The House is back after a two-week recess. Beyond bin Laden, the chatter on Capitol Hill this afternoon is about the GOP town halls, where some folks hollered about the Ryan budget.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the fourth-ranking Republican in leadership, tells National Review Online that fiscal policy remains a top priority for the conference, even though the Beltway is consumed with the news from Pakistan.
“I congratulate the president, and everyone up and down the chain of command, but this does not necessarily mean that I have changed my opinion that he is bankrupting this country,” Hensarling says.
Hensarling is quick to note that Republicans remain more than ready to tangle with the president on the debt ceiling and entitlement reform.
“The problem is not going away simply because we, as a nation, were able to bring bin Laden to justice,” he says. “There are very serious issues here, and I am not sure if one is really going to impact the other, in my own humble opinion.”
“The message is pretty well known to the president: If he wants our help to pay his bills, he is going to have to start cutting up the credit cards,” Hensarling says. “Frankly, that’s what the American people want; they are on our side in this debate.”
Hensarling also shrugs off the early potshots from liberals about the budget’s Medicare provisions. “This is not a two-day debate, or a two-week or two-month debate. This is, at a minimum, a two-year debate,” he says. “All and all, given the fact that we knew it would be challenging, I think we got pretty good reviews on the budget.”
What about those ThinkProgress videos? “I’m not quite buying into that,” he chuckles. “Listen, clearly there were elements on the left who organized at town-hall meetings. That’s not a surprise to members of Congress.”