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.