BY WESLEY P. HESTER

At an event Tuesday morning to present his “Blueprint for America’s Comeback,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate George Allen offered a slightly more definitive answer to the oft-asked question of whether or not he would have voted in favor of the House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan.

The answer seems to be probably not; at least as the plan’s currently written.

Repeating his praise for certain provisions like ”greater flexibility for the states in handling Medicaid,” Allen added: “I like what he did on the taxes on job creating businesses, but I think we should do much better than that.”

Allen’s own “blueprint” proposing cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Ryan’s would reduce it to 25 percent.  

Allen also said he had differences of opinion relating to Medicare, changes to which are the largest piece of Ryan’s proposal and its most often attacked.   

“The first step that there should be unanimous consent on is to root out this $50 billion [a year]…that is completely wasted on fraudulent claims,” Allen said, “and so that’s the approach we need to take.”

He added: “There are going to be a lot of different ideas on Medicare, but I think folks need to understand…it’s on an unsustainable path. I want to protect Medicare. I want to make sure future citizens have it, but it can’t continue on the rate it’s going and not expect it not to go broke.”