When you think of Republican congressman Paul Ryan, terms like earnest, serious, and important come to mind. So does the term old-fashioned. Ryan comes from an old-fashioned place, the blue-collar town of Janesville, Wisconsin. He cherishes the old-fashioned values of a faithful family man. He even looks old-fashioned, with his white shirts and striped ties. And he uses old-fashioned argument skills, persuasively weaving big-picture themes with the numbers that back them up.
And Ryan has old-fashioned goals, too, like saving America from fiscal bankruptcy, economic stagnation, and a European-style entitlement state.
“Just look at what happened across the Atlantic,” Ryan told me in a year-end interview. “We have to avoid that. We must reclaim our founding principles of economic freedom and free markets. We must preserve the American Idea.”
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With this vision, and with a pro-growth budget framework called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” Ryan’s serious ideas have seriously gotten under President Obama’s skin.
In a White House meeting this year, Ryan’s superior knowledge of health care baffled Obama and left him speechless. And the serious Ryan budget, which lowers spending by $6.2 trillion and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion over ten years, totally outflanked the White House. It embarrassingly exposed the Obama administration’s flimsy and inconsequential 2012 budget, which even rejected the findings of Obama’s own Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission. (Another Oval Office embarrassment.)
And when Ryan unveiled his first Medicare-reform package, which featured patient-centered consumerchoice and market competition, the White House went nuts. Team Obama whipped up a Mediscare panic, resorting to a fictional caricature of Ryan forcing old ladies off a cliff. But the charge that the Ryan plan “ends Medicare” couldn’t be further from the truth. The website PolitiFact labeled this “the lie of the year.”
Ryan later amended his Medicare reform to keep the existing system as an option, and bolstered it with a menu of market-based private insurance plans to promote cost-cutting choice and competition. But he did so with the bipartisan support of Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. How did the White House react? It went rhetorically ballistic, although it couldn’t put together a serious response.
No, Ryan’s reforms didn’t quite resonate in the White House. But they did force a serious debate about domestic policy and the economy throughout the country. With his comprehensive budget of deep spending cuts, entitlement reform, and tax simplification — a plan that would strictly limit government and unleash growth at the same time — Ryan became the most influential Republican of his younger generation. Quite likely, he became the most influential thinker in today’s GOP. For these reasons, Paul Ryan has been chosen as the Human Events Man of the Year.
The Ryan “Path to Prosperity” budget passed the House this past spring. In effect, it became Republican policy. Unfortunately, things went downhill after that.
The summer debt-ceiling crisis produced a meager $1 trillion in spending restraint, way below the Ryan goals. Then the Supercommittee, which couldn’t even produce a policy, fell back on the trigger of another $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts. And now the year is ending in a chaotic and unserious gridlock over the temporary extension of a temporary payroll tax holiday that has no economic-growth content and ultimately would blow more holes in the Social Security trust fund and the overall budget. A disappointed Ryan told me, “Tea Party enthusiasm hasn’t yet translated into the kind of reforms we need. One-third of the government has only limited political power.” He added that the 2011 budget narrative shows “the total un-seriousness of the left in tackling problems.”
This is going to be painful. So far politicians have been traveling the road most highly traveled: the road with the least resistance. A Trail of Utopian Tears in my opinion. Must America implode like the former USSR before we restore our Constitutional Republic? Or do we end in a dictatorship of the proletarians?
There! You;ve said it! Devolving into our Cold War enemy's system. Notice that Putin is becoming less attractive 'over there'. Given that as well as Obowma;s destructionist direction, maybe Obowma;s running mate for 2012 ought to >be< Putin. He couldn;t succeed to the presidency but he;d sure show Rahm Emanual "how to get things done." And if peaceful succession were to become an eventuality we'd have Boehner! What could be better?
The cornerstone difference that exists in this country today is summarized: Equal opportunity, not equal results. I'm not as optimistic that the American people will choose equal opportunity over equal results.
We have already become an entitlement society steeped in dependency. That is like a narcotic that once one is hooked is very hard to break. I'm not sure that the American people even realize that they are hooked.
I agree with you. I think it is too late. The entitlement mindset is so entrenched in American life that I don't believe it will accept the Ryan plan. Especially with the current administration espousing class warfare.
I wish Ryan or someone like him would step up to the plate. Maybe he has lots of flaws that would be exposed if he stepped into the limelight, but I haven't seen them yet, and we need the best possible candidate to oust the most dangerous administration of my lifetime.
Bachmann is running on the same issues. If you believe the polls she is behind a cult follower, an adulterer and a crack-pot. Then again Howard Dean was once a front runner until the actual voting commenced. BTW I will be voting for Ron Paul, but I do like Bachmann.
And if he were nominated, and elected, tear down Obama's basketball court and install an indoor gun range . . . so he and his family can practice conveniently . . .
I'd vote for Ryan in a heartbeat. He's one of the few who have the common sense, resume of actual achievement, and intellect to pull us out of this "obamalaise" . . .
I was certainly hoping that he would change his mind and run for president, but from the article it sounds like it's a very slim chance......I think he would have NO problem beating barry.
Would you want to expose your young children to a national presidential campaign? While I wish he would, I certainly can understand his choice not to do so at this time.
"The country will not accept a permanent class of technocrats that will diminish freedom, enhance crony capitalism, and allow the economy to enter some sort of managed decline."
Too late for that. We already do, and we already have.
In 4 years the kids will be 4 years older, and Ryan will have had 4 years to refine his plans. They keep getting better with every iteration.
I'd also like to hear a bit more about what he has to say about foreign policy.
Biggest challenge for Ryan if he runs in 2016 will be Iowa. People there seem to have a pretty short attention span as far as economics is concerned. Ryan doesn't seem to have much to say about social issues, although he obviously is a family guy. Maybe the Republicans can get Iowa moved to the end of the line that year and start in a state where Ryan's grasp of economic policy could be showcased, and get the primary season that year rolling with a focus where it ought to be.
Great column, Mr. Kudlow. We have so many great prospects "in a few years" when we need them now. I'm encouraged by Ryan. If a Republican can actually not screw up the election -- they would be insane not to tap Ryan for something. We have a deep bench. Too bad those running right now are old-school. Hey, old-school, surround yourselves with Ryan and Rubio and many other up and comers. You might give us conservatives some hope.
"Tea Party enthusiasm hasn’t yet translated into the kind of reforms we need. One-third of the government has only limited political power.”
Nonsense. The House held all the cards during the debt-ceiling showdown. Obama would have been forced to balance the budget immediately or cut whatever deal the House wanted.
The problem is that the House doesn't actually believe in limited government. Limited government is not making phantom cuts ten years from now in exchange for more spending now.
America last had limited government just before the Great Depression. Back then, when America had already grown to become a global super power, federal spending was just five percent of GDP. Now it's 25 percent of GDP.
So federal spending is five times what it was just 80 years ago. And America has paid a terrible price. Personal responsibility has been replaced by narcissism. The institution of marriage has been replaced by 50 percent of children born out of wedlock. And Judeo-Christian values have been driven out of the public square at every turn, replaced by earth and animal worship and obsession with health.
Drug abuse, crime, vulgarity are all way up. Kids are murdered in schools.
We need to reduce government spending and taxation at the Federal and local levels. While federal spending is five times greater as a percentage of GDP in the last 80 years, state and local spending are three times greater.
Public unions and large corporations enrich themselves on tax payer money. Armies of bureaucrats do little work of any value. The government pays even greater armies of irresponsible free-loaders to party and deal drugs while the rest of us work for a living.
And in spite of all the growth in government, progressives want more taxes and more spending. Europe, which has embraced the very vision progressives espouse, is on the verge of collapse. Europeans spend almost nothing on defense and yet can't live within their means.
Europeans are rioting at the thought of reform. And now it's spreading to America. Is this what we want for our future?
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