Sarah Palin Vs. Paul Ryan's Budget: 'It's Trouble For Our Nation'

A day after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., suggested former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin take a closer look at his 2015 budget proposal, which she had dismissed as a “joke,” Palin said digging deeper won’t change her mind.

Ryan released his budget Tuesday, which the committee began considering a day later. A full House vote on the legislation is expected next week -- and possible defections by conservatives mean its passage is not assured. The Wisconsin Republican said his proposal will balance the federal budget in a decade, cut spending by $5 trillion, repeal Obamacare, and reform entitlement programs. It has no prayer of being adopted by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Ryan’s budget may be just a rhetorical exercise, but Palin still called it a “joke” for not dealing with “wasteful government overspending” that needs to be dealt with “today.” Ryan replied that Palin “ought to take a look at the details, and I think she’d probably be pretty pleased.”

“If she liked what we did before, she should clearly like what we’re doing here, which is very much in keeping with our constitutional principles: limited government, economic freedom, balancing the budget, creating jobs,” he told Politico.

But on Thursday night, Palin told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that’s not going to happen. “No, no. Bless his heart,” she said. “He probably has more faith in politicians than I do because I’ve been in this political arena on the local, state and now national level for a long time. I don’t trust future legislative bodies to adhere to today’s legislative body wishing that 10 years from now they will cut some budget."

“What Paul Ryan’s budget does is that ultimately it increases spending over 10 years (by) $1.116 trillion,” she continued. “That’s trillion with a ‘t’ and that stands for trouble. Trouble for our nation because it still is involving deficit spending, increasing debt, and we can’t afford that.”

Palin’s squabble with Ryan further highlights the division in the Republican Party. Ryan agreed to a two-year budget deal with Democrats last December, making his new proposal sort of unnecessary. Moreover, the proposal follows $1.014 trillion spending guidelines that were laid out in the December deal, which conservatives thought was too much spending. 62 Republicans defected in the House when the budget deal went up for a vote. Conservative news sites are reporting that some of Ryan’s colleagues are with Palin.

"Rep. Jack Kingston, who is running for Senate in Georgia, is ‘likely to vote against the budget.’ Others, like Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), and Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), indicated they are also on the fence. And there may be more who are reconsidering,” wrote conservative website Breitbart.com.

All Democrats are expected to oppose Ryan’s budget, and therefore he cannot afford to lose more than 16 of his own colleagues if the budget is to pass the House. But that is a possibility. The Republican rank and file is still seething because its leadership used an unexpected voice vote to pass an extension of the “doc fix” reimbursement for physicians who take care of Medicare patients. Some House members have called the move “not acceptable” and said they were deceived by their own leaders.