Obama touts education, GOP talks budget in weekly addresses
(CNN) – It's a weekend when Washington, for the most part, puts politics on the back burner in favor of laughs at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
But House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan had his elbows out for President Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate, using the GOP weekly address to criticize both for inaction on a federal budget.
- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
Obama used his address to explain an executive order on education benefits for veterans he signed Friday.
Ryan, author of a budget that passed the Republican-controlled House last month but has not survived the Senate, criticized the upper chamber for not passing a budget in several years.
"Last week, leaders in the United States Senate, which is controlled by the president's own party, announced they would not advance a budget for the third year in a row," said Ryan, who represents a district in Wisconsin. "Tomorrow, in fact, will mark three years to the day since the Senate last fulfilled this basic governing responsibility."
That measure was a $3.4 trillion blueprint for federal spending in fiscal year 2010 which, like Ryan's budget this year, passed the House in April 2009 along a party-line vote.
Since then, the two chambers have not agreed to a budget, which is a policy document and spending blueprint typically passed in the spring. Capitol Hill has not enacted a budget in four other years since the era of modern budgeting began in 1983, according to the nonpartisan fact check group PolitiFact: 2003, 1999, 2005, and 2007. Both houses were under Republican control in three of the four years, the group points out, and once the Democrat-led Senate did not pass a plan.
Funds are dolled out to the various agencies and departments through appropriations measures, which have eventually passed the House and Senate in recent years, sometimes with an 11th hour agreement that brought the government back from the brink of a shutdown.
Ryan used the occasion to tout the bill approved late last month known as the "Ryan Plan," as well as other proposals that GOP leaders refer to collectively as "The House Republican Plan for America's Job Creators."
"The Republican-led House has passed a pro-growth budget and nearly 30 jobs bills that are waiting for action in the Senate," Ryan said. "This week, we passed four more bills relating to stopping cyber-terrorism - which hurts our economy and costs jobs."
In an election year, these bills are more than, well, just bills - they're political pawns.
Meanwhile, the president spoke on a directive he signed Friday requiring "veterans and servicemembers get a simple fact sheet called 'Know Before You Owe' that lays out all the information they need about financial aid and paying for college."
While most educational institutions do not take advantage of returning servicemembers, some do, the president said.
"They bombard potential students with emails and pressure them into making a quick decision. Some of them steer recruits towards high-interest loans and mislead them about credit transfers and job placement programs," Obama said. "One of the worst examples was a college recruiter who visited a Marine barracks and enrolled Marines with brain injuries so severe that some of them couldn't recall what courses the recruiter had signed them up for."
Additional information from colleges and universities will help veterans "make an informed decision when it comes to picking the right program," he said.
Next weekend, Obama hits the campaign trail for his first rallies of the 2012 election.
From CNN Politics
- February 5, 2023 Suspected China spy balloon news
- 10 Cards Charging 0% Interest Until 2024
- Why the Chinese balloon crisis could be a defining moment in the new Cold War
- Untitled
- What you need to know about the suspected Chinese spy balloon
- Chinese spy balloons under Trump not discovered until after Biden took office
Paul "The Undertaker" Ryan doesn't seem to understand that America is better off with no annual budget than America would be with "tax cuts for the rich; benefit cuts for everyone else" deficit INCREASE plan. The GOBP cult haters can't bring themselves to admit that only Ron Paul and President Obama have proposed plans to reduce the deficit. Rmoney and Ryan are pushing deficit INCREASE plans which pretty much prove their GOBP cult is a bunch of fiscally irresponsible buffoons with no clue.
they are just sorry they did not have the intelligence and balls to get him themselves. GOP hypocrites
Republicans will cut benefits to veterans just as soon as possible . If they are willing to take the medicine
away from Gran Ma and Gran Pa through medicaid cuts and take their food away through Soc. Sec . cuts
they are willing to be as evil as they can be to double the tax cuts for the rich . Republicans are the worst of us .
The republican plan is to take us back to a near depression with their cuts. It would seem they could see what is happening in Europe when you cut government spending in a crisis. Damn, republicans are stupid.
Colleges are greedy. First strike them.
Can somebody tell Ryan to botox his brow. I can't get past that every time I see him.
That being said, even the Catholic church is coming after him. Do the teapublikans have anybody else they haven't ticked (better CNN?) off in the last two years?
bo ner has lost control of the house. Now that he has to be the punching bag for the flip flopper until his loss in November he is throwing temper tantrums in congress. The weeper is a smoking drunk!
So called "Job Creators" don't create jobs when tax cuts leave them with too much money in their personal bank accounts.
Businesses create jobs when they have too many customers, and they add more employees when doing so will make more profit. That's capitalism
More money in the pockets of the people who will spend it, the lower 90%, will create those customers.
The wealth don't spend all their income, that's why they are called wealthy. And they don't create jobs because it's good for their country or because it helps people, they invest only to make themselves wealthier.
Paul Ryan remind us 70s,80s Dick Cheney
You can tell by just looking at ryan, he would screw you in a heartbeat.
Obama wanting to give more of our hard earned tax money away and go on one of his taxpayer funded vacations and Ryan talking common sense. I'm sure Obama will eventually realize that the more educated the public they more they will see through him, but for right now, it soulnds good and by getting the votes he will be able to continue the most corrupt, inept, incompetent, union toady preisidency in the history of this country.
Until we recover our economy and quit out sourcing our jobs in this country, College is going to continue to be a bad investment.
It's so nice to know that Paul Ryan spends zero time helping the people of Southern Wisconsin. He is so stupid and I mean stupid he doesn't realize his time is almost up here. You can tell its like a rat jumping ship. He sure believes in screwing the middle class just like his crony Scott Walker – jerks!
Ryan the teapublican bafoon won't be coming back to congress for another term, one did enough damage to the USA .
The Ryan Plan sucks,and It won't work like he says It will. Even expert says Is won't work. All It doing Is taking from the Middle Class,the Poor ,the Old and Women. It take Nothing from the Rich and Big Business or the Oil Company that making Billion In Profit and till getting tax subsidies.
Wah wa wah wah
Passing a meaningful budget wasn't a big deal when you were jamming emergency supplementals at us to fund your wars of aggression.
i always wonder why things get done only near election time....most of these soldiers are not very well verse in finance..to busy protecting us....
Obama touts whatever is important to his audience at the moment. Great talker, too bad that's all he is. His Mom taught him to talk well. Too bad she didn't teach him to act upon his promises. Let's get a man of action in the White House – We absolutely need Romney. We need someone that knows how to make money, not just someone that knows how to spend it.
Gotta get a kick out of Ryan trying to sell his budget of stripping programs for the very poor as a means to give bigger tax cuts to the extremely wealthy by using his fine Catholic upbringing as justification. Hats off to the Catholic leadership who showed Ryan the error of his ways, specifically in his using Church teachings as nothing more than a political tool. Ryan's budget is not following the doctrines of Christ. To pretend otherwise is heresy, pure and simple. And yet Ryan chose not only to continue with his speech, but to suggest that perhaps HE, not Catholic leaders, knows best how to translate Jesus' teachings concerning the wealthiest among us and their insatiable need for greed and power through his own attempt at dismissing Christ's own words. While using his Christian belief as a justifiable selling selling point, no less. Can't say who Ryan actually represents, certainly it's not the poor among us, and just as certain it's not Christ either.
President Obama sure has the GOP on the run with education! And alexithemic Mitt trying to sell his "graduate and make sandwiches" advice. Sure, Mitt, making sandwiches is such an incentive after Law or Med school. Maybe your 16 grand-children, upon their graduations, could learn how to slice that baloney "just right" and position it between 2 slices of bread. Go away 2012 GOP!
Most Catholics are just as embarrassed about this Paul Ryan fool as they are about Rick Sanitarium.
Is Ryan playing with a full deck?
Dina
Obama touts whatever is important to his audience at the moment.
-------------
Do you have any ideal just how lame the "I'm rubber, your glue" TeamRomney defense is? In the past few days alone, Romney has backtracked on certain issues which he was on the opposite side of last week.
Double talk pandering is the ONLY thing Mitt Romney has ever shown any consistency in, including his tenure as Governor, AND his Senate run, AND his last presidential campaign against McCain. It's perfectly understandable why Romney lost to Kennedy, lost to McCain, and will lose to Obama.
@FED up You must not have gone to college if you consider it a bad investment. Never in my life have I looked back and thought, "Gee, I'm sorry I got my degree." Not once.
Ryan doesn't get it – the same trickle down your leg crap he's pushing now is the same trickle down your leg crap the GOP used to destroy our economy.
How stupid does the GOP think Americans are?
Is Ryan Paul thinking? His budget didn't survive in the senate and he is still talking about it up to now??? It is still the same senate and he has nothing which will make them change their mind. Why can't he use his valuable time relaxing instead of wasting his time this way.