The Political Freakshow

Flip-Flop: Romney Reverses His Siding With Paul Ryan's Medicare Cuts, Even Though Ryan Is His VP

Mitt Romney described the Medicare cuts included in Paul Ryan’s budget as “extraordinary,” during his visit to a mining operation in Beallsville, Ohio on Tuesday — just days after his campaign claimed that he would have signed the reductions into law as part of the Ryan blueprint.

The Medicare reductions have become a political lightning rod since Romney named Ryan to the ticket on Saturday. The Affordable Care Act reduces future Medicare spending by $716 between 2013 and 2022 and Ryan maintains the savings in his Medicare proposal. The Romney campaign, however, has tried to gloss over the similarity and attack the president for approving reductions that the Republican runningmate also supports.

On Tuesday morning, following a barrage of questions from reporters, Romney campaign chair John Sununu announced that Romney would not cut Medicare in the next decade and the candidate himself pledged to restore the funding while stumping in Ohio.

The campaign’s new “no cuts to Medicare” position significantly complicates Romney’s pledge to hold federal spending at 20 percent of GDP by 2016 and his promise to balance the budget at the end of his second term. It also contradicts what Romney told reporters in Miami on Monday.