Pawlenty: I would sign Ryan plan

After days of pestering from Democrats, White House contender Tim Pawlenty said Thursday he would sign Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget if he were president.

Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, reiterated that he will release his own budget proposal that differs from Ryan’s in key areas like Social Security and Medicare. But he said that if Congress passed Ryan’s plan — and his was not up for consideration — he would sign Ryan’s into law.

{mosads}”If I can’t have my own plan — as president, I’ll have my own plan [but] if I can’t have that, and the bill came to my desk and I had to choose between signing or not congressman Ryan’s plan, of course I would sign it,” he told reporters during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

Pawlenty’s move could be seen as a move to silence Democrats, who have peppered reporters with emails for days saying that he has failed to take a definitive stance on Ryan’s plan.

Questions about his position on the Ryan plan arose after Pawlenty emphasized during the announcement of his candidacy that he would release his own budget. Democrats claimed Pawlenty failed to live up to his pledge to “tell the truth” by not saying whether he would sign the House Republican proposal. 

Democrats have sought to make the Ryan plan a litmus test for Republican candidates up and down the ticket. In particular, they have focused on Ryan’s plan to overhaul Medicare, which they say would lead to the privatization of the popular, but fiscally troubled, entitlement program. 

Republicans dispute Democrats’ claim that it would privatize the program.

Democrats responded to Pawlenty by saying he was taking an extreme position that is unpopular with voters.

“Just two days after the people of New York’s solidly Republican 26th Congressional District roundly rejected the Republican plan for ending Medicare, Governor Pawlenty said that he would sign such a plan into law – a plan even Newt Gingrich called’‘radical,’ ” said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. 

Pawlenty responded on Twitter, going after President Obama for not having a plan to reform Medicare. 

“@BarackObama sorry to interrupt the European pub crawl, but what was your Medicare plan?” he wrote.

— This post was updated at 5:13 p.m.