Ryan Rules Out Any Compromise Over New Revenues

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said he would not support revenue increases in budget negotiations with Democrats during an appearance on Bloomberg TV Tuesday morning, explaining that the nation must reform the tax code by lowering rates and “plugging loopholes” and achieve a balanced budget with spending cuts alone.

“We propose 4.6 trillion dollars in spending cuts that are essential to preventing debt crisis,” Ryan claimed, referring to reductions in spending from the repeal of Affordable Care Act benefits and savings from Medicaid, Medicare and other social programs. Nearly two-thirds of the House GOP’s cuts come from poverty programs that aid the neediest Americans like Pell Grants, food stamps and job training.

Ryan insisted that Republicans would demand these reductions and stand united against additional revenue since, as he put it, Democrats “got their tax increases…but we have yet to get any spending cuts”:

PETER COOK (REPORTER): Isn’t that going to require Paul Ryan to consider revenue and for [Senator] Patty Murray to consider entitlement program changes that she has decided on?

RYAN: Well, I would say to the Patty Murray school of thought to the President Obama school of thought, they’ve got their tax increases. They got $1.6 trillion in tax increases that are just now starting to hit the economy. But we have yet to get the spending cuts. [...]

PETER COOK: Aren’t you going to have to offer something more on the revenue front even if you don’t want to?

RYAN: No offense Peter, I’m not interested in negotiating through the media, but to be candid, no. No. We reform the tax code, that’s what we’re proposing that means that by plugging loopholes you can raise the same amount of money for the federal government with a far more competitive, far more pro-jobs tax code than we currently got.

Past budget deals have reduced spending by $1.5 trillion, a fact Ryan himself bragged about when he urged Republicans to back the Budget Control Act in 2011 and later endorsed sequestration. “We’re actually cutting spending while we do this,” Ryan told his colleagues in 2011. “We’re getting two-thirds of the cuts we wanted in our budget.”

Indeed, spending cuts have so far outnumbered revenue by nearly 3 to 1, which is why economists believe that “the next installment of deficit reduction should reach $2 trillion and about half of it should come from higher taxes.” Ryan, meanwhile, has told voters for more than three years that he would pay for his massive tax breaks by closing tax loopholes without ever specifying which deductions or credits he plans to eliminate.

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Weekly Address: Congress Must Compromise to Stop the Impact of the Sequester

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Hi, everybody. On Friday, I met with leaders of both parties in Congress to try and find a way forward in light of the severe budget cuts – known in Washington as “the sequester” – that have already started to inflict pain on communities across the country.

These cuts are not smart. They will hurt our economy and cost us jobs. And Congress can turn them off at any time – as soon as both sides are willing to compromise.

As a nation, we’ve already fought back from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and we’ll get through this, too. But at a time when our businesses are finally gaining some traction, hiring new workers, bringing jobs back to America – the last thing Washington should do is to get in their way. That’s what these cuts to education, research, and defense will do. It’s unnecessary. And at a time when too many of our friends and neighbors are still looking for work, it’s inexcusable.

Now, it’s important to understand that, while not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away, the pain will be real. Many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in a significant way.

Beginning this week, businesses that work with the military will have to lay folks off. Communities near military bases will take a serious blow. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve their country – Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, civilians who work for the Defense Department – will see their wages cut and their hours reduced.

This will cause a ripple effect across the economy. Businesses will suffer because customers will have less money to spend. The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage. Economists estimate they could eventually cost us more than 750,000 jobs and slow our economy by over one-half of one percent.

Here’s the thing: none of this is necessary. It’s happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit. Just this week, they decided that protecting special interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected is more important than protecting our military and middle-class families from these cuts.

I still believe we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach – one that combines smart spending cuts with entitlement reform and changes to our tax code that make it more fair for families and businesses without raising anyone’s tax rates. That’s how we can reduce our deficit without laying off workers, or forcing parents and students to pay the price. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. It’s the kind of approach I’ve proposed for two years now. A majority of the American people agree with me on this approach – including a majority of Republicans. We just need Republicans in Congress to catch up with their own party and the rest of the country.

Now, I know there are Republicans in Congress who would actually rather see tax loopholes closed than let these cuts go through. And I know there are Democrats who’d rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through. There’s a caucus of common sense. And I’m going to keep reaching out to them to fix this for good.

Because the American people are weary of perpetual partisanship and brinksmanship. This is America, and in America, we don’t careen from one manufactured crisis to another. We make smart choices. We plan. We prioritize. So I’m going to push through this paralysis and keep fighting for the real challenges facing middle-class families. I’m going to keep pushing for high-quality preschool for every family that wants it, and make sure the minimum wage becomes a wage you can live on. I’m going to keep pushing to fix our immigration system, repair our transportation system, and keep our children safe from gun violence.

That’s the work you elected me to do. That’s what I’m focused on every single day. Thanks.

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Mrs. Obama joins a virtual conversation about Let’s Move!, her initiative to ensure our nation’s kids grow up healthy and reach their full potential.

The Open Government Partnership publishes the text of the President's directive extending whistleblower protections to the intelligence and national security communities, as requested by the community.

The Department of Labor celebrates its centennial anniversary and looks forward to continuing its important work on behalf on America's workers.

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Obama Offers Compromise on Birth Control Coverage

The Obama administration on Friday offered a compromise on new Obamacare rules that would allow religious employers to exclude contraceptives from health insurance for their employees, but would still guarantee those employees access to free coverage for birth control.

The proposed compromise follows months of protest and legal action by the Roman Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and others groups who argued that the President Barack Obama's health care reform law forced them to violate religious tenets against contraception.

For more than a year, the Obama administration has been grappling with how to balance its desire to guarantee universal, free contraceptive coverage with religious freedoms provided in the U.S. Constitution. Obama in February said he would create some sort of exemption for religious employers.

Catholics United, a group with a history of supporting liberal causes, applauded the move.

"This is a victory not only for the Obama Administration, but for the Catholic Church," said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United.

The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that the rules offer religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and charities opposed to contraceptives coverage "an accommodation." Employees and students could enroll in separate contraceptive coverage plans without co-pays and without cost to the employer.

Self-insured employers would provide notice to a third-party administrator that would then work with an insurer to arrange no-cost contraceptive coverage through separate individual health insurance policies, HHS said.

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GOP Congressmen Suggest Republican Senators Who Voted For ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Compromise Were Drunk

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is joining a growing number of Republicans trying to add more spending cuts to the last-minute fiscal cliff deal and send it back to the Senate, joked that Senators may have been drunk when they passed the measure in the early hours of Jan 1.

Responding to a question on CNN’s The Situation Room about why fiscal hawks like Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) supported the measure in the Senate, Issa implied that the 89 senators voted for the compromise because of the late night partying in celebration of the New Year. Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer for clarification, Issa said that he was just “having a little fun” with his answer:

BLITZER: All of those 89, including all of those conservative Republicans, including Pat Toomey and others, they were wrong?

ISSA: You know, Wolf, frankly I can’t account for what happens after midnight and all of that partying and revelry and drinking that goes on on New Years Eve at 2:00 in the morning. What I can tell you is they did half of a bill. The half of the bill certainly is going to be popular in the way of holding down taxes but the other half is there’s no spending reductions…. In other words, $4 trillion will be added to the debt over ten years with this tax cut unless we do some spending cuts to help offset it. Right now the president is still in a spending mood. We need to get him in a savings mood.

BLITZER: I just want to clarify one point, you said it was after the new year’s and they were partying. Are you suggesting that Mitch McConnell and your fellow Republicans in the Senate they were a little bit drunk when they voted on this last night?

ISSA: Of course not. I was having a little fun with you, Wolf. The fact is, it was after midnight. It was a piece of legislation intended to be passable, not necessarily to be right.

Watch it:

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) made a similar comment to reporters, saying, “Our sense…was that a number of the [Senate] Republicans who voted for it must have been drunk.”

Following a Tuesday afternoon GOP conference meeting, House Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), are publicly opposing the Senate-passed measure. Members are reportedly working on adding an amendment that would reduce spending. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has vowed to block any further changes to the bill, leaving Boehner with the options of: 1) putting the Senate-passed bill to a House vote (and see it pass with Democratic votes and overwhelming Republican opposition) or 2) adding spending cuts that “they know Democrats can’t live with,” passing the revised bill through the House with little if any Democratic support, and see it go nowhere the Senate — sending the nation over the cliff.

The House will vote on the Senate bill as written, without a spending amendment, at around 9:30 PM. The measure is expected to pass, at which point it will go to President Obama for his signature.

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