Posted on 02/05/2010 9:06:26 PM PST by goldstategop
Make sure to read Reihan’s excellent post on the misunderstanding of Rep. Paul Ryan’s roadmap. While the plan has critics on the right and left, it also appears to be unloved, at least publicly, by the House GOP leadership:
“Paul Ryan, who’s the ranking member on our budget committee, has done an awful lot of work in putting together his roadmap,” Boehner said. “But it’s his. And I know the Democrats are trying to say that it’s the Republican leadership. But they know that's not the case.”
Understandably, Boehner is worried about Ryan’s roadmap being portrayed by Democrats as “the symbol” of how “Republicans would dismantle the social safety net if the GOP took control of Congress.” Yet Boehner admits that off the top of his head, he “couldn’t tell you” what about Ryan’s plan he disagrees with. The House GOP seems comfortable with Ryan as their lone wolf on the budget and wary about him being grouped with the Boehner-Cantor-Pence leadership group.
Ryan noted this dynamic in an interview with Ross Douthat:
At the same time, [Ryan] allowed that “the problem in the minority [is that] you sometimes revert into a posture where ‘I don’t have to do anything controversial, I just can be against that and win by default.’ I’m not interesting in winning by default. And I’m worried that if we get the majority back by default, we’ll screw up again.” And when I brought up Republican politicians who have embraced a “Medicare now, Medicare forever” approach to critiquing the Obama health care proposals, Ryan turned grim in a hurry. “I don’t do that,” he said sharply. “I don’t do that.”
For now, this honesty leaves him in a relatively lonely position — both within his party, and in Washington more generally. (The Obama plan for long-term fiscal solvency is … to appoint a commission charged with proposing plans for long-term fiscal solvency.) “I’m trying to encourage people to jump in the pool with me,” Ryan said ruefully. “I’m in there alone right now.”
Beyond the details of Ryan’s plan or its politics is the larger point. As Ryan told me earlier this week, Obama’s budget “is about more than specific programs or policies — it is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state.” The roadmap, he said, is part of offering voters “a choice of two futures” and detailing, in policy terms, how the GOP believes that “the individual is the nucleus of American life, and [Democrats] see the government in that role.” That’s the true importance of his plan.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Well considering the MSM is now reporting SS is unsustainable it would seem a good time to get serious about it and medicare. They were wrong not to do so when Bush brought it up.
If Pence truly wishes to wish to make a difference as I assume he does since he turned down running for Senate? He’d champion Ryan.
The demorats can't question his brain, and he is a real Conservative.
Ryan/Palin 2012
He reminds me of John Kasich prior to 1995. JK would present “alternative” bal. budgets that got tepid support.
He’s got guts and is a man and patriot.
I’m hoping he prevails.
Except that he championed the initial bailouts. Like the entirety of the GOP leadership, he needs to be watched. First and foremost, he's a politician interested in his own skin.
I’m from WI CD1 as well, and I second that ticket!
Wrong. He's a principled conservative, who went along with the original TARP plan back in September of '08 against strong reservations, because based on the evidence they had at the time, the U.S. economy faced collapse without additional liquidity. Those TARP funds have largely been repaid, btw.
"Atlas Shrugged" is required reading for his new staff. He did not make that decision lightly - but rest assured he is a principled conservative who will do the right thing, whether it is politically expedient or not, as evidenced by his talking about the need to reform Social Security before it went bankrupt - when the conventional wisdom was that Social Security was the "third rail" of American politics.
We need a plan to set up the dominos so the will fall exactly like that. I’d be happy if the GOP would start talking in terms of returning power to the people and the states such as with education. Talk about issues in way the common man will understand. Say things like “It doesn’t make sense to tax money to Washington just to have Washington Bureaucrats take their cut to send it back to states who should have been let keep the money in the first place.” The little people can understand basic common sense concepts Mom and Pop aren’t stupid. The unions will cry and whine but the federal unions have already grown too big. Someone should show some balls and repeal the executive order letting federal workers unionize. It is the most idiotic idea ever and they represent the biggest reason for a large percentage of the cost related to the federal government. It would also be nice if a Republican when a disaster occurs suggest a solution other than dumping federal funds on the issue. Hold a telethon chip in some millions and put the Hollywood crowd to shame. I’ve been thinking for some time that we in the private sector should put together a “Meal Ticket Program” funded by private donations in competition with Food Stamps. Make it high tech, work with restaurants and food stores. We need to show in measurable ways that there is another way to satisfy the needs of the needy. Somewhere down the line we need to stop waiting for the government to shrink we need to start cutting off the blood supply.
He is my favorite Congressman.
That doesn't make the bailouts right. Too big too fail is a dangerous moral hazard, a weight around the economy's neck that we will be living with for a generation if not longer. A true fiscal conservative would have never gone along with this misguided policy. Saving capitalism by abandoning it doesn't fly.
I like a lot of what he says but he's a politician who needs to be watched very closely, and he probably shouldn't be a leader.
The government social safety net needs to be replaced over time:
I) Phase out over 20 to 40 years completely by simply reducing all of it by about 2% to 5% per year for future retirees, i.e., everyone 65+ as of today stays on the current plan. paycheck deductions start reducing 3-5 years out.
II) Over that same period of time it will be replaced with:
A) Personal responsibility - the looming phase out will make people extremely interested in planning for themselves
B) Increase in family responsibility - 1) Benefits of careful and wise marriage selection will become obvious as will 2) much more maturity amongst adult population and 3) far greater drive for families to coordinate them caring for their elders themselves rather than abandoning them as they routinely do now 4) parents today will raise their children in this principle to give themselves the old-age safety net of the care of their own children
C) Church responsibility - those for whom A) and B) don’t work out and are sick or elderly are the object of the charity of the Church, which has an enormous amount of resources to the point where A) B) and C) are basically all that’s needed
D) Other charities responsibility - billions are given to non-church charitable organizations each year
III) Special education needs to be eliminated from public schools, this would lower property/school taxes about 10% to 15%, lifting a very large part of the burden on every household, especially renters and the working poor, as landlords pay these taxes and these taxes are very large as a percent of income for the working poor and are unavoidable for them. The whole special education industry has sprung up in the last 10 years and we got along fine without it. There is no point in a tax burden that large for that purpose.
The real issue is if the GOP is ready to do the right thing and go to the American people and tell them what they already know. Both parties have looked at the social security issue as political suicide.
If they’ve been repaid, how is that a “weight around the economy’s neck for a generation if not longer?”
I agree with you about “too big to fail” - and so does Ryan, who has been warning about government sponsored entities like Fannie, Freddie, et al and the potential threat they posed to the economy for more than 10 years. What would you have done in his position? Allowed a run on the dollar and subsequent global currency collapse?
I have talked to him about it; He didn’t like it any more than you or I did, but he didn’t feel there was any choice.
The "weight" isn't money, it's the abandonment of the principle that capitalism, in order to work, must allow failure. By choosing to support TARP, Ryan, along with the others who voted yea on that misguided legislation, chose the government solution over the (admittedly harsh) market solution to failure. There's no denying the fact that, when it came time to put his free market money where his mouth is, Ryan blinked, and from a leadership position to boot. That's not at all helpful to the future of free markets in this country. And it leaves some of us who support free markets highly suspicious of Representative Ryan.
What would you have done in his position? Allowed a run on the dollar and subsequent global currency collapse?
It's highly unlikely that anything approaching this scenario would have occurred sans TARP. There would have been pain, but there would have been a whole lotta learnin' going on afterward. People learn from their mistakes and far more of us - especially the youngest of us for whom this was a formative event - would today be better prepared to face the future within solid economic frames of reference. And we'd likely be looking at a real recovery sooner, rather than the false one being shilled currently. Most people still have not learned the lesson, and as a result the primary cause - fiat currency - is still not seriously on the table for debate.
That all said, it is VERY helpful that Paul Ryan is stepping forward now with these solutions. If the GOP is to regain ANY credibility in the minds of those of us who are truly serious about restoring America for our children and grandchildren, it's leaders have to propose details rather than just snipe at the progressive left leading us into even greater dependence on the state.
Ryan's "roadmap" deserves a thorough reading and thoughtful consideration from every one of us.
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