Rep. Paul Ryan sounds off on the Congressional Budget Office's warning that the government's mounting debt could be twice the size of the economy in 25 years and more.
Greta Van Susteren: And tonight a dire warning from the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO with new information that if the federal government does not change course, and change course soon, the debt will crash the economy. We spoke with House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan a short time ago.
Greta Van Susteren: The CBO report. They have issued a new report with new estimates, which is grimmer, much grimmer, that in fact, it has disturbed quite a lot of people. They warned last year in the next 25 years, the debt-GDP ratio would be 187 percent but now they are projecting it’s 199 percent, a 12 percent increase.
Representative Paul Ryan: Every year we don't do anything to fix this fiscal problem, we go deeper in the hole, we go closer toward a debt crisis. They are telling us a debt crisis is coming. They are telling us by 2025 three programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, plus interest will consume 100 percent of federal government revenues. And they are also telling us that it’s important for the economy's sake to get debt under control and to keep the tax rates down. If we raise income tax rates, which is what president Obama is proposing, the CBO is telling us it's going to slow down the economy.
So what we’re proposing is tax reform and lower tax rates. You don't have to cost revenues doing that. And get spending under control so we get this debt under control. That's the key for the economy.
And what they're also telling us, is they can't even measure the economy going past the 2030s because of the debt burden. They don’t have confidence that the economy can survive the levels of debt that are coming to the American economy in the 2030s when, you know, when my kids are my age.
Greta Van Susteren: I hear from both Republicans and Democrats that we have this fiscal cliff that we’re about to go over, and the Republicans say to solve it is by cutting taxes, revving up the economy. The Democrats say that the way to do it is to increase taxes. You both have solutions, but the one thing you both agree on is that we are really headed in the wrong direction.
Representative Paul Ryan: We are headed in the wrong direction. The difference is economic growth. We want economic growth. We think big tax rate increases, taxing our successful small businesses much higher rates than the competitors are will hurt the economy and lose jobs, which loses revenue. So we want economic growth, job creation and spending cuts and entitlement reforms to get this debt under control.
Greta Van Susteren: Whatever the solution, whether the Democrats or right or the Republicans are right, you both agree that we’re in deep trouble. What can the American people do? I know you’re going to say vote in November particularly, but, I mean, its far deeper than that. The animosity between the two sides is far deeper than that. This is a serious crisis, not just for the two political parties to fight about. So now what?
Representative Paul Ryan: We can control our own actions, and so in the House, we have passed two solutions, we have passed two budgets, that shows you specifically how we’re going to get this debt under control, how we’re going to grow this economy and how we’re going to prevent a debt crisis from ever hitting America. We’ve got to get problems under control our else they’re going to tackle us.
And so the problem we have is the Senate has chosen not to pass a budget for three years. You know this. The president has given us four budgets with no solutions in either budget, more taxes, trillion-dollar deficits, no attempt to try and fix this fiscal cliff. So we need new partners to help us fix this mess.
I don't think after four budgets that the president looks likely to change his tune. And the Senate, if they’re choosing not even to try to fix the problem by budgeting, we’re at an impasse. We’ve shown -- what we did in Wisconsin with Scott’s victory, is we said, here's specifically what we are going to do to fix the problems we have facing our state, and we took it to the country, to the state, and they made a decision to keep these reforms in place. I think courage was on the ballot in Wisconsin and courage won. We’re showing courage. We’re saying specifically what we should do to fix this country’s fiscal mess and grow this economy, and we’re going to ask for the country to give us the ability to put it in place.
Greta Van Susteren: Let me look at the worst-case scenario, I always do as a lawyer. Let's assume that the Republicans don't have the House, the Senate, and the White House, let's assume the Democrats don't have the White House, the House, and the Senate, which means we have a divided government. Then we are back to beginning in January, or in November, actually, after the election, we’re still back to a divided government, we’re still about to go off the fiscal cliff. We’ve got the [Democrats] saying we’ve got to raise taxes, we’ve got you guys saying we’ve got to cut spending, but we still have this --
Representative Paul Ryan: We are a divided government now.
Greta Van Susteren: So now what are we going to do?
RYAN: We need leaders who are willing to put up ideas. What we thought we would do when we passed our budget was, we would pass our plan and show the Senate and the President, here's how we want to fix the problem. Let's see your ideas and then let's start compromising. We have yet to see that. They have decided not to put their ideas on the table so you can't get even get to the table.
Greta Van Susteren: Right, but I’m assuming worst-case scenario.
Representative Paul Ryan: Sooner or later that’s going to have to happen, and if we keep the same leaders in place in the White House and the Senate, I don't -- how would I know that we’re going to anything different from them? So what we’re saying is that we need to go to the country with a referendum -- to tell people in Washington, fix this mess before it gets out of control. We’re offering solutions. The other side's offering demagoguery, division, distortion, and no solutions.
I know that's fairly partisan. I don't enjoy saying this. I want to fix this problem. I want to make sure we don’t have a debt crisis. I want to get people going back to work. But we need people up here who are actually part of the solution, and not part of the problem. And so far we’ve got nothing but gridlock. And it’s because a lot of folks up here have decided to do nothing and they would rather just not pass anything than actually show, I think, the country, what it is they really want to do. I mean, the kind of tax increases you would have to have, which would slow down this economy, if you want to pay for all this gusher of spending we’ve seen around here with all the new taxes that would have to come.
