Rand Paul slams Paul Ryan over sequestration

Sen. Rand Paul slammed Speaker-in-waiting Paul Ryan over his role in a 2013 budget deal and called into question whether Ryan would stand firm on budget caps during negotiations over the debt ceiling. 

“Paul Ryan was instrumental in getting rid of the sequester,” Paul, a Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate, said Monday on “The Glenn Beck Program” on The Blaze Radio Network.

“My question now: Do we really believe that he’s going to use the debt ceiling to get reforms?” 

{mosads}Paul criticized Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, for joining with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in 2013 for a compromise that raised spending levels set by sequestration, the across-the-board budget caps implemented two years earlier when Congress failed to agree on a deficit-reduction plan. Ryan and Murray agreed to raise the caps for military and some domestic spending. 

“At the time, I didn’t think it was even enough, but do you know who abandoned it? Paul Ryan,” Paul said of the sequester.

“The people on the right said, ‘We’ve got to have more money for the military,’ and the people on the left said, “We’ve got to have more money for welfare.’  So what did they do? They got together and did the secret handshake, and we got more money for both.” 

Paul repeated a talking point that many GOP presidential candidates use on the trail, noting that the party doesn’t have much to show for holding majority control in both the House and the Senate. He called on the next Speaker to “exert the power of the purse” with the upcoming debt-ceiling negotiations in order to get concessions from the White House. 

Ryan found himself on the edge of taking the House’s top job in the midst of the vacuum created by Speaker John Boehner’s (Ohio) impending resignation and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (Calif.) decision to step down from consideration. He’s earned broad support from most of the caucus, but the conservative Freedom Caucus did not endorse him because he had only 70 percent support among members, short of the group’s threshold for an official nod. 

Hours after Paul’s appearance, sources told The Hill that the White House and Congress are nearing an agreement to raise the debt ceiling and iron out the federal budget for the next two years, meaning Paul wouldn’t have to deal with negotiations on either until 2017.