So much for Mitt Romney being a wimp. Until now, I thought he was a Republican version of Michael (yessir, may I have another?) Dukakis, but in making the boldest choice he could, the presumptive Republican nominee for president has selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate.
I’m not naïve enough to believe this announcement will compel the Obama campaign to turn off the Chicago Slime Machine, but at least it will redirect the messaging. Given Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare, we’ll no doubt see a campaign commercial featuring a grandmother opening a can of dog food …. for herself. Actually, the real “Medi-scare” scenario that people should worry about is our present course, which is to do nothing while the program weakens day-by-day, year-by-year. More about that later.
Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget, is an inspired choice on many fronts. He’s a rare politician that didn’t go to Washington to serve as an empty suit. Unlike too many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, he’s actually read the federal budget. He understands the fiscal cliff we’re speeding toward, and how record deficits are slowing economic growth right now.
Imagine, a guy who goes to the nation’s capital and puts some thought into solving our problems, instead of watching them unfold. What a revolutionary!
He won’t have to surprise the American people with the news of our pending fiscal calamity. They know about our own mounting debt and they see what’s unfolding in Europe, where nations of the European Union now face the kind of budget austerity that we can still avoid – if we pull our heads out of our shorts.
They also see entire cities in the United States filing for bankruptcy, a further reminder that, yes, it can happen here.
In pure political terms, Ryan is a Roman Catholic and an economist who understands that true compassion is centered on economic opportunity and a safety net for people who find themselves in a bad place, not lifetime reliance on the government for one’s very subsistence.
He’s whip smart, so there will be no “Quayle-ing” or “Palin-izing” the GOP running mate. Dick Morris, the political guru who has been predicting a Romney landslide, says he got the same intellectual rush from his initial meeting with Paul Ryan that he got from his first encounter with Bill Clinton, his former boss. That’s high praise.
Ryan also is young (42) and personable and has exactly the right temperament, a Jackie Robinson-like temperament that will be crucial this fall when Democrats distort his ideas and otherwise engage in the goon politics we’ve seen lately. Remember how Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier, had to refrain from responding to racist taunts in order to pave the way for more African American players? Well, Ryan has exactly the right demeanor to calmly explain his ideas while opponents go over the top, and make them look like fools in the process.
Joe Biden, your debate prep starts now.
All these qualities will come in handy in explaining just who will get whacked (especially the young) if we don’t get our fiscal house in order. Whether Ryan can deliver Wisconsin for Mitt Romney is anyone’s guess, but I’d be shocked if the Republican ticket is not competitive in the Badger State, which just reaffirmed its choice of a reform-minded conservative governor in Scott Walker.
The latter point is not trivial because as we learned the hard way in 2000, a presidential race is a state-by-state contest. Even with Medicare accountants saying the program will go bankrupt in 12 years, the conventional wisdom in some circles, including some nervous Nellies in the Republican Party, is that Ryan will cost Romney states like Florida, but that remains to be seen. Ryan’s Medicare plan would not impact people age 55 and older, and people who are not yet near retirement would have a range of private-sector insurance choices in addition to traditional Medicare. That will help control the cost of the program by making providers compete on price, a concept that worked splendidly with the Medicare prescription drug program.
That wasn’t part of Ryan’s original “Roadmap” plan, now called “The Path to Prosperity,” but another point in his favor is his willingness to reach across the aisle. That modification was introduced in collaboration with Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat who agrees that it’s time to address our entitlement crisis.
One would think the least controversial aspect of Ryan’s Medicare proposal is that the wealthiest people in the country would no longer receive a full complement of Medicare benefits since – duh! – they can obviously afford to purchase their own medical insurance even in their retirement years, when Medicare applies. The rich will continue to pay into the program, but curtailing their benefits helps preserve the program for the middle class and the economically disadvantaged.
So let the debate begin. It promises to be one of clear contrasts, not pale pastels. So far, we’ve been treated to Barack the trivial, the Chicago slasher who can’t defend his own record, so he keeps unleashing weapons of mass distraction and painting the moderate Mr. Romney as a corporate criminal. The selection of Paul Ryan injects some much-needed substance into the presidential campaign, which will occur in the weakest economic “recovery” in the nation’s history. With any luck, this will bring out the best in President Obama, and we’ll finally have the kind of debate we deserve.
Speaking as a taxpayer
On a personal note, I hope I’m not in the minority in appreciating Ryan for caring enough to put forth a solution to the Medicare crisis. I just turned 52. I’ve been paying into the Medicare program all my adult life, and now the government’s own number crunchers are telling us that unless Congress acts, the program will be broke one year before I’m set to retire. That’s not a happy scenario for me, and that’s why I’m so profoundly disappointed in President Obama, who has no plan to put Medicare on a sounder financial path. It’s nothing but a political football to him. The President had a chance to tackle this country’s challenges with Kennedy-esque youthful vigor, combined with Clintonian mastery of detail. Instead, he’s become the same old, same old.
When I was 23, President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill put aside their considerable differences and reached a deal to put Social Security on more solid financial ground. Why can’t today’s politicians be more like Paul Ryan? Why can’t they solve our problems instead of watch them unfold?
