Ryan's take on budget agreement rates a Pinocchio in fact check

The Washington Post's Fact Checker gives Paul Ryan a Pinocchio rating:

“The last time there was a bipartisan budget agreement, it balanced the budget by cutting spending and cutting taxes. The 1997 bipartisan budget agreement between President Clinton and a Republican Congress balanced the budget by bringing spending down to 18.2% of gross domestic product.”  — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in a memo to Republican members of the House Budget Committee, July 11, 2011

We are frequently amazed at how politicians appear to forget why those bills passed, how they were crafted and what they were intended to accomplish.

 Ryan’s citation of the 1997 balanced budget deal — explaining why he thinks that a bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling cannot have tax increases — is an example of this.

Politicians love to cite the lessons of history. But sometimes the wrong lessons are learned — or remembered...

Read it here.