Ryan accuses Obama of 'mischaracterizing' support for veterans

Paul Ryan accused President Obama of "mischaracterizing" the 2012 Republican presidential ticket's support for veterans.

Ryan said that Obama styled a budget plan Ryan authored as chairman of the House Budget Committee as providing insufficient funding for veterans.

"He's mischaracterizing our support for veterans. Let me make one thing very clear. In the House budget that we drafted and that we passed, we fully met and exceeded the president's request for veteran's funding by $270 million," Ryan said at a campaign speech in Toledo, Ohio, on Monday "That means that we saw a commitment, a promise that our government has made to our veterans. We didn't think the president's went far enough and we expanded it because we know this is a promise that must be kept. These people their lives on the line and in a Romney administration we will always keep our promise and our commitment to our veterans."

Both the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign have criticized the opposing campaign on veterans funding. The Obama campaign has charged that under Ryan's budget plan funding for veterans programs would be cut by $11 billion each year. The Romney campaign has shot back that Romney would seek out military waste and use money saved from getting rid of those "inefficiencies" to continue funding veterans programs.

Ryan's comments during a more than 30-minute long stump speech came the same day that a new poll commissioned by the Military Times found Romney with a 40-point lead over Obama among active service and reserve military members. The poll found Romney leading Obama 66 percent to 26 percent.

---