Editorial : Paul Ryan enlivens presidential race
And the presidential race is set.
Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s selection of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate establishes a ballot choice of stark differences.
Ryan, 42, brings with him a record of a Washington insider, tea party hero and full-throated champion of budget-cutting plans. He wants to radically trim entitlement spending, remake Medicare into a voucher-like system, slash individual and corporate tax rates, and slice deeply into many low-income programs. They include Pell grants for college students, food stamps and job training.
Response among conservatives is strong and positive. Ditto for Democrats who see Ryan as a gift-wrapped explosive device whose ideas will frighten many and inevitably help President Barack Obama in November.
Here’s an upside: Ryan’s budget plans should spur Democrats to offer more specifics of how they will manage the budget in the future. Allowing Bush-era tax breaks on the wealthy to expire is not enough of a plan.
We’ve argued previously that Obama whiffed on the bipartisan and sound Simpson-Bowles fiscal proposal nearly two years ago. Had the president embraced the findings and pushed Congress toward some of its recommendations, the high road on budget reform would be his.
After much commentary in advance of the GOP veep pick, Ryan “misses” on several fronts.
Romney’s favorite pitch — that he offers real contrast to Obama based on his private business experience — doesn’t mesh well with Ryan’s all-government background. He has been an aide to congressmen and senators (including time with Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback) and has served stints at conservative think tanks and 14 years in Congress.
The ethnic and gender diversity speculation wishes are out the door with Ryan, too. The diversity angle he does meet is youth: Ryan is the first Gen-Xer about to reach a national ballot.
Also, neither Republican can claim foreign policy expertise, a key factor that Obama sought when he chose Joe Biden as his running mate four years ago.
Finally, Ryan’s budget plan skirts specifics on Social Security fixes (although he favored privatizing it in 2004), doesn’t call for major defense cuts and protects oil subsidies. Initial calculations estimate it won’t provide budget surpluses until 2040, a rather long time frame for Republicans who have hammered the deficit topic throughout the Obama years.
While Romney has praised the Ryan budget plan, it’s not clear if it would become his plan as president. Romney has been short on specifics on his budget ideas, other than to promise to keep the Bush tax cuts (including those for the upper income) and trim tax rates more, cut nondefense spending, eliminate unspecified regulations and kill health care reform. But he hasn’t said which regulations would go and how health care would be handled in the future, especially for the millions of uninsured.
Both sides have plenty of answers to fill in for voters. The nation now must hear those answers in much greater detail.
Phil Cardarella
9 months, 2 weeks agoGreat hair, great teeth. I envy this guy both those and his seven-figure FOX News commentator salary — starting when he is free — asy 1/1/13.
But, seriously? He’s the “intellectual” of the GOP? A guy who took two decades to notice that his heroine Ayn Rand was an atheist? Who has yet to notice that his fictional hero — John Galt — ran a railroad: the MOST heavily subsidized industry in US history!
Oh, and a guy who has yet to notice that unvarnished greed is NOT a Christian virtue. A guy who is so far right that the Catholic bishops — who apparently will support anyone with a pulse who is anti-abortion — say his budget proposals do not pass the minimum test for social justice.
Of course, in a GOP that considers anyone who has read a book other than the Bible (and not those socialist Gospels, either)suspiciously moderate, one can hardly expect Bill Buckley.
Steven Fetter
66223
9 months, 2 weeks agoPhil, have you considered a gig in producing personal attack commercials for our current President?
I think the VP debate will show will show which candidate is “all hat and no cattle”. The bar has been set pretty low by the sitting VP in reference to intellectual prowess.
Kevin Sheely
9 months, 2 weeks agoAs soon as everyone hears what Paul Ryan has to say…and soon everyone will…they will see for themselves that not only does he have good, smart ideas but he does a tremendous job selling them in a positive and persuasive way. The other side can throw around casual insults and personal attacks all they want, but seems to me we are about to hand the Democrats another shellacking. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this!
Obama and the Democrats are sticking with their same losing strategy from 2010, which is a willful ignorance and denial that a republican argument exists. Then call us racists, blame Bush, and head out for another celebrity fundraiser. It’s not like they have anything positive to run on. So don’t believe their lies, insults, and smears. Tune in and listen to what Romney and Ryan have to say, and decide for yourself if you think the country is headed in the wrong direction and needs to change course.
Kent Mueller
9 months, 2 weeks agoPhil, you always denigrate conservatives’ intelligence. Trying to convince people that your opponent isn’t very smart is a trait of someone trying to pull someone down to their level.
Your condescending nature is truly pathetic.
Mark Hastert
9 months, 1 week agoPAUL RYAN IS THE GREATEST GIFT TO EDITORIAL WRITERS AND BLOGGERS SINCE SARAH (NOT GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT THE CONVENTION)PALIN!
Mark Robertson
9 months, 1 week agoIt is actually those whacky dissenting nuns on the bus and a bishop or two on the “Social Justice” Committee at the USCCB who oppose Ryan’s plan. Many bishops, including the great Cardinal Dolan,(Former Archbishop of Milwaukee,who knows Ryan.) head of the USCCB, have backed Ryan’s general efforts to cut the debt and restore the economy, realizing that a strong economy is the best way to help the poor. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence Mark Robertson
Mark Robertson
9 months, 1 week agoAnd Phil, backing Kent’s point, predictably you try to tell us that a conservative is not smart, and that they haven’t read books. Your ilk of course did the same thing to Quayle, Palin, Bush 43(you liked 41 because he raised taxes) and of course, the great Ronald Reagan. Tip ONeil called him an amiable dunce. All Reagan did was bring on a 25 year economic boom to the U.S and much of the world with his tax cuts and deregulation, and win the Cold War, including bringing down the Berlin Wall. And a few years back, much of Reagan’s writing was found. It showed the depth of his thinking on so many subjects related to domestic and foreign policy and other subjects. Those writings have been made into books, including: Reagan in His Own Hand, The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America, and Reagan’s Path to Victory. I am a conservative, but I have both books. The left could not have been more wrong about Reagan. He was so well read in history and economics, including most all of the classic free market economists. He agreed with, and I believe said that great leaders are great readers. Paul Ryan is a great reader as well. He quotes the greats in his speeches, including, Friedrich Hayek, who wrote The Road to Serfdom, a path that the U.S. is on with the catastrophic “leadership” of President Obama.
And, along with Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin is the clearest speaking conservative on the scene today of those who have held office. And I would take Dan Quayle over any Democrat and many Republicans, and Bush 41 likely stopped WW III with his preemptive efforts, and though he messed up at the end of his term by listening to that fool, Paulson, his tax cuts brought us out of a recession. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
George Hunsucker
Northland
9 months, 1 week agoAnother view of Ryan…
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cut-ad-clinton-cos-ryan-guy-amazing_649942.html
Of course obama ignored this guy’s advice too on fixing our deficit. Of course obama doesn’t have a plan to fix our dificit or even a budget for over 3 years, so his ignoring a plan is not too surprising.
the big 0, what a “leader”…..
Phil Cardarella
9 months, 1 week agoFirst off, I do NOT denegrate the intelligence of conservatives. I read Bill Buckley for 25 years, watched him cut liberals and right-wing extremists with glee.
Nor do I think that intellectual ability is the sole guage of an effective leader. Reagan was an amiable dunce the same way that FDR was a second-rate intellect — and both were effective leaders. Nixon and Carter were first-rate minds — and each had some trouble in the White House, you may recall.
What I do resent is the claim that Palin or Quayle or W or Ryan are intellectual leaders. While Ryan is not “Palin with a Penis” — I do believe he has read both books and papers — he is pretty shallow as a thinker. How do you read Ayn Rand and not notice she was an atheist? The same way you design a “budget” without income or vote for $7 trillion in deficit spending while claiming to be a fiscal conservative.
Great hair. Great Teeth. But, “less than meets the eye,” as it were.
What I decry is that the GOP has become so dominated by the anti-science, theocratic right. Faith — in tax cuts creating jobs or cavemen riding dinosaurs — is not a sound basis for public policy. It is bad for the Republic to have a political party so doctrinaire that punishes thoughtful moderation and rewards rejection of fact-based reality.
Mark Robertson
9 months, 1 week agoFDR was a disaster. And as Harry Truman pointed out, “he lies.” His disastrous big government policies dragged out depression for a decade. Suggested reading: The Roosevelt Myth, FDR’s Folly, The Forgotten Man and New Deal Raw Deal. Reagan is in the top 3 of U.S. Presidents. FDR is in the bottom 5.
“Pretty shallow as a thinker?” Ryan knows more about the budget than anyone in Congress and the Executive branch. Does the comment about Palin add to your post? This country would be in so much better shape if Palin had been president the last nearly 4 years. And I would take Quayle over any Democrat President of the last 100 years(possible exception, Truman) and many of the Republicans. Just what is your definition of an intellectual? Reagan was a great intellectual. Your post did nothing to change the fact that you libs attack conservatives as being dumb just because they are conservative. By the way, Buckley was frequently a critic of Reagan, including criticizing what he thought was trying to appease the Soviet Union. Reagan, the C student from Eureka College, proved to be right, as he so often did. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
Kent Mueller
9 months, 1 week ago“Of course, in a GOP that considers anyone who has read a book other than the Bible (and not those socialist Gospels, either)suspiciously moderate, one can hardly expect Bill Buckley.”
Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/paul-ryan-enlivens-presidential-race/#storylink=cpy
You are so condescending that you don’t even realize it. I am a Republican and I have read a few more books for which you give me credit. Get your liberal nose out of the air, your nostrils are not very becoming.
George Hunsucker
Northland
9 months, 1 week agoThis is much better Kent…. I give no quarter to these libs that merely screw the poor and then have to audacity to say they are soooooooooooo “caring”.
As far as the big 0, libs such as phil have no record to praise, so all that he is left with is the politics of destruction—quite suited to a card-shark. His sidekick we have disproven so many times it doesn’t matter…..
George Hunsucker
Northland
9 months, 1 week agoAnother example of a condescending lib:
biden-southern-audience-romney-financial-plan-would-put-y-all-back-chains
This guy is a mental giant isn’t he phil?