The budget battle: Obama vs. Ryan

When Republicans took control of the House this year, we thought the big political rivalry would be President Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Now it's Barack Obama vs. Paul Ryan.

In outlining his own debt reduction plan yesterday, Obama took hard shots at the budget proposed by Ryan, saying the Wisconsin Republican's ideas favor rich over poor.

"There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires," Obama said. "And I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's not a vision of the America I know."

Ryan, who was in the audience for Obama's speech along with other House Republican officials, said he is "very disappointed in the president."

"I was excited when we got invited to attend his speech today," Ryan said after Obama's appearance. "I thought the president's invitation of Mr. Camp, Mr. Hensarling and myself was an olive branch. Instead, what we got was a speech that was excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate and hopelessly inadequate to addressing our country's pressing fiscal challenges."

In his speech, Obama -- who did not cite Ryan by name -- said he agrees with the goal of reducing the federal debt, but the Republican approach "would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known certainly in my lifetime. In fact, I think it would be fundamentally different than what we've known throughout our history."

He cited cuts to energy, education, transportation and college aid programs. He protested a proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program, saying "it ends Medicare as we know it." And he blasted the idea of additional tax breaks for the wealthy.

"They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs," Obama said. "That's not right. And it's not going to happen as long as I'm president."

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Obama offered few specifics for reducing record debt levels that threaten to bankrupt the country.

"What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our commander in chief," Ryan said. "What we heard today was a political broadside from our campaigner in chief."

Obama's spending plans are "a doubling down on a failed politics of the past," Ryan said.

He said, "I guess it's no coincidence that last week, when the president launched his billion-dollar re-election campaign, was the week we launched our effort to try and get this debt and deficit under control and get our economy growing."