Wolf Blitzer Sits Down With Rep. Ryan, Talks Debt Ceiling

Representative Paul Ryan sat down with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to discuss the debt ceiling and to tell the American public why he will be voting for the plan which has come under scrutiny by Republicans and Democrats because of concessions both sides have made.

When asked by Blitzer if he supports Obama in his efforts to increase taxable incomes, while adding nearly $4 billion in cuts Ryan said of the debt ceiling plan:

RYAN: Not only are we open to tax reform as you describe it, it’s in our budget. What we propose in our budget that passed the House is, get rid of these loopholes in exchange for lowered rates.

Look, General Electric made a lot of money, didn’t pay any taxes. UPS, another big company, paid a 34 percent tax rate, while their competitor, DHL, paid a 24 percent tax rate.

So, we’ve got a problem here. And what we want to do is get rid of these loopholes, all of these loopholes, in exchange for lowering everybody’s and every business’ tax rates to make us more globally competitive. But that is not what we saw coming together with this big deal.

Ryan went on to mention that the GOP wasn’t look at $3 of spending cuts for $1 of taxes, a number that was floated around recently, he says it was “far different than that.”

You can check out the full Blitzer/Ryan transcription HERE.