Sperling: ‘Laughable’ for Rep. Ryan to criticize Obama over Bowles-Simpson

"He was on the commission and voted against it," Gene Sperling said, responding to Paul Ryan's claim Obama abandoned Bowles-Simpson.

President Obama’s director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling took aim at House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), saying it was “laughable” Ryan was criticizing Obama for abandoning the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan when Ryan voted against it.

“Paul Ryan, talking about walking away from a balanced plan like Bowles-Simpson is, I don't know, somewhere between laughable and a new definition for chutzpah,” Sperling said in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” which will air Sunday.

“He was on the commission and voted against it. That plan, the Bowles-Simpson plan, actually calls for raising more revenues than President Obama has,” Sperling said.

Sperling’s criticism of Ryan is the latest in a back-and-forth between the White House and the Republican budget chairman, as they have battled over deficit reduction and the “Buffet Rule,” which would raise taxes on those making more than $1 million.

Ryan said this week that Obama’s criticisms of the Republican budget were “verbal tantrums from the president.” He said Obama was employing “a rhetorical broadside to distract from the fact the president isn't proposing solutions."

Sperling in the CNN interview charged that it was Ryan who was the one who wasn’t helping craft a bipartisan solution to the deficit problem.

“His budget has become the poster child for an extreme budget that puts all the burden on the middle class and the most vulnerable, Sperling said.

“It includes no revenue, when the core of Bowles-Simpson was a balance of revenue and entitlements savings, and a principle that you don't put much burden at all on the most vulnerable in our society.”

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