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Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.
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Paul Ryan is taking a different approach to life after a lost election than the last person who came up short in a campaign for vice president.
From election night through Inauguration Day, Ryan largely stayed below the media radar, taking some time off and then going back to his day job in Congress. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, he worked behind the scenes during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, despite a newly raised national profile that others might have used to grandstand. In the end, he supported both the compromise to prevent a tax increase on more than 98 percent of Americans, and House Speaker John Boehner, though many conservatives hoped he’d challenge both.
And now, post-inauguration, what’s his watchword for President Barack Obama’s second term?
Prudence.
In a short, measured address to about 900 conservatives attending a summit sponsored by National Review last weekend in Washington, Ryan laid out a strategy for the next four years. There was a little bit of policy, but mostly he talked about how Republicans should responsibly handle being an opposition party in their dealings with the president — and one another.
“Sometimes we’ll have to reject the president’s proposals,” he said. “And sometimes we’ll have to make them better.”
Either way, Republicans will need to be focused on what’s good for the country, not the politics.
“The president will bait us,” Ryan said. “He’ll portray us as cruel and unyielding. Just the other day, he said Republicans had ‘suspicions’ about Social Security. He said we had ‘suspicions’ about feeding hungry children. ... Look, it’s the same trick he plays every time: Fight a straw man. Avoid honest debate. Win the argument by default. ...
“But we can’t get rattled. We won’t play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united. We have to show that — if given the chance — we can govern. We have better ideas.”
To go forward, Republicans will have to be smart — and prudent.
“Prudence is good judgment in the art of governing,” he said. “Abraham Lincoln called it ‘one of the cardinal virtues.’ And it’s our greatest obligation as public servants. We have to find the good in every situation — and choose the best means to achieve it. We have to make decisions anchored in reality.”
He cited Republican votes in favor of the fiscal-cliff deal as an example.
“Here’s how I saw it: On Jan. 1, a $4.4 trillion tax hike took effect,” he said. “The Senate voted overwhelmingly to prevent tax hikes for 98 percent of Americans. It made the lower tax rates permanent — something we couldn’t achieve when George W. Bush was in office. And President Obama got less revenue than the speaker offered in the first place. In short, there was no way we’d get a better deal.”
Conservatives can now use their divisions on that issue to attack one another, perhaps subjecting those who voted yes to primary challenges in 2014, or they can think strategically.
“Prudence demands mutual understanding — especially among friends,” Ryan said. “My colleagues and I sought the same end: We wanted a smaller, smarter government. We simply differed on the means. That’s the difficulty of governing. It shouldn’t be a cause for division.”
Ryan noted that James Madison, now known as the Father of the Constitution, didn’t get everything he wanted out of that convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Nevertheless, he accepted the compromises made and fought hard for ratification. As a result, his adversaries drafted James Monroe to run against him for Congress — “the 18th-century equivalent of ‘getting primaried,’” Ryan called it.
If Republicans are smart, and prudently manage their disagreements, they have an important role to play in the next four years, Ryan said: “to mitigate bad policy — and to advance good policy wherever we can.”
He expects House Republicans to offer plans on tax reform, protecting Medicare and Medicaid, and balancing the budget. Though here, too, he understands the reality of the situation.
“Democrats are unlikely to accept our proposals,” he said. “But we will lay the groundwork for future endeavors. So when reform is possible, we will be ready.”
In the meantime, despite understandable discouragement and tough political fights ahead, conservatives mustn’t give in to despair. They have to remain engaged, he said.
“Our country is worth the fight,” Ryan said. “With your help — and with a touch of prudence — we will win it.”
Kevin Ferris is assistant editor of the Editorial Page of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Rep Paul Ryan [R-Wis] is a smart man. He knows the Federal budget and can teach the President and his staff about the fundamentals and nuances of Appropriations' Law. I opine most of the GOP can because it is their forte. Americans have given President Obama a long honey moon. But, the end is near. President Obama, like all liberal progressives before him, talks a good game but can't deliver the fiscal goods. The GOP with people like Ryan, Rubio, and a host of others too many to name, can and will when the Dems fall flat on their faces and duck and cover.
CarmineD
More fiction:
"He knows the Federal budget and can teach the President and his staff about the fundamentals and nuances of Appropriations' Law. I opine most of the GOP can because it is their forte."
From Joan McCarter:
"The real questions should be: Is Ryan capable of crafting a budget that actually adds up, where the numbers, you know, work? Will he create a Medicare plan that isn't reviled by the voting public? Will he come clean on the fact that he doesn't care about the deficit, only about drowning government in the bathtub?"
Jeff:
Joan McCarter? Really? Senior Editor for Daily Kos! Not high on my list of Federal Budget and Appropriation Law experts. In fact, not on the that list at all. And probably never will be. Try again.
CarmineD
Thanks for the article.
Jeff, it's not up to the GOP. The PRESIDENT is supposed to submit a proposed budget that incorporates what is needed within what revenue is available. It is up the to ADMINISTRATION to first make the choices to CUT SPENDING and fund ESSENTIAL government programs at reasonable levels.
Carmine said:
"Joan McCarter? Really? Senior Editor for Daily Kos! Not high on my list of Federal Budget and Appropriation Law experts. In fact, not on the that list at all. And probably never will be. Try again."
I say:
'
From her online bio:
"Joan McCarter serves as the Mountain West representative for the Daily Kos staff writing from her home in Idaho, where she returned after long stints in Portland, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.
She worked in both the district and Capitol Hill offices of then Congressman and now Senator Ron Wyden from 1987 until 1993, and worked on congressional campaigns in Oregon and Idaho.
She left politics in 1995 to obtain a master's degree in Russian studies from the University of Washington /where she worked as a writer, editor, and instructional designer after obtaining her degree. But she couldn't resist the siren song of politics when the nation went crazy and the Supreme Court selected George W. Bush president, and she found herself at Daily Kos.
Once politics in the U.S. becomes rational again, you might find her actually putting that master's degree (and huge student loan debt) to work writing on Russia. She's been a contributing editor at Daily Kos since 2006, and became Senior Policy Editor in 2010."
She is a neverending source of truth, whereas you are the author of fiction with a one track mind.
Ryan is a whack job who's in over his head.
Jeff:
I have no doubt that she is all the things you claim except ONE: She is not a Federal Budget and Appropriations Law expert. As such, she cannot impugn Paul Ryan who is both.
CarmineD
Oh, you mean THIS Paul Ryan?:
"I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we're engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that's what I tell people."
"I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are."
"It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There's a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well."
"But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand."
"And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism--that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism--you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand."
"It's so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand's vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are."
"Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand's writings and works."
He told Insight on the News on May 24, 1999, that the books he most often rereads are "The Bible, Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged."
He told the Weekly Standard on March 17, 2003, "I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well... I try to make my interns read it."
At a February 28, 2009 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Ryan said Obama was trying "to use this [financial] crisis to move America toward the sort of Europeanized economy" Sounds like something right out of an Ayn Rand novel."
More citizens more income. Everyone pays minimum 20,00 dollar tax and more income earners pay this progressive tax tableau as usual.
Illegals should pay also.