It didn't take but a few minutes before Governor Romney flip-flopped, and threw Paul Ryan, under the bus, for his controversial budget that proposed converting Medicare to a voucher system. Sam Stein reports:
Within minutes of tapping Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney was distancing himself from the congressman's controversial budget, which includes steep cuts to government programs and changing Medicare into a voucher-like program.
The Romney campaign sent out talking points on Saturday that made the case that he was his own man on matters of Medicare and Social Security and that he wouldn't be tied to a document he insisted he'd sign into law and once called "marvelous."
Among the Romney campaign talking points extensive quoted by
CNN Political Tracker are these:
1) Does this mean Mitt Romney is adopting the Paul Ryan plan?
· Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance.
· Romney's administration will go through the budget line by line and ask two questions: Can we afford it? And, if not, should we borrow money from China to pay for it?
· Mitt Romney will start with the easiest cut of all: Obamacare, a trillion-dollar entitlement we don't want and can't afford.
· Mitt Romney also laid out commonsense reforms that will make good on our promises to today's seniors and save Social Security and Medicare for future generations.
2) Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have different views on some policy areas -- like Medicare spending, entitlement reform, labor, etc. -- do you think those differences are going to hurt or help?
· Of course they aren't going to have the same view on every issue. But they both share the view that this election is a choice about two fundamentally different paths for this country. President Obama has taken America down a path of debt and decline. Romney and Ryan believe in a path for America that leads to more jobs, less debt and smaller government. So, while you might find an issue or two where they might not agree, they are in complete agreement on the direction that they want to lead America
But, Stein notes that its going to be difficult for Romney to distance himself from Ryan's budget after his many public quotes praising it.
"I think it'd be marvelous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan's budget and to adopt it and pass it along to the president," he said this March.
Elsewhere, he added: "I spent a good deal of time with Congressman Ryan. When his plan came out, I applauded it as an important step," he said. "We're going to have to make changes like the ones Paul Ryan proposed."
Governor Romney's position is not surprising as he has frequently suggested that anything controversial such as his tax returns, Bain experience, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and now federal budgetary matters are best discussed in "private in quite rooms."
Mitt Romney sees distressed that so many people find difficult to understand is he is only for those things that are popular, and people like. He's is strongly against bad things that people do not like, and finds it frustrating that the liberal media keeps trying to exploit his written statements, and videos to confuse and distress the general public about matters best left to private discussions by leaders who know how to make the hard decisions.
As you might imagine commenters to Stein's post are having a field day.