Sensenbrenner says Ryan 'burying head in sand' or 'trying to score political points' on balanced budget amendment

Big Jim Sensenbrenner (pictured), the Congressman from Wisconsin's reddest district, had this to say in a recent column on Brookfield Patch:

The House considered a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, which requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress to pass. With opposition from the tax-and-spend left, the amendment did not pass.
This Balanced Budget Amendment closely mirrors the same one that passed the House in 1995 — with broad bipartisan support — and failed by only one vote in the Senate. Since then, our debt has nearly quadrupled.

My colleagues ... who voted against this amendment are either burying their heads in the sand or trying to misrepresent this effort to score political points. But ignoring our debt crisis won’t make it go away.

The ellipsis replaced the words "across the aisle," since Sensenbrenner was using the column to attack Democrats.

Thing is -- and this has got to be somewhat embarrassing for Big Jim -- one of the "no" votes was from his side of the aisle. A guy from Wisconsin. A buddy of his. A guy named Paul Ryan.

Three other Republicans also voted no.

On the other hand, Rep. Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat, voted yes. Go figure.

Even Big Jim Sensenbrenner backing away from Ryan Medicare plan

Wow.

Confronted by a 54-year-old constituent at a town meeting in his district on Sunday, all Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner --  the extreme conservative who represents one of the safest districts in the country, which happens to border Paul Ryan's -- wouldn't defend Ryan's Medicare plan.

According to the Brookfiield Patch, the best Sensenbrenner could come up with was:

"I'm not here to say he's (Ryan) right or he's wrong, but at least he's got a plan."

Not exactly a vote of confidence, even though Sensebrenner, like almost every other Republican in the House, voted for Ryan's budget plan which included the Medicare changes.

Sensenbrenner was questioned by 54-year-old Paul Race of Menomonee Falls, who would lose the guaranteed coverage offered by Medicare under Ryan's plan  and instead be required to purchase private insurance with a government voucher -- for considerably less than the government spends on Medicare.

"If it's good enough for the people 54 and younger ... then I think it's good enough for people 55 and older," said Race, a former Marine and a teacher of 25 years.

Huffington Post and FiredogLake have more.

Ryan gets to second base with Fox6

WITI-TV's long, wet, sloppy kiss of Paul Ryan was just foreplay, it turns out. There's another long piece, this one a mere 6 minutes long (the first one was 9-minutes -- a quarter hour of news!)

This one purports to be more serious and tell us about Ryan's budget plan, also known as the Road to Republican Ruin, but there's still plenty of time devoted to personal anecdotes and what passes for Republican humor:

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin's longest tenured member of congress, that pushed Ryan to run for congress...

One of the lessons Sensenbrenner taught Ryan early on was to approach the serious job with a sense of humor. Sensenbrenner said, "Not only do the two of us have a sense of humor, but we're very good friends.".

The two now say they work more closely together than any two members of congress. They frequently go out to dinner, and even exchange gag gifts every Christmas. Sensenbrenner says, "I gave him for Christmas, a pooping reindeer that pooped out brown candy...I got the cow-talytic converter, because we spent thousands of tax payer dollars trying to investigate bovine flatulence, and we know a lot about that in Wisconsin."

Heartless Jim Sensenbrenner as Ryan's mentor? Who knew? That explains a lot. Sensenbrenner would throw a senior out of the life raft without a second thought.