Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Paul Ryan responded to Standard & Poor’s downgrading of America’s long-term debt by explaining to host Chris Wallace that Republicans in the House “passed a budget, which according to somebody from S&P yesterday, would have prevented this downgrade from happening in the first place.” America’s credit rating was downgraded to AA+ Friday night from AAA, the highest rating given out by the New York-based agency.

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, went on to explain how his budget plan deals with the long-term entitlement problem, which S&P refers to in its downgrade report. “We passed a budget that would make debt peak in two years at 74.5 percent GDP and it goes steadily down from thereon after,” Ryan said. “So, we put out a plan, very specific plan to address the situation, pay off the debt, balance the budget, reform the tax code to create jobs in the economy. You got to have two things, spending cuts and debt reduction, along with economic growth and job creation.”