Word: ryan
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Just days later, Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, shined the spotlight on Ryan again - this time to expose what Democrats perceive as the plan's many warts. Among the elements of his proposal, Ryan wants to privatize Social Security by establishing opt-in individual accounts funded partly by payroll taxes. He also wants to raise the eligibility age for Medicare benefits for Americans currently under 55 and scrap the current system for one in which vouchers would be used to purchase private insurance. While the Congressional Budget Office upheld Ryan's contention that the plan would ultimately bring...
...withering attacks, all of which signal a tactical shift: after months of painting their opponents as obstructionists willing to sacrifice critical legislation for electoral gain, Democrats are now tripping over themselves to juxtapose their ideas with a substantive Republican policy proposal. Still, the blows have done little but burnish Ryan's reputation. His was the first name out of Sarah Palin's mouth when the Tea Party queen was asked to handicap the field of GOP presidential candidates, and the conservative punditry hailed Ryan as a "one-man refutation to the idea that Republicans are the Party...
Blowing up the system was the point, of course - and it's the main reason that Ryan has become the GOP's man of the moment. A telegenic supply-side conservative, Ryan cut his teeth as a speechwriter for Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett in the mid-1990s. Even back then, says Wehner, for whom Ryan worked at Empower America, "it was clear that he was a bright star in the constellation." After serving as legislative director for Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, Ryan mounted a successful bid for Wisconsin's First Congressional District seat...
...irony of Ryan's rise is that he has vaulted to popularity by embracing historically unpopular ideas. For obvious reasons, slashing entitlements doesn't play well with the over-65 crowd - America's most faithful voting bloc - and House Republicans have conspicuously stood apart from the plan. But Ryan is betting that the looming threat of fiscal insolvency will help him marshal a case for the urgency of sweeping changes to entrenched social safety nets. Even raising taxes, he says, wouldn't do enough to address the problem. "Look, I don't see these things as third rails anymore...
Devin Nunes, a California Congressman who worked closely with Ryan to develop the proposal, says making their policies politically palatable will be a gradual process, one that involves locating an array of co-sponsors - hopefully from both sides of the aisle. "There haven't really been any conversations between our little group and the [Republican] leadership," Nunes says. "The leadership has got to be concerned about winning the next election, whereas Paul and I are concerned with having a win for the country." Their goal, he adds, is to spark serious debate, and "then, in 2012, if the conditions...