his own plan would, you know, does not involve some of the components of simpson bowls. as it relates to that, you know, on that issue, he s been pretty clear. he s got his own plan he hasn t been clear. okay. time-out. mitt romney did one thing that everybody acknowledges, even though in his own party, which is pivot further towards the center. paul ryan s budget has been declared by some folks, some analysts, including those in the republican party, to be a fairly strong document win that takes specific stances on the american social compact. do you think paul ryan will be defending mitt romney s moderate position tonight or mitt romney s previously severely conservative position of the campaign trail? he ll be presenting people with a hard truth that we face as a country, which is that we can t continue to do what we ve been doing all along. as it relates to tackling entitlements and talking about hard choices and the two directions the different
the way they are. we are encouraging the winners. we don t worry too much about the losers in society. the other side, you have a guy trained as a community organizer who cares deeply about people in trouble, who worries about the working poor, that haven t gotten a break in their life. it seems to me you re really getting a choice here, not an echo. well, i do think, yes, i hear you on that. i think there s going to be this bright choice, but i think ryan has a couple challenges here and i think that on one hand he is thought of as the sbree bral guy inside the party, sort of the conservative soul, the economic conservative soul of the republican party. and at the same time he s going to be making this argument, tackling entitlements, this is what you have to do to debt and all of these things. then he ll have the answer for, okay, you re asking for sacrifice on the social safety net. but you are not asking for sacrifice when it comes to tax cuts. and you were talking about, hey, it
debt of the united states will be 76% of g.d.p. we didn t we slowed its growth but we haven t sent it downward. the reason is because, look, discretionary spending is 37% of the budget. interest is 5.4%. and 57.7% is mandatory spending. things like medicare and medicaid. this is what obama said is off the table for discussion. we have got to focus on the 37% of the budget that is discretionary and most of that, two thirds of that is defense spending. so, until the president gets serious about tackling entitlements, the world is not going to have confidence in america s getting its fiscal house in order. bill: look, this is now coming to critical mass. we can t sustain damage like we sustained today economically much longer. we just can t. the president came out today he gave a little speech. 10 minutes after he gave the
vote, in 10 years the public debt of the united states will be 76% of g.d.p. we didn t we slowed its growth but we haven t sent it downward. the reason is because, look, discretionary spending is 37% of the budget. interest is 5.4%. and 57.7% is mandatory spending. things like medicare and medicaid. this is what obama said is off the table for discussion. we have got to focus on the 37% of the budget that is discretionary and most of that, two thirds of that is defense spending. so, until the president gets serious about tackling entitlements, the world is not going to have confidence in america s getting its fiscal house in order. bill: look, this is now coming to critical mass. we can t sustain damage like we sustained today economically much longer. we just can t. the president came out today he gave a little speech. 10 minutes after he gave the
sean: ryan is proposing dollar for dollar. do you think that is a good proposal or does that not go far enough? do you have to deal with the entitles entitlements now? you can t conclude you can fix this long term without tackling entitlements, it is not easy but it must be done. if we are notç willing to say it specifically we are wasting our time. raising the debt ceiling question, the republicans should be putting on the table permanent changes. like constitutional amendment to balance the budget, u.s. constitutional amendment or permanent caps on spending with specific reforms in entitlements. if they don t get something like that, we continue this drift. america the hour is late. this country is in trouble. we need to act now.ç sean: it could take a long time for that constitutional amendment the process is arduous, difficult, got to get the stays in the end for that to happen. in the short term you are