Ryan: GOP presidential candidates are on board with budget

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the main GOP presidential candidates have offered their support for Ryan’s 2013 budget.

“I have spoken to all of these guys and they believe we are going in the right direction,” he said.

Ryan said “all of our candidates have campaigned on these various ideas,” adding that the new House budget “perfectly jives” with the messages of the leading candidates.

“I expect the Republican nominee to offer the country the legitimate choice that they deserve,” Ryan said. “We have a moral and a legal obligation to budget. I expect our nominee to propose how to get us out of a debt crisis.”

Presidential GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has proposed cutting federal spending down to 20 percent of the economy from 24 percent. Ryan’s plan does this by 2023. 

Romney would keep the current six tax brackets but give a 20 percent cut to each, bringing the top rate down to 28 percent from 35 percent. The new Ryan plan collapses all six brackets into two, set at 10 percent and 25 percent.

Rick Santorum proposes cutting spending by $5 trillion in just five years — faster than the Ryan plan — and has two individual tax rates of 10 percent and 28 percent.

Newt Gingrich has proposed a alternative 15 percent flat tax rate for individuals and has put forward $3 trillion in spending cut proposals. 

Gingrich caused an uproar last year when he called Ryan's 2012 Medicare reform "right-wing social engineering." He later backtracked under criticism from Republicans who said he should not have been attacking the GOP chairman's budget. 

The new budget contains a modified version of Ryan's 2013 Medicare proposal. Under the new plan, seniors have the option to remain in traditional Medicare or buy private insurance with government subsidies. 

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