Paul Ryan ambiguous on tax plan, defends Medicare reform and being Romney’s VP
The Romney campaign is willing to discuss its proposals on taxes “in the light of day,” vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday evening — just not until after the election.
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Mitt Romney’s tax plan to close loopholes and reduce taxes for the all tax brackets have been criticized as a plan to help the wealthy. Brit Hume of Fox News asked Ryan to counter that charge. “What we’re saying is get rid of special interest loopholes and deductions that are uniquely enjoyed by the wealthy to lower the tax rates for everybody,” Ryan said.
Hume pressed for specifics and Ryan responded.
“That is something that we think we should do in the light of day, through Congress,” Ryan told Hume, promising to “have a process for tax reform so that we do this in the front of the public. So no, the point I’m trying to say is, we want feedback from Americans about what priorities in the tax code should be kept, and what special interest loopholes we want to get rid of.”
Critics have targeted Ryan’s Medicare reform.
“My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they’ve organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms. They have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late ’90s.”
The Wisconsin rep cited the tight relations with the former Massachusetts Governor and getting the opportunity to be the VP on the GOP ticket.
“You know we spent about five days on road, five 14 hour or so days, and in between all of those stops driving from you know, Appleton to Green Bay to Janesville to Milwaukee, we got to know each other. We conversed on policy issues on where to take the country,” said Ryan. “And sooner or later we basically started sharing the microphones at these town hall meetings and we just kind of developed a chemistry with one another and a mutual understanding of each other.”
