Rep. Paul Ryan: Americans deserve transparency on the looming sequester

Rep. Paul Ryan discusses the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, which would require the President to provide Congress with details on how the administration would deal with the looming sequester. Americans deserve answers from our chief executive on the impact of sequestration and the specific steps that his administration will take to address these concerns. Rep. Ryan's full remarks: "You know later on this afternoon, we're going to be bringing bipartisan legislation through the House of Representatives. We are going to be passing the Sequester Transparency Act, which passed unanimously in the Budget Committee last week. This is a bill authored by our House Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling, co-authored by those of us on the Budget Committee, supported by our Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen and all of the other committee democrats. "What we're simply saying is the Administration has to show us what they plan on doing. The House has already acted with respect to the sequester. The House has already acted with respect to a budget. We've passed a budget that shows how we're going to prioritize taxpayer dollars, how we're going to balance the budget and pay off the debt, put our economy back on a path to prosperity. We also passed the Sequester Reduction Reconciliation Act earlier this year showing specifically how we will cut spending in other areas to prevent the sequester from happening. And what our legislation does, it is has $242.8 billion in additional deficit reduction than even the sequester. "If Congress leads, if Congress prioritizes, if Congress acts and solves problems, we can solve the big problems facing this country. The Senate hasn't done a budget in three years. The President has punted on the issue of debt reduction and has done nothing to show us how he's preparing for the sequester. So what this bill basically does, is it says within thirty days, the Office of Management and Budget must show us their plans for the sequester. 10% across the board on national defense, which the Secretary of Defense says hollows out our military. 8% across the board on domestic discretionary, hitting bipartisan priorities like cancer research and things like this. "We think we should prioritize taxpayer dollars, we've already passed legislation to do that, nothing from the Senate, nothing from the White House, and today we're bringing bipartisan legislation from the Legislative Branch of government telling the Executive Branch of government: do something, act, show us what your plans are so that people can see what's happening so that we can better come up with a solution to prevent this really ugly, across the board cut from occurring."