Rep. Trey Gowdy said the GOP needs to do a better job of explaining to voters the Ryan budget and the proposed Republican restructure of Medicare.
“When I see polls that indicate a majority of our fellow citizens believe we can balance the budget by cutting foreign aid and doing away with waste, fraud and abuse, then, yes there is a huge messaging problem,” the South Carolina Republican said Thursday on The Washington Times-affiliated “America’s Morning News” radio program.
“That’s not going to balance the budget and it does nothing to pay down debt. Should you do it? Of course you should for other reasons, and to build credibility with the electorate.”
But solving the nation’s fiscal crisis, he said, will require the kind of leadership that House Budget Committee Paul Ryan showed in putting together his budget.
Republicans just need to do a better job of communicating, the first-term congressman said.
“We’ve done a poor job of explaining why reform is needed and we’ve done a poor job of explaining to the current group of seniors that this has nothing to do with [them],” he said.
He dismissed reports that the Ryan budget led to a Republican loss Tuesday in a special election in New York’s Congressional District 26.
“It strikes me that the conservative vote was split between two candidates, which is never good,” he said.
