Romney Slams GOP Leaders, Including Paul Ryan, for 2011 Budget Deal - East Idaho News
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Romney Slams GOP Leaders, Including Paul Ryan, for 2011 Budget Deal

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Getty 050112 MittRomney?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1347204948674Jeff Swensen/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-Wis.), as chair of the House Budget Committee, was part of the team that signed off on the budget deal with the White House, mandating immediate spending cuts, creating a “Super-committee” tasked to finding $1.5 trillion in further deficit reduction and raising a self-imposed sword of Damocles — $1.2 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon and domestic spending that few in Congress wanted — if the Super-committee failed.

Writing at the National Review Online at the time, Ryan said the bill was a “reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation.”

But today Mitt Romney said Ryan, the man he picked as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket, and other House GOP leaders made a “big mistake” in agreeing to that deal, which was part of the summer 2011 negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.

Romney said the mandated cuts were “an extraordinary miscalculation in the wrong direction.”

“Republican leaders agreed to that deal to extend the debt ceiling,” NBC’s David Gregory reminded Romney.

“And that’s a big mistake,” Romney said. “I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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