The Hill News

Brace for a "dark" vision of America when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) delivers the GOP response to the State of the Union, a Democratic colleague of Ryan's on President Obama's fiscal commission warned Monday.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the bipartisan, 18-member commission, said her experience with Ryan over the past year made her worry about his response to the president on Tuesday night.

"I served with Rep. Ryan on the 18 member Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and learned firsthand from the personally congenial Ryan just how dark his vision of America's future is for all but the super-rich," Schakowsky wrote in a blog for the Huffington Post.

Both Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget ! Committee, and Schakowsky voted against the final proposals of the panel, which called for spending cuts along with entitlement and tax reforms to help balance the budget.

But apparently the commission's work did very little to build comity between Ryan and Schakowsky, who said that viewers should "be prepared to be deeply disappointed â€" frightened even" by Ryan's response.

Democrats have seized on the choice by Republican leaders to put Ryan â€" regarded as a young, fresh face of the party â€" on the national stage, to deliver the Republican response to Obama's address.

Ryan last year released a "Roadmap for America's Future" that outlined his own personal vision for balancing the budget, a plan on which Democrats seized at the time for its deep cuts in a number of areas, including Social Security. They've revived that line of attack on Ryan, since he was announced as the GOP speaker on Tuesday night.

The Wisconsin lawmaker! will have to produce a budget this year that will more likely! reflect the legislative realities of what can pass Congress, but until then, Democrats have sought to tar him with his "Roadmap."

"The Republicans led by Ryan are determined to keep serving only their wealthy constituency and push the rest of America down a dangerous road that threatens what has long been a consensus vision of our country as the land of opportunity for all," Schakowsky wrote.