Ryan: Spending up 84 percent under Obama

Via-The Hill

By Alexander Bolton

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), who is set to take over the House Budget Committee next year, said federal spending has increased a whopping 84 percent under President Obama.

The budget for the Environmental Protection Agency has increased by 124 percent under Obama, according to Ryan, who counted stimulus spending in his analysis.

Ryan and other Republicans are calling for a $100 billion cut in non-defense discretionary spending to bring it back to 2008 levels.

“There have been so many massive spending increases, 24 percent in the base budget, 84 percent when you add the stimulus,” Ryan said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

“We have had spending on a gusher. And if borrowing and spending and taxing and spending actually created jobs and produced prosperity, we wouldn’t have all this joblessness,” he said.

Democrats have warned that the spending reductions Republicans have called for will cut $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health and force the layoffs of more than 2,000 FBI agents.

Ryan dismissed the criticism as the “Washington Monument strategy,” which is to put a spotlight on the most unpopular cuts.

“You’re going to have these kinds of tactics being played, which will show you that they’re really not serious about getting spending under control,” he said of the Democrats.

Ryan is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. He is expected to take over as chairman in January.

He pledged to take the federal budget in a new direction, claiming the Republican pick-up of more than 60 House seats as a political mandate.

“This is an electoral repudiation,” he said.

He said his hope is to reduce future spending levels and “prevent a huge tax increase from happening in the future so we can get job creation,” he said.