Ryan has high hopes for deficit deal in 2013

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday he is hopeful that a bipartisan deficit deal can come together in 2013 if President Obama is voted out of office. 

“I think there is a center-right coalition in the making for 2013,” he said. “We have to have a new president.”

Ryan highlighted his new plan with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to partially convert Medicare to a private system. 

The Ryan-Wyden plan, released in December, would keep traditional Medicare as an option. It represents a step toward compromise from the 2012 Ryan budget, which would do away with traditional Medicare for those currently 54 and younger.

“I am really cautiously optimistic about 2013,” Ryan added. “Democrats are involved in this equation.”

Democrats will likely need to be on board unless the GOP can gain a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate next year, or a parliamentary trick like budget reconciliation is used. Even then, ramming through huge cuts to entitlements like Medicare on a party-line basis would be a huge political gamble that the GOP might be unwilling to take. 

Ryan said that to work, the 2013 compromise must address “structural problems” in entitlement programs. He did not specifically say that the plan must block-grant Medicaid or that Medicare must be converted to premium support.

Ryan said that Obama's State of the Union address showed real progress is not possible this year. 

“He talked about deficit for maybe two sentences, while [he] advanced all these new spending proposals,” Ryan said at an event sponsored by The Atlantic and the National Journal. “The lack of seriousness shows me we have to have a new president and new Senate.”

He noted that the White House was dismissive of the Ryan-Wyden plan. 

“I don't think they read our plan. They went out and attacked it right away,” he said. “I think they are just stuck in their ideology.”

Ryan said that next year, Congress will play a key role to “help keep our nominee going in the right direction.” He said that the GOP candidates have “gotten better” on the deficit — a veiled reference to Newt Gingrich, who initially rejected the Ryan budget before coming around to supporting it. 

He said that Romney has also given good speeches on the deficit, but his advice to the candidates was to study the GOP response by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who on Tuesday night focused on the deficit above all else.