Ryan on the budget

Basics:

• Believes that America is losing its direction, fiscal policies cannot be maintained.

• Plans to reduce deficit by $6.2 trillion over 10 years with no tax increase, cut government spending and spur growth.

• Overhauls Medicare and Medicaid, offering privatization of the former and restriction of the latter.

• According to the CBO, his budget's spending cuts and revenue increases balance the budget by 2040.

Fact check:

The national debt is Ryan's pearl, so here he is, hammering Biden on the administration's contribution to America's ballooning deficit.

Pro-Republican ads allege Obama added $5 trillion to the debt in his first term alone. Ryan is following their lead on characterizing the scope and depth of the administration's contributions.

But the breakdown of Treasury data from the Congressional Budget Office (courtesy of Politifact) informs a very different picture.

If you combine spending increases linked to Obama policies with increases in discretionary spending on his watch, it only adds up to about 43 percent of the three years worth of deficit, Politifact finds.

Of course, there are some other ways to support the GOP line of attack: include Obama's tax cuts and his share of the contribution rises to 56 percent.

Read more: "Obama denounces Paul Ryan's "radical" budget plan" (AP)