Washington – This weekend, Wisconsin’s First District Congressman and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan spoke with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday about the President’s State of the Union address, the upcoming Fiscal Year 2013 budget, and the need to advance bipartisan solutions to our fiscal problems. Excerpts of the interview are below.

Highlights

On the President’s unwillingness to lead and the Senate’s unwillingness to budget:

“We owe the country actual solutions based upon the founding principles that get us back on the right track. The President has dodged this for his entire presidency, the Senate hasn’t budgeted for 1,000 days, and the Budget Control Act is hardly a budget -it is really devolving to others to lead. We are going to pass a budget and we will build on the kinds of reforms we proposed last year.”

Building on a bipartisan consensus to solve our fiscal challenges:

“The thing that is frustrating is there is an emerging bipartisan consensus on how to fix these big problems. There are Democrats who agree with us on how to do tax reform- get the loopholes out and lower the rates. We are getting a bipartisan consensus on Medicare reform. But the problem is the President and his party leaders are out on the left standing on the sidelines looking in.”

A clear contrast between the President and House Republicans on reducing our debt and deficits:

“All of the war savings is mythical money. It is all borrowed money. It’s basically saying we are not going to be spending all this extra money in Afghanistan and Iraq in the future and therefore, now we’re going to take that money we were going to borrow and spend it on other programs.

The President isn’t leading. The President isn’t being truthful with the American people about what kind of fiscal train wreck is coming. We are going to be, and we are going to pass budgets to show the country exactly how to fix this problem.”

Ryan on the President’s divisive rhetoric not matching reality:

“What we have learned from the President time and again is he will put a poll-tested line in the State of the Union and have no follow up whatsoever. We have learned already that the President, who has had three years to propose real solutions to fix our fiscal crisis, is ducking it. He hasn't put a plan on the table yet. He formed commissions and super committees and sort of outsourced the leadership only to decry their results.

We are not getting the leadership we need from the White House at a time when America needs it most. We have a debt crisis on our horizon.…We need to give the country a specific plan and specific ideas on how we are going to solve these problems.”