On Fox News’ Hannity, Representative Ryan discusses the President’s commitment to failed policies and alternative solutions offered by the House to successfully avert a debt crisis.

Highlights

President Obama’s failed policies call for a bleak fiscal and economic future

If the labor participation rate were the same today as it was when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be about 11% today. The president has given us such an abysmal economy – look just at last Friday job statistics. It’s terrible! Unemployment went up, more people are leaving the workforce. We have the most stagnant economic recovery we have had since World War II and government spending as a share of the economy –which is the key measurement - is the highest it's been since World War II.

The President has roughly increased spending by about a fifth from where it historically has been. He gave us a gusher of new spending. He gave us a $4.5 trillion increase in the public debt, that’s a 70% increase in the debt just since he has taken office. Sean, the budget he gave us just this year, his fourth budget with a trillion-dollar deficit, proposes to increase spending by $1.5 trillion only to be outdone by a$1.9 trillion tax increase, resulting in a measly $40 billion of deficit reduction on average per year at a time when we’re running one trillion dollar plus deficits. So this is a spending binge we haven't seen the likes in decades in this country.

CBO confirms: to avert a debt crisis, stop borrowing and spending money we don’t have

Yes, so I had a hearing with the Congressional Budget Office just today. They are saying that the path we are on, with the debt levels we are incurring, they don't even know how to measure the economy going forward after the mid 2030’s because the debt will crash the economy.

What we’re saying, and what I believe, and what all the experts that come to testify to the Budget Committee are saying is we have two years before we have a debt crisis like Europe is experiencing. What is going to happen is, just like Europe, politicians made all of these empty promises, which turned into broken promises, the bond markets turn on you and you have a debt crisis.

The Path to Prosperity advances solutions to avoid the debt crisis

Cranking up taxes, cutting benefits for current seniors, slowing down your economy, and having a lost decade - we are halfway through a lost decade because of this President's policies. If we stay on the path that he’s on, not only will we have a real lost decade, we’ll have a lost generation, and I fear we will have that kind of a debt crisis, which is entirely avoidable. What our budget shows is you can prevent that from happening, we can get the economy growing again and get people back to work.

Rather than offering solutions, the President perpetuates class warfare

But what Keynesians also say and agree with those of us from the classical free-market side of economics, is the last thing you want to do in a very bad economy is crank up the tax rates. That's where we actually agree on that - people from the left and the right on economics agree - don't raise taxes in this kind of an economy. The President though, is so wedded to this class warfare, pitting Americans against each other, that he is willing to trash all the advice he’s getting from people in his own party of what it is to do to prevent us from going into a recession. The CBO is telling us, if these tax increases hit, we will have a recession and the President's doubling down on this direction. We need new leadership.