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Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, slammed Ryan's plan in a press release Sunday. "It is not courageous to protect tax breaks for millionaires, oil companies and other big-money special interests while slashing our investment in education, ending the current health care guarantees for seniors on Medicare, and denying health care coverage to tens of millions of Americans," Van Hollen said. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia was skeptical that Ryan's proposal could achieve its targets without damaging social programs. He also questioned whether reductions in defense spending and seeking more revenue through tax reform would be part of the plan. "I don't know how you get there without taking basically a meat ax to those programs who protect the most vulnerable in the country," Warner said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I'll give anybody the benefit of a doubt until I get a chance to look at the details," he said, "but I think the only way you're going to really get there is if you put all of these things, including defense spending, including tax reform, as part of the overall package." Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., part of a six-member group of Republicans and Democrats forging their own budget proposal, said that the lawmakers would be looking for "real balance" in Ryan's plan and wanting all options considered. "I think we'll come at it differently," Durbin said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "The idea of sparing the Pentagon from any savings, not imposing any new sacrifice on the wealthiest Americans, I think goes way too far. We have got to make certain that it's a balanced approach and one that can be sustained over the next 10 years." Ryan criticized Obama, telling Fox that the president was "punting on the budget and not doing a thing to prevent a debt crisis, which every single economist tells us is coming sooner rather than later in this country." "You have to address the drivers of our debt," he said. "We need to engage with the American people on a fact-based budget, on stopping politicians from making empty promises to people and talk to the country about what is necessary to fix these problems."
[Associated
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