Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been receiving praises lately in a sudden surge in popularity and appearing on the conservatives’ radar. First, Sarah Palin revealed on FOX News Sunday that she’s impressed with Ryan:
PALIN: …But listen, no, we have some strong, some young terps (ph) in this party. Paul Ryan, I’m very impressed with Paul Ryan.
[Show Host Chris] WALLACE: Congressman from Wisconsin.
PALIN: Yes. He’s good. Man, he is sharp, he is smart, articulate and he is passionate about these common-sense solutions that America has got to adopt to get us on the right road.
I can name a whole lot of people.
Not bad to be mentioned by name by the most popular Republican and news analyst in the country. Then come the accolades from columnists like George Will:
Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world’s second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive — and more able and eager to hire.
Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits, or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent.
Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As people under 55 became Medicare-eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support.
Ryan’s plan would fund medical savings accounts from which low-income people would pay minor out-of-pocket medical expenses. All Americans, regardless of income, would be allowed to establish MSAs — tax-preferred accounts for paying such expenses.
Ryan’s plan would allow workers under 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan immensely popular with federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose every dollar they put into these accounts.
Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing — subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees’ adult lives.
And reserved compliments from Washington Post’s Ezra Klein:
But Ryan is right that we will need to ration somehow, and along the way, we will need to change the health-care sector dramatically. His radical embrace of the free-market vision is one option. So, too, is the liberal vision of a nationalized system modeled off the far more affordable and efficient examples we see in France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere. The likeliest outcome is some blend of the two: a better, more transparent, more navigable market ensconced within a tighter regulatory apparatus. That, in fact, is the vision that’s messily embodied in the Senate and House health-care bills, and that’s been implemented in countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Whatever the outcome, it is long past time we faced up to the seriousness of the problem. The House and Senate bills, though I think they are worthwhile, do not go nearly far enough, and few politicians share Ryan’s appetite for proposing daring solutions to dangerous problems. (Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon whose excellent health-care proposal was largely ignored this year, is another.) Liberals and conservatives may disagree over Ryan’s solution, but I imagine most Americans would support his approach to the work. “This is my 12th year,” he says. “If I lose my job over this, then so be it. If you’re given the opportunity to serve, you better serve like it’s your last term every term.”
All’s good with the Congressman until we look at his voting record: yes to TARP, yes to bailout of automakers, and yes to the ridiculous tax on CEO bonuses:
Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of about a year, Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district—are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property—if it doesn’t like you).
While Ryan’s overall voting record is very conservative, the problem with casting these high-profile votes is that they demonstrate he is willing to fundamentally reject conservatism when the heat is on.
Because it is impossible to believe the highly intelligent and well read Rep. Ryan was unfamiliar with conservative economic principles, one must conclude he either 1). Doesn’t really believe in free market economics, or 2). Was willing to cast bad votes for purely political purposes.
What do you think? Just another ambitious young Republican opportunist trying to make an impression? Or is he the real deal?
