WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- President Obama and congressional Republicans agree on the need to cut government debt but are on different pages in terms of strategy, officials said Sunday.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on NBC's "Meet the Press" the Democrats were moving deliberately to ensure the economy was on firm footing as the recession eases rather than rashly wielding a meat ax to important programs.
"Our approaches are different," Durbin said. "President Obama and I agree … we ought to make certain that we are strong coming out of this recession, that we are creating good jobs and growing businesses."
Durbin, the assistant majority leader in the Senate, said the Democrats wanted to ensure infrastructure and education were maintained and that the focus of economic strategy was on helping the middle class.
Durbin said the Republicans and their presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, were focused solely on cutting taxes for the wealthy and promoting "the same economic policies that we had under President Bush that led us into this recession."
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., took issue with that, telling NBC the Republican plan doesn't cut spending as much as it slows down growth in spending. He also proposed that aggressively reining in debt and enacting budget reforms will increase the confidence level of the banks and investors who will ultimately get the economy on track.
"If we fix the programs that are the drivers of our debt then we reduce the likelihood of a debt crisis and actually bring borrowing down, which opens up certainty for investors," Ryan said.
