal spending on entitlements like Medicare and Social Security?
The answer on Wednesday depended on which Republican you asked.
Paul Ryan's Pitch
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., last year's Republican vice presidential nominee and one of the party's big policy thinkers, tried to shift the debate to entitlements in a Wall Street Journal op-ed post. In the piece, Ryan didn't mention Obamacare once.
Arguing that Democrats and Republicans should negotiate to simultaneously end the government shutdown, raise the debt ceiling and make changes that would lower the trajectory of entitlement spending, Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, wrote:
"We need to open the federal government. We need to pay our bills today — and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. So let's negotiate an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code."