The following is an excerpt from STEPHEN F. HAYES and WILLIAM KRISTOL | August 9, 2012 | weeklystandard.com |
In an interview on March 22, two weeks before Mitt Romney would win the Wisconsin primary and effectively end the race for the Republican nomination, Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes asked about his embrace of Paul Ryan’s budget.
“One of the things that the White House is also focusing on is dropping everything that they have on the Paul Ryan budget plan – the Democrats, the media, the White House – all piling up on the Ryan budget plan,” Sykes said to Romney. “You have embraced that plan. You’ve endorsed that plan. The Democrats think that the Republicans have handed them a weapon because they’re now going to say that you conservative Republicans, you want to balance the budget on the backs of the frail, the elderly and the poor. How will you respond to that?”
Romney answered, first, by arguing that Democrats had not earned the moral authority to make such arguments. “Well, we’d love to see how they plan on reducing the deficit and balancing the budget,” he began. “So far, we’ve had – what? – three straight years without the Senate putting in place a budget? We have a president in the same party as the leaders in the Senate. Can’t they put together their plan? At least the Republicans first of all have put together a plan. So it strikes me that before the Democrats can attack Republicans for a plan they have to put one of their own out.”
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