The GOP budget proposal would end Medicare, but fiscal hawks will attack anyone who opposes it. What's a White House hopeful to do?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan introduced his 2012 budget plan at a press conference Tuesay. credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Caster
With its big-dollar numbers and radical program changes, the budget proposal released Tuesday by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is daring policy-making of the highest order, but it is as a political document that Ryan's budget might have its most far-reaching implications.
"It is not a political document," insisted Ed Rollins, a GOP consultant. "It is not something as a political strategist I would draft for my candidate to run on."
Nowhere are the reforms more radical than on Medicare, and already the field of prospective Republican presidential candidates is walking a political tightrope in reaction to Ryan's sweeping proposal to convert Medicare into a voucher-based system for people younger than 55.
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Their dilemma is this: Opposition to the Ryan proposal, or even a show of only qualified support, exposes them to charges from the right wing that they are not sufficiently committed to spending-cuts and deficit-reduction, which is now the heart of Republican orthodoxy.