The left is loudly sounding the alarm about Paul Ryan, who among other things is being painted as a cruel man who wants to cut off senior citizens’ Medicare benefits and watch them die. A “lunatic” supply sider. So the Dems are said to be gloating:
Democrats are celebrating. Are they overdoing it? Ryan is smart. He’ll hold his own on the trail. He’ll talk about the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year, and he’ll probably make as credible a case as any conservative can make that Obama won’t make the “tough choices” and Republicans will. And don’t forget that he has a grudge against Obama personally, ever since that George Washington University speech of Obama’s in April 2011 when he invited Ryan—and made the guy sit there and listen to the president of the United States trash him. That’s probably a motivator. And the Democrats might overplay their hand. That’s always a temptation when the target is as big and juicy as Ryan is.
So Democrats will have to be smart. They should show respect for Ryan for being a serious guy, but then just explain to people, urgently but not over-heatedly, what he’s proposed. It’s just very hard to imagine that middle-of-the-road voters want harsh future cuts to Medicare, massive tax cuts for the rich, and huge reductions to domestic programs that most swing voters really don’t hate. Does this choice work in Florida, with all those old people? If Romney just sacrificed Florida, he’s lost the election already.
I hope they continue to gloat and party, and I also hope Romney stays comfortably behind in the polls until ordinary voters have the time to think about the realities of our current situation. With luck, it may sink in that whether the Democrats hate him or not (and whether you agree with him or not), Ryan brings much-needed common sense to the debate.
He’s simply the guy who is reminding us of basic stuff that we tend to forget and which most politicians gloss over. What is being called “radical” talk is about as radical as the statement that eventually you have to balance your checkbook.
Ryan refutes the Democratic Party’s bogus arguments. He knows that our domestic spending trajectory is unsustainable and that liberals who fail to get it under control are leading their constituents over a cliff, just like in Europe. Eventually, you can’t borrow enough money to make good on your promises, and everyone’s screwed. Ryan understands that the longer we ignore the debt crisis and postpone serious budget cuts—the liberal equivalent of denying global warming—the more painful the reckoning will be. There’s nothing compassionate about that kind of irresponsibility.
Maybe, like me, you were raised in a liberal household. You don’t agree with conservative ideas on social or foreign policy. But this is why God made Republicans: to force a reality check when Democrats overpromise and overspend.
Good for William Saletan. This needs to be said. Again and again. Americans have yet to learn that simple, much-hated truism from Margaret Thatcher about the problem with socialism.
Eventually, you run out of other people’s money.
Maybe… just maybe… the current economic malaise will force ordinary voters to face these hard questions instead of inhaling the usual reassurances and glib platitudes they want to hear and which are designed to appeal to their their naked self interests by cloaking their intake of other people’s hard-earned money as “entitlements.”
But maybe not.
Anyway, I saw this video of the evil Paul Ryan trying to sound the alarm on Medicare:
And if you think he sounds radical, I would suggest comparing him to another radical who tried to warn us.
Here’s Reagan on Medicare:
It’s hard to watch them and not conclude Reagan turned out to be right.
And that far from being a radical, all Ryan is doing is attempting to deal with the radical mess which confronts this country.
Socialism does not work.
(Now there’s a radical thought!)
MORE: Here’s Michael Barone on Ryan’s five minute evisceration of Obamacare:
Watch the video of Ryan’s five-minute evisceration of Obamacare at the president’s Blair House meeting. You can tell that Obama didn’t like it one bit.
He better get used to it. Obama’s side is relying on trash-talking ads. Romney’s selection of Ryan shows he wants a debate on whether America should follow Obama on the road to a European-style welfare state.
Via Glenn Reynolds.
No wonder the left is freaking out. They want the debate to be about something else.
Anything else.
Comments
3 responses to “We’re overdue for a Thatcher moment”
About 80% of Americans say prohibition is not working. Talk about government waste. Ryan is for prohibition.
If the Democrats hit that issue it will be interesting to see how team Romney escapes it. Tu quoque? That is weak.
Unlike Barack Obama, Barney Frank is better than Paul Ryan on marijuana:
http://current.com/community/93585299_barney-frank-schools-george-will-paul-ryan-on-marijuana-legalization.htm
That does not mean I would prefer Barney Frank for VP, and if I had to base my votes solely on a candidate’s position on the drug war, I’d end up almost never voting.
But your point is well taken and you are not alone:
http://www.examiner.com/article/paul-ryan-deconstructed
Just by supporting marijuana law reform alone, Obama could undo his fatal errors in ramping up federal raids against state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries and win back the hearts and minds of the tens of millions of American voters who support this kind of reform.