http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=694&mname=ArticleGroup News Releases and Articles of Interest en-us 60 Ryan: ‘Unhinged’ Democrats in ‘Panic Mode’ August 11, 2010 11:37 AM By Robert Costa Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, tells National Review Online that Democrats are entering a “panic mode” as November approaches. “They are beginning to get a little unhinged,” Ryan says. “The Left sees their agenda being rebuked by the voters this fall,” Ryan tells us. As their electoral worries mount, he says, Democrats are scurrying to “nullify any notion that there is an alternative path for America. They want to delegitimize an alternative plan and win the argument by default, making the case that there is no other path for America than what progressives have mapped out for the country, and that any other talk, of any other idea, is just fanciful.” “That’s what’s troubling,” Ryan says. “They are trying to deny the debate that must happen if we are going to get out of the mess that we’re in.” Looking ahead, Ryan says “a lot of people speculate on whether [President Obama] will triangulate like [Bill] Clinton did” after the GOP sweep in 1994. The Wisconsin Republican isn’t holding his breath. “I don’t know whether that’s really who [Obama] is,” Ryan says. “First, the economy is not going to be like it was in 1995 or 1996. Second, the president is a liberal and Clinton was arguably a centrist. And third, I just don’t think that [Obama] is willing to admit that all the things he did during the first two years of his presidency were wrong, because I don’t think he believes that. I don’t see a big triangulation happening.” “I see 2010 as a build-up to the crescendo of 2012,” Ryan continues. “[2012] will be a major referendum on the American idea.” He cites Gov. Mitch Daniels (R., Ind.) as one potential candidate he respects. Still, “other candidates will materialize,” he predicts. (Ryan, for his part, says he will not run.) NRO wonders: Is 2012 too early for Gov. Chris Christie (R., N.J.), a fellow fiscal hawk, to hit the presidential trail? “I don’t know,” Ryan says. “I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know the guy, so I have no idea what his ambitions are, but I don’t think it is.” “We will hopefully have a nominating process based on platform and ideas, not personalities,” Ryan concludes. “We can’t just give [the nomination] to next guy in line. It has to go to the candidate best equipped to advance our principles and who understands the moment in time we find ourselves in.” Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:19:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28790&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28790&mname=Article What's Wrong with Paul Ryan's Plan? The one Politican Who Puts Money Where His Mouth Is Rep. Paul Ryan's "roadmap" of big budget cuts is so tough it would never make it through Congress. Good for him. By Megan McArdle THE ATLANTIC – Aug 10 2010, 3:03 PM ET As I think I may have mentioned, I am skeptical of Paul Ryan's roadmap.  Not because it's dishonest, but because it's hard.  Really hard.  As in, I-don't-see-how-it-could-possibly-survive-the-legislative-process hard. The tax rates in his alternative tax plan would probably have to go up, just because that's the general fate of policy proposals that go through the legislative process; people with policy proposals are, almost definitionally, not pessimistic about their possibilities.  The entitlement changes would be gleefully gutted by politicians with a keen eye to their own re-election.  The discretionary spending freeze would not survive first contact with the next recession.  Even the most responsible, careful politician cannot guarantee responsibility and care in their successors. Nonetheless, I think it's a really, really important document.  Why?  Because it is the most honest attempt I've seen by a politician to grapple with the challenges ahead of us.  Strike that; it is the only attempt that I'm aware of to grapple with what lies ahead of us.  Others have been willing to discuss things piecemeal, or delegate the nasty job of balancing a budget to a commission, but as far as I know only Paul Ryan has come forward and said, "Here's how all the moving parts are going to fit together." And what this document shows is that it's going to be difficult.  Regardless of what you think of his tax plans, Paul Ryan has done what liberals keep asking Republicans to do:  show us what he'd cut.  No, he hasn't gone through the whole budget with a fine toothed comb and given us the exact funding level for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  If he had, it would be stupid; even the most powerful legislator cannot tie the hands of those in the future completely.  He's offered cuts to domestic discretionary spending and entitlements that would hold the line under 20% of GDP.  If Republicans want to shrink the size of government, they're going to have to sign onto Ryan's spending plan, or put forward their own, with equally dramatic trimming. Paul Ryan has been honest enough to suggest radical changes to entitlements that we know, after the bruising rounds of health care reform, would be politically very unpopular.  He hasn't gone out of his way to point out how unpopular they would be, but he hasn't really hidden it, either.  The people complaining that he hasn't spent all his time highlighting the least popular aspects of his roadmap are making ridiculous demands that they would never deliver to their own side.  They might as well claim that true honesty demands that he campaign in his birthday suit and open every speech with his unvarnished feelings about his mother in law. Don't get me wrong, there are fair criticisms, and I'm trying to make some of them.  But I'd love to see the people kvetching about his plan offer an alternative plan of their own.  How much tax revenue would it take to pay for the welfare state that Democrats want us to have?  How deeply are they willing to cut military spending?  What politically difficult choices are those sniping at Paul Ryan willing to make?  His plan may have flaws, but I'll take it over people who have vague plans to deal with the problem by raising taxes on the rich, "closing the loopholes", or, um, ending our wildfire epidemic of unnecessary amputations.  If Democrats are serious about the budget deficit, then they too will need to propose a set of equally dramatic changes. Why haven't they?  Presumably, because it would be awful.  Without entitlement cuts, the necessary tax rates would be very high, and not just on the rich.  Military spending cuts would have to be deep, and still wouldn't cover the shortfall.  Government as a share of GDP would rise sharply, and right-wing pundits would not neglect to add the state and local burden up to a number that would distress many Americans.  Who vote. Do you want to be the one to tell them that they're going to have to pay higher taxes for the same, or lower levels of services?  I've been trying to tell them that for years now, and believe me, on the fun scale it's somewhere between a root canal, and seeing Neil Diamond live . . .  at the kind of venue that doesn't serve alcohol. But if we're going to avoid a real, ugly fiscal crisis, the sort that ends up immiserating a bunch of people, someone is going to have to tell them.  Someone in Congress, I mean.  The deficit commission is not going to accomplish anything if congress isn't willing to assess its priorities and make some hard choices.  You may think that Paul Ryan is too hopeful about some areas of his plan; you may think that it won't work.  All fair enough, and that's why any starter plan like this has to go through a lot of refining before it's ready to become legislation.  But at least Paul Ryan has a plan, no matter how incomplete or unworkable you think it may be.  That's more than the rest of us can say. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/whats-wrong-with-paul-ryans-plan/61263/ Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:43:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28783&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28783&mname=Article Think Big Republicans should embrace Paul Ryan's Road Map. BY Fred Barnes The Weekly Standard - July 19, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 41 For Republicans, the Road Map authored by congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the most important proposal in domestic policy since Ronald Reagan embraced supply side economics in the 1980 presidential campaign. It’s not only the freshest, boldest, and most comprehensive Republican thinking, it’s also the most relevant. If Republicans adopt the Road Map as their basic ideological blueprint, it offers them the prospect of a landslide in the midterm election this year, followed by victory in the presidential election in 2012. For sure, that’s a lot of weight for a policy statement drafted by a 40-year-old House member to bear. But the Road Map is perfectly timed to deal with the crises of the moment: economic stagnation, uncontrolled spending, the deficit and long-term debt, soaring tax rates, health care, the housing problem, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Yet Republican leaders are wary of endorsing it, and for understandable reasons. The Road Map is sweeping and politically risky. It would overhaul popular programs like Medicare, relying on individuals to make decisions now made by government. Democrats are already attacking it. When Ryan delivered the weekly Republican radio address in late June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put out a press release under the heading, “Republicans Make Key Advocate of Privatizing Social Security and Ending Medicare Their Spokesman on Budget.” Democrats insist focus groups have rejected Ryan’s reform of Medicare. When swing voters learn Medicare would become “a voucher system .  .  . it has a massive impact,” Democratic strategist Robert Creamer wrote in the Huffington Post. “People like the Democratic program of Medicare.” Republican leaders fear the Road Map might jeopardize, or at least minimize, what is expected to be a decisive Republican victory in the November midterm election. Their advantage in the congressional generic poll is at an all-time high, and President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to the mid-40s. Given these usually reliable indicators, why give Democrats a target to shoot at? There are three reasons Republicans should ignore their jitters about the Road Map. The first is that the nation’s disenchantment with Obama and Democrats will take Republicans only so far. There’s a residue of bad feelings toward Republicans from the years the party ruled Congress, spent too much, and produced scandals. Voters have memories. To overcome their qualms, Republicans need to provide more than a litany of Democratic faults. Voters are frightened about the future of the country. They’re looking for a serious solution to the mess we’re in. The Road Map offers exactly that, plus the opportunity to win more seats than Republicans are likely to capture solely by zinging Democrats. The second reason should be obvious after the ignominious Republican defeat in May in the race for John Murtha’s old House seat in Pennsylvania. Democrat Mark Critz won by running to the right—against Washington, Obama, spending, the deficit —and Democratic candidates across the country are taking the same tack. Republican candidates need to put some daylight between themselves and their Democratic opponents. The Road Map will do that. Democrats can’t endorse it for fear of alienating their liberal base, which loathes anything that reduces the size of government. The Road Map stamps Republican candidates as the real conservatives, which is what voters happen to be looking for in 2010. The third reason is the Republican message (or the absence of one). In Pennsylvania, it was “send a message to Nancy Pelosi.” Voters declined. I like the Republican slogan that worked so well in 1946—“Had enough?” But a slogan is not a message. The Road Map is a message. The country is falling apart, we’re going broke, government is on a takeover binge, the economy is wobbling. The Road Map is the solution. That’s a pretty good message. Those who tremble at the thought of pushing a big idea should remember the campaign of 1980. Reagan, who for years had warned of the evils of government spending and overreach, suddenly became the champion of an across the board, 30 percent cut in tax rates for individuals and business. That was very risky. The elder George Bush called it “voodoo economics.” Democrats were certain the whopping tax cut would turn the country against Reagan. Quite the opposite occurred. Reagan would have defeated Jimmy Carter without it, but not by the 10 percentage points he actually won by. The tax cut showed Reagan was serious about reviving the economy and not at all a weakling like Carter. In 1994, the Contract With America wasn’t as risky. It wasn’t a big idea either, but a collection of smaller ones. Democrats, however, believed it would doom Republican chances of a substantial victory. It didn’t. It can’t be proved, but I think the Contract enlarged the Republican landslide. For now, the Road Map has a relatively small but growing cheering section. A dozen House members have endorsed it. Senator Jim DeMint praised it in his book Saving Freedom. Jeb Bush likes it. On CNN last week, economic historian Niall Ferguson called Ryan “a serious thinker on the Republican right who’s prepared to grapple with these issues of fiscal sustainability and come up with a plan.” Ferguson sees the Road Map as “radical fiscal reform,” which it is, and said Washington should recognize it as the alternative to “the Keynesian option,” which Washington doesn’t. “I’m depressed how few people in Washington are prepared to talk about” the Road Map option, he said. Ryan isn’t depressed. “As soon as people become informed and know the details, the more they like it,” he told me. He says the Road Map is “based on a fundamentally different vision” from the “government-centered ideology now prevailing in Washington .  .  . and restores an American character rooted in individual initiative, entrepreneurship, and opportunity.” The full plan—“A Road Map for America’s Future”—is outlined in a formidable, 87-page document. It would give everyone a refundable tax credit to buy health insurance, allow individual investment accounts to be carved out of Social Security, reduce the six income tax rates to two (10 and 25 percent), and replace the corporate tax (35 percent) with a business consumption tax (8.5 percent). And that’s not the half of it. As ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Ryan was able to get the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to run the numbers in his plan. CBO concluded the plan would “make the Social Security and Medicare programs permanently solvent [and] lift the growing debt burden on future generations, and hold federal taxes to no higher than 19 percent of GDP.” Pretty impressive results, I’d say. The Road Map does one more thing. It would give Republicans an agenda if they gain control of the House or Senate in the midterm election—or a mandate if they win both. “What’s the point of winning an election if you don’t have a mandate?” Ryan asks. He doesn’t expect a mandate in 2010. “I need to make sure these ideas survive this election,” he says, and set the stage for “the most ideological, sea-changing election in our lifetime” in 2012. Merely survive in 2010? The Road Map can do better than that. How about thrive? Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard. Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:37:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28433&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28433&mname=Article A rising Republican star shines in swing district By RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press Writer 10:05 AM CDT, July 4, 2010KENOSHA, Wis. This union-heavy city suffering from high unemployment should be hostile territory for any Republican -- especially one promising to slash spending and reform sacred entitlement programs.  But on a recent visit to a technical college here, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan received nothing but praise after he outlined why he believes America is heading for fiscal ruin and what can be done to stop it. And when he stopped for pizza across town, the restaurant owner lit up and asked him to run for president.  "He's the first Republican I've ever liked in my life," said Lynda Hochschild, the lifelong liberal Democrat who owns a Rocky Rococo's. The chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin admits Ryan is such a skilled politician that he's faced little opposition in a district where his party should be competitive.  That Ryan is so popular here -- a swing district carried by Barack Obama in 2008 -- illustrates why he has emerged as a national GOP star. He has ruled out a presidential bid in 2012, but conservative leaders are already floating him as a top vice presidential pick. He's playing a key role as Republicans try to win back Congress.  Ryan, the ranking Republican member on the House Budget committee, is a self-described conservative fascinated with economic issues. At town hall meetings this month, he started with a wonkish 15-minute powerpoint presentation with charts that warned of a coming "tidal wave of debt." He pitched his plan, "A Roadmap for America's Future," which would overhaul Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as the solution.  The plan has made him a conservative star, gaining prominence as an alternative to what Republicans call President Barack Obama's brand of big government liberalism. He says his ideas are the antithesis of Obama's and a direct repudiation of progressivism, the movement pioneered in Wisconsin a century ago.  Several Republican candidates for Congress are backing the "Roadmap", or parts of it, and Ryan and his aides often field questions from them about the details.  Obama, who held a town hall meeting on the economy in Ryan's district last week, himself called the plan a serious proposal during a televised meeting in January, said he knew the details and disagreed with some parts. Ryan said interest in his plan skyrocketed, and Democrats quickly coordinated a full-throttled attack warning it would slash popular entitlement programs. Ryan says his proposed changes would save the programs from collapse and he is intent on proving candidates can talk about reforms and "not get killed." He frequently talks up his views in national television appearances and op-ed pieces in major newspapers.  "I think what's great about Paul is that he knows his information front and back. It's enjoyable to see him on TV throwing it down with facts that are accurate," said Sean Duffy, a Republican running for a congressional seat in northern Wisconsin. "At a time when we face significant issues with our fiscal house, Paul Ryan provides solutions from the GOP."  Duffy says he often consults with Ryan and his staff. He sees Ryan's politics as a model for how he can win over independents and Democrats to win in his district, which has been held by retiring Democratic U.S. Rep. David Obey for 41 years.  Ryan says he plans to use his political action committee to donate up to 50 candidates running for Congress this cycle. He is one of the founders of the Republican "Young Guns" program that identifies viable candidates and seeks to channel support their way.  Ryan, 40, would become chairman of the budget committee if Republicans win control in November and he is promising "a shock and awe campaign to go after spending." He said Republicans must not "buckle in the knees when it's time to cut spending" like they did the last time they held the majority.  Ryan can focus on the national picture because he is expected to breeze to re-election, like he has more or less every cycle since first winning election in 1998 at age 28. He calls the southeastern Wisconsin district "a perfect cross section of America" that includes inner city areas, suburbs, rural areas and manufacturing towns.  The economy is hurting throughout, with the closing of a General Motors plant devastating Ryan's hometown of Janesville. Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate acknowledged the party couldn't find a credible candidate to run even though it had been one of his priorities.  "He's very good," Tate said.  Marge Krupp, a Democrat who mustered 35 percent of the vote against Ryan in 2008, said his popularity in the district defies logic given his conservatism. But she said he's a brilliant marketer and so charismatic that he came across as a nice guy even during their debates.  Conservative columnist George Will said Ryan, a husband and father of three young children who likes to bowhunt, is appealing because he's not a typical "driven, obsessive, one-dimensional" politician.  "Paul Ryan is normal in that sense ... and he's also abnormal in the best sense. He's abnormally intelligent and diligent and issue-driven," Will said. "His not consumed by ambition. Some of us wish he were a bit more so, but there's time for that." Ryan said he has to do more to defend his record in his district than conservatives who represent safe districts and he said voters give him credit for that. He does about six bilingual town hall meetings to reach his district's growing Latino population every year, and holds others geared at African Americans.  Ryan said one of his mentors, former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, for whom he worked as a speech writer, "taught me the importance and the value of outreach and inclusiveness."  He is often quick to praise union members, even if he disagrees with their leaders. Groups like the Carpenters and Joiners Union and the Operating Engineers have supported his campaigns. He notes that he grew up working for Ryan Inc., Central, a unionized construction company founded by his great-grandfather.  Ryan is also a social conservative, but he does not focus on those issues. Instead, the graduate of Miami University in Ohio is in his element warning that a Greece-style economic meltdown could happen in the U.S. without action.  "I do feel like I was wired for this moment from an economic and fiscal standpoint," Ryan said. "This is the stuff I've thought about, prepared for and have an aptitude for this kind of a fiscal crisis situation."    Copyright 2010 Associated Press. Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:39:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28381&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=28381&mname=Article Watch Paul as he tells it like it is - Wisconsin 2010 (Click on link or cut & paste in web browser.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bl4JIaxguo Thu, 27 May 2010 10:20:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=27690&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=27690&mname=Article The quiet weapon Meet a man who plans to balance the federal budget without raising taxes and put the U.S. economy on sure footing without bailouts, overhauls, or takeovers: Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan | Edward Lee Pitts Luke Sharrett for WORLD WASHINGTON—Paul Ryan likes to hunt. The strategy involved in tracking his target, the need of going at it alone, the skill to take aim, and even the thrill of the kill are reasons why Ryan, who recently turned 40, goes hunting as often as he can. But he prefers walking into the woods without a gun. "Rifle hunting is easy, but bow hunting is tough," claims Ryan, who stalks prey with his bow as often as he can, even making his own sausage from his kills. The sport's allure to Ryan provides clues to why he is drawn to the part of his life that's not a hobby: being a lawmaker. This year Ryan, a six-term Republican congressman and senior member of two key committees, shot a quiver full of arrows at the nation's ongoing fiscal crisis by targeting healthcare, the tax code, trade policy, and entitlements in a substantive and daring proposal he calls the "Roadmap for America's Future." But Ryan wasn't finished. He then added his own budget proposal that actually erases the nation's long-term deficit and had The Washington Post calling the White House's official 2011 budget "only the second-most interesting budget proposal released" this year. "I guess you can say that I make sausage literally and figuratively," Ryan joked to me, alluding to the common metaphor that compares bill-writing to the unappealing and often hidden process of making sausage, or bratwurst to use the term favored in Ryan's native Wisconsin. In Washington, Ryan currently has in his crosshairs a White House and Congress he says are pursuing policies that will create a national culture of dependency and drain individuals of the will to make the most out of their lives. To fight that, he has come armed with something many complain is missing in the current breed of elected officials bearing the conservative banner: ideas. Speaking at his Capitol Hill office that is decorated with pictures of his wife and three young children (and contains room for the cot that he sleeps in on most weeknights), Ryan often uses the phrases "American idea" and "serious jeopardy" in the same sentence.    "I'm not interested in being here to be an efficient tax collector for the welfare state, or for helping just run the bureaucratic trains a little more efficiently," he proclaims. "I want to fight for the American idea." What is that American idea? To Ryan the nation is a place where its leaders, inspired by the founders, act on the belief that God—not government—creates rights. The practical consequences of that truth translate into equal opportunity in free-market democracy, something Ryan calls moral. With a high-stakes battle of ideas raging in Washington over big- and small-government solutions, Ryan believes this is his moment. "This is everything I believe in, everything I've studied. It is what I am wired for." Ryan calls this era of federal bailouts, takeovers, and overhauls "scary"—but he also has a hard time hiding his excitement. He says that he spies a silver lining in the Democrats' expensive ambitions: Voters are talking about the country's identity. "They just threw a bucket of cold water in the face of every voter," Ryan said of the Democrats. "They woke us up out of our sleepwalk." The fact that Ryan now sees himself at the center of the congressional debate over government's role is something that surprises him. While a student at Miami University in Ohio, Ryan thought he'd become an economist. He read the likes of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and envisioned a life of theories. But he eventually learned that public policy is the arena where ideas really live or die. "That is what built this country—good ideas," he says. Post-graduation stints as a speechwriter for Jack Kemp, at a conservative think tank, and as legislative director for Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas led to Ryan's successful run for an open House seat in 1998. He was just 28. After almost a decade of near anonymity in Congress, Ryan's 2007 ascension as the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee gave him the staff resources and the clout to let out his inner economist. He now also is senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. From those perches he has crafted a roadmap to privatize Medicare and Medicaid, provide vouchers for many federal programs, replace employee-sponsored health insurance plans with individual tax credits, and impose tough controls on federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan number crunchers, determined that Ryan's roadmap delivered on its promises of balanced budgets and smaller deficits (unlike its projections for Obamacare). Under current policies, the CBO concludes that the nation in 2080 will devote 34 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to government spending; under Ryan's plan, the CBO predicts that federal spending in 2080 would fall to less than 14 percent of the GDP while the government would enjoy a 5 percent annual surplus. And all without raising taxes. In fact, Ryan proposes a flat tax of two rates: 10 percent and 25 percent. "The political people were telling me, 'Don't you dare introduce this. That's bad politics. It's political suicide,'" Ryan recalls of the critics scared off by the sweep of his vision. Ryan has resisted the idea that the minority party should lay low and wait for its moment, and now the wonkish behavior is starting to pay off. Fellow Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, who was first elected to Congress in 1979 when Ryan was 9 years old, says Paul Ryan is a fiscal Paul Revere trying to warn the country that more hard times are coming. "Paul recognizes that we are headed for a fiscal train wreck unless we have a rapid change of course," Sensenbrenner told me. "Ryan is the guy that is standing beside the tracks waving his hands saying, 'Put the brakes on!'" Being the man with the plans in the GOP has also made Ryan a target. President Obama called his roadmap "a serious proposal," making Ryan the White House GOP foil. Soon administration officials attacked Ryan's ideas in congressional hearings: White House Budget Director Peter Orszag claimed the roadmap addresses the nation's long-term fiscal problems but with a "dramatically different approach in which more risk is unloaded onto individuals" rather than the government. But Ryan fought back: He directly challenged the president at February's bipartisan healthcare summit, peppering Obama for several minutes with a statistic-laden analysis of why the Democrats' agenda is a dangerous, deficit-exploding idea. Yet many Republicans have been lukewarm to Ryan's roadmap—which has just 12 cosponsors. That's probably because its deficit-reduction measures tamper with popular programs like Medicare and Social Security. "There are two kinds of people up here, be-ers and doers," Ryan says. "There are a lot of people who come to Congress from both parties who just want to be a congressman. Keeping the job is the ultimate goal." To Ryan, the doers—the ones with the ideas—have to "take this place over." Such a mindset is why Democrats are not Ryan's only targets. His plans are designed to force "adult conversations" that will wake up his own party too. He admits the old Republican majority didn't get it right, and he can pinpoint the moment when this realization hit him. Ryan became energized after the 2004 elections when President George W. Bush promised ambitious entitlement- and tax-reform goals for his second term. "But I quickly watched that moment dissipate and slip away," Ryan recalls. "For one reason or another those things fell on deaf ears." What bothered Ryan the most was the source of the defeats—the ideas died from inside his own party. This retreat from the right is when Ryan realized Republicans had a real problem on their hands. "I call it the atrophy phase of the Republican Party," Ryan told me. "We all got caught up into micro-legislating . . . fine-tuning tax bills and things like that. We lost sight of the bigger picture and tinkered around the edges." Today, Ryan thinks the right can find its way by learning from the left. "They're serious about their pro­gressive ideology," Ryan explains. "They have the courage of their convictions. And if we are given the opportunity to lead again, we better have that courage, and we've got to be really clear to the American people what those convictions are." Ryan's roadmap strives to do just that—provide a stark alternative to what Democrats have proposed. And he's looking outside Congress for support—believing it will take two election cycles to bring in enough limited-government conservatives to realign the political system. "We need to recruit people who are not going to go wobbly when it gets tough," Ryan said. "I'm focused on good ideas and on getting reinforcements here as quickly as possible." Ryan sees hope in a Tea Party movement that shows the people are ahead of the politicians when it comes to questioning increased federal spending in the face of crippling debt. But Ryan sees even greater promise in his own Wisconsin congressional district: a left-leaning place where voters went for Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Obama. Ryan ran for reelection in 2008 using an early version of the roadmap. The district's residents did not blink, giving Ryan 64 percent of the vote. And that with Obama winning his district by about 5 percent. "So it is clear to me that people are ready to be talked to like adults," Ryan told me. "They are ready to have these ideas presented to them, and they want to choose the path of American exceptionalism, not managed decline." Ryan's willingness to stick his neck out over his philosophies can be traced to the tough life lessons he learned as a 16-year-old when he discovered his father dead from a heart attack in the family's home. He had to tell his mother and three siblings, who were out of town. "That taught me self-sufficiency," said Ryan, who afterwards began focusing more on academics and sports. "That taught me that when bad things happen, you can either sink or swim." Growing up faster than most is one of the reasons he managed to get elected to Congress in his twenties. It is also why many of his colleagues think Ryan, whose thick dark hair holds little gray, can name his own political ceiling. "He probably won't like me telling you this, but I really believe that he should seriously look at being a presidential candidate," Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, told me. "I think he's our best guy out there right now because of the substance. Ryan has separated himself from the rest of the pack because he actually has these solutions." But Ryan, raised a devout Roman Catholic, said being a good legislator is the third priority in his life. "I don't want to have a career that comes at the expense of being a good dad and a good husband," he explains. He returns to his Janesville, Wis., home every weekend that Congress is in session. He worries what a higher office and all its travel demands would do to his young family. "I don't want to be a lifer here, absolutely not. No way. I am young enough to have two careers. What this second one will be? I have no idea." Soon after describing his love of the outdoors and how he shot two deer this season with his 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, Ryan is back discussing America, limited government, and the political class. One gets the sense that he could debate big, bold pieces of legislation all night. In fact, on this evening he practically did—just not with me. Our interview ended as Ryan was running late for a dinner with Niall Ferguson, a Harvard economic historian and author of The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World. Ryan hoped to have a "light" dinner discussion with Ferguson about debt and how great empires implode on themselves. This after a day that began early with Ryan leading a dozen bipartisan House members in an intense video workout regime called P90X. It was also the day that Ryan attended the first meeting of the Obama debt reduction panel, of which he is a member. Still, Ryan thinks picking the brain of an Ivy League professor is the perfect way to end a long day. "Any economist or historian I can learn from, I try to get a hold of," he said before heading out the door. "That is literally one of the coolest things about this job." Copyright © 2010 WORLD Magazine Articles may not be reproduced without permission May 22, 2010, Vol. 25, No. 10 Tue, 11 May 2010 08:54:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=27445&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=27445&mname=Article Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom? By Rep. Paul Ryan Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill - or I should say, one political party passed it - over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much...or whether you don't qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance. This presumptuous reform has put this nation ... once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person ... on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become. Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots...but the "causes" of both are the same: Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power ... or should its mepowers be limited and returned to the people? Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity ... or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means? Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism ... or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free? We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you've never seen before! We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind's noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it's our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth ... between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives ... between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone's right to the rewards of their work ... between bureaucratic central government, or self-government ... between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy. What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there's no going back. This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government. These leaders are walking America down a new path ... creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits ... where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise ... where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government. True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a "tipping point." Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the "tipping point," Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the "tipping point," that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe's social welfare states. Soft despotism isn't cruel or mean, it's kindly and sympathetic. It doesn't help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone's needs, care for everyone's heath, direct everyone's career, arrange everyone's important private affairs, and work for everyone's pleasure. The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone's happiness ... the shepherd over this flock of sheep. Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this "tipping point"? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent. Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood. All told, 60 percent - three out of five households in America - were receiving more government benefits and services (in dollar value) than they were paying back in taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that President Obama's budget last year will raise this "net government inflow" from 60 to 70 percent. Look at it this way: three out of ten American families are supporting themselves plus - through government - supplying or supplementing the incomes of seven other households. As a permanent arrangement, this is individually unfair, politically inequitable, and economically dangerous. It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: "He who pays the piper calls the tune." The next chapter is the rule of "crony capitalism," where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism. We already see enough of "crony capitalism." When government sends bailout money to Wall Street firms they label "too big to fail," that's "crony capitalism." When government buys shares in General Motors, names their management, and dictates their salaries, that's "crony capitalism." When big health insurance companies, instead of competing for market, team up with Congressional Health Care writers to order every individual to buy their products, that's "crony capitalism." When thousands of small businesses have to meet bottom lines with no government bailout, well, you're too small to succeed...good luck! The Democratic leaders of Congress and in the White House hold a view they call "Progressivism." Progressivism began in Wisconsin, where I come from. It came into our schools from European universities under the spell of intellectuals such as Hegel and Weber, and the German leader Bismarck. The best known Wisconsin Progressive was actually a Republican, Robert LaFollette. Progressivism was a powerful strain in both political parties for many years. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, both brought the Progressive movement to Washington. Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage. But Progressivism turned away from popular control toward central government planning. It lost most Americans and consumed itself in paternalism, arrogance, and snobbish condescension. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson would have scorned the self-proclaimed "Progressives" of our day for handing out bailout checks to giant corporations, corrupting the Congress to purchase votes for government controlled health care, and funneling billions in Jobs Stimulus money to local politicians to pay for make-work patronage. That's not "Progressivism," that's what real Progressives fought against! Since America began, the timid have feared the Founding Fathers' ideas of individual freedom, so they yearn for Old World class models. Our Progressivists are the latest iteration of that same fear of the people. In unprecedented numbers, Americans are speaking out against the intolerable Health Care bill and irresponsible debt-ridden spending. Does anyone recall Norman Rockwell's famous "Freedom of Speech" painting of an average working Joe standing and speaking his mind at a town hall meeting? Today's Progressivists ridicule average Americans speaking out at tea parties across the nation and denounce their criticisms as "un-American." Millions of average Americans reject their big government solutions, and that scares them. Last January President Obama said: "There are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, have been taking place for over two hundred years." He was right. So let's examine these "philosophical differences" of government. Progressivists say there are no enduring ideas of right or wrong. Everything is "relative" to history, so our ideas need to change. Progressivists say the Founders' Constitution including its amendments, with its principles of equal natural rights, limited government, and popular consent is outdated. We should have a "living constitution" that keeps up with the times. Progressivists invent new rights and enforce them with a more powerful central government and more federal agencies to direct society through the changes of history. And don't worry, they say. Bureaucrats can be controlled by Congressional oversight. Would you like an example of how successful Congressional oversight is? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (or GSEs), underwrote trillions of dollars in junk mortgages. Year after year their officials and others from HUD, Treasury, and other agencies who supervise them marched up to Congress for hearings. Red flags were raised. The oversight committees had other priorities and dismissed them out of hand. With the housing market already tanking, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said: "This ability to provide stability to the market is what, in my mind, makes the GSEs a congressional success story." Less than 18 months later, the ‘market-stabilizing' GSEs went belly-up due to their shoddy business practices, collapsing the mortgage credit industry and sparking the worldwide financial meltdown. No one knows the ultimate cost to the taxpayers but it will be gigantic. If Congress can't control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health? The Progressivist ideology embraced by today's leaders is very different from everything rank-and-file Democrats, independents, and Republicans stand for. America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by "nature and nature's God." The truths of the American founding can't become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent. The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free. A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it's regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life. In their hearts Americans know this, but people were alarmed in 2008 by rising unemployment, falling home values, a credit crunch, and a financial meltdown. They voted for a change of parties in the White House, and elected the largest Democratic Congressional majority in more than three decades. So overwhelming was their majority that the opposition is unable to do anything to stop them from running roughshod over our foundations. Harry Reid had a supermajority in the Senate that could not be filibustered. Still, the people's mandate for Congress and the new President was clear, simple, and unmistakable: get employment back on track ... get our economy growing again. Americans have lost jobs nearly every month since these leaders took over the federal government in January 2009, more than 4 million at last count. The official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, but if we add in folks who have stopped looking for work due to lack of job prospects, the rate is a lot higher. They began by passing the first Stimulus, a taxpayer giveaway to their favorite special interests. The price tag was $862 billion. They pushed through a second stimulus bill that cost you another $18 billion. Let's see: since 4 million Americans have been unemployed since they passed these "stimuli," that averages $220,000 per job lost. Think about that. Democrats can't even put people out of work without spending near a trillion dollars! Just to return to where we were at the end of 2007, 8.4 million jobs have to be created. To reduce unemployment to its pre-crisis level of 5 per cent by the end of President Obama's term, our economy needs to create 247,000 new jobs per month. But we are headed in the wrong direction ... except in one field: the government is growing at breakneck pace in expanding federal payrolls. Although millions of private sector jobs have been lost since the recession began, Washington is on track to add about 275,000 more people to the public payrolls - a whopping 15 percent increase. And we aren't talking minimum wages here. More federal workers make over $100,000 than those earning $40,000 or less. The average government worker's salary in 2009 was 21 percent higher than private sector salaries. The average federal worker's compensation package, including benefits, was nearly $120,000 in 2008, twice the private sector at $60,000. One study shows the private sector benefit package averages $9,900 while the federal package averages almost $41,000. Now the Administration wants Congress to privilege federal workers by writing off their unpaid student loans after ten years. People in productive private sector jobs would keep paying for twenty years. Progressivists would really like everyone to work for the government. Has any Congress in history enacted, or tried to enact, so many foolish, squalid, and counterproductive programs? It isn't good news when anyone losses his job. But I'll make an exception when the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader lose theirs in November! As their first major item of business last year, these leaders pushed through a budget so bloated that it will double the federal debt in five years, and triple it in ten. Now the Administration has sent Congress a budget that's far worse. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [CBO] reports that 10 years from now, this budget will drive the federal debt burden up to 90 percent of the nation's entire economic production. It propels spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion next year [FY 2011]. It widens the annual deficit to a new record of $1.5 trillion this year [FY 2010], and raises $1.8 trillion in new taxes through 2020. Two and a half years after this recession started, and no new private jobs? Think what these mind-boggling tax increases and mountain of debt are signaling to people who want to open or expand job-creating businesses. Congress keeps raising the barriers against work and production - that's your answer. At a time when economic and job expansion should be Washington's highest priority ... and as if the multi-trillion dollar Health Care debacle were not enough, the Progressivist leadership in Congress are adding insult to injury by promoting their energy and climate agenda through their Cap and Trade plan. Put aside the fact that there is growing disagreement among scientists about climate change and its causes. This bill is a big mistake for other reasons. CBO estimates that Cap and Trade's total cost is another near-trillion dollars. By one CBO estimate, the tax and energy cost bills for the average American household may grow by $1,600 a year. Other studies put this cost a lot higher. If you don't believe me, let me quote a key Democratic Senator: Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants...natural gas...whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was...would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers...So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That was Senator Barack Obama in January 2008, talking about what he would do as President. Don't say the man doesn't work to keep his promises! Economists across the spectrum tell us that Cap and Trade would make our long-term national economic production fall below potential, causing higher unemployment. Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that can only get worse if this happens. There is general agreement that the environmental improvements from Cap and Trade are either nonexistent or too small to measure. Congressional leaders are also pushing an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve Board's regulatory powers over financial institutions under the belief that government must protect the people from themselves. This measure will direct federal agents to inspect, and at their pleasure object to, the wages and compensation which businesses on Main Street as well as Wall Street wish to pay employees. It puts bureaucracies in charge of deciding the type and line of credit which consumers and businesses will have access to when they shop for cars, homes, education, and expansion of facilities. The Fed has already failed the twofold assignment it has - keeping the economy and jobs growing, and keeping prices stable. It should return to its original mission of guaranteeing the long-term value of our dollar. Instead the same leaders who never knew the government mortgage giants were supplying credit for worthless mortgages now want Fed bureaucrats to regulate the businesses that supply personal and commercial credit? If that happens, economic recovery will be a longer time coming. And now I want to return to the Health Care Frankenstein. Most Americans understand that government-run Health Care is not free, not cheap, and not compassionate. I think most Americans believe Congress has no idea of what the public demand will be for subsidized Health Care. They are correct. When Medicare was enacted, Congress guessed it would cost about 10 percent of what it turned out to be after 25 years. Heck, Congress couldn't even figure the cost of the 3-month long Cash for Clunkers subsidy last year, underestimating it on the order of 1 to 9. Most Americans know the Congressional majority are clueless about what their government-run Health Care system is going to cost. The drama that brought this creature to life was unedifying ... part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight ... the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes ... the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the "Gator Aid" Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks ... the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker's brother ... the raid on the Medicare piggy bank ... the lie that $250 billion for "doc fix" shouldn't count as a Health Care cost ... the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail ... the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just "deem" it passed and vote on the amendments...and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as "the supreme law of the land," does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison. Self-government stands or falls on integrity, not only in those who represent you but in the enactment of law. This indecency soiled our freedom and embarrassed the democracy we promote in other nations. And this may not be the last of it. To enact its transformative agenda, this leadership employs the Machiavellian saying that the end justifies the means. America was born in a revolution against that whole idea. Soon it will be the norm. The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people ... no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won't survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: "eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty." We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted. Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says "more of the same," or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom. Supposing the American people use their referendum in November to elect a new majority, what would the next Congress do? The first order of business will be "repeal and replace." We will work to repeal federalized Health Care and replace it with a robust, competitive open market in health care that puts patients and their doctors at the center - not employers, not insurers, and not government agents. This takes at least two elections, and we must show our perseverance. A new Congress will then turn to the great problem of our stagnant economy and the debt tsunami bearing down on us. The days of pretending not to notice are over. The next Congress will understand this threat and act after transparent deliberation and real debate. I have put forward my specific solution, called "A Roadmap for America's Future," to meet this challenge. The CBO confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run - while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth. The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress' spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning. Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family's share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt. Social Security's surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan. A new Congress could start by making you the owner of your health plan. Under my Roadmap reform, a tax break that now benefits only those with job-based health insurance will be replaced by tax credits that benefit every American. And it secures universal access to quality, affordable health coverage with incentives that hold down health-care cost increases. Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under 55, Medicare will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy. Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans - with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else. Under the Roadmap's Social Security proposal, everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under 55 will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress's own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by the federal government. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases. And we need to get this economy moving again, so the Roadmap offers taxpayers an option: either use the tax code we have today, or use a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax that gets rid of loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. And let's replace corporate income taxes with a simple, competitive 8.5 percent business consumption tax. These low-rate and simple tax reforms would provide the certainty and the incentives for investors to open new enterprises and for workers to find a marketplace expanding in new jobs. The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most. I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis - and the larger debate on the proper role of government. It's time politicians in Washington stopped patronizing the American people as if they were children - deferring tough decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. Tell Americans the truth, offer them a choice, and count on them to do what's right. A political realignment is on the way. Democratic leaders are staking their party's future on their ideological agenda. Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank candidly admits that his party "are trying on every front to increase the role of government." Former President Clinton told a Netroots convention last year that "We have entered a new era of progressive politics, which if we do it right could last 30 or 40 years." The question is, do we realign with the vision of a European-style social welfare state, or do we realign with the American idea? My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country's future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time. Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high. I hope you won't mind an aside. I absolutely love Oklahoma! As you may know, I married Janna Little, daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, from Madill. Well, Janna and I are planning on spending half of our year here in retirement. And I can tell you it won't be Summer...it's just gets too hot here for a Wisconsinite. We will be spending the Fall and Winter here. You see, I love to hunt and fish. Each year we come for deer, duck, and turkey season. Janna refers to these times as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. There's something about Oklahoma that is truly captivating. It's a beautiful, big, unconstrained country with great-hearted people who know what it is to live like free men and women. Some of my friends in Marshall County have on occasion called me "yankee," which I find particularly disturbing. I have always thought a yankee is someone from the Northeast, not the upper Midwest. Needless to say, I am told this can be fixed if I include among my life's achievements the high and noble accomplishment of noodling a giant catfish from the banks of Lake Texoma. And so, I will be returning in early June, otherwise known as noodling season, to gain this rite of passage so that I may never be called yankee again, and also hoping I keep my ten fingers intact. Knowing America, and Oklahoma as I have come to know it, I am confident that the American character is up to every challenge. America is not over. This exceptional nation will not go down the way of mediocrity. Ronald Reagan used to say: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction ... It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for [our children] to do the same." We are that generation. The fight is our fight, and it begins now! The time is at hand to reclaim America for freedom. Thank you very much. Note: Congressman Paul Ryan delivered this speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in Oklahoma City on March 31, 2010. checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); Paul Ryan represents Wisconsin's First Congressional District. He serves as ranking member of the House Budget Committee and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:48:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26940&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26940&mname=Article Mitigating A Costly Mistake Repeal, Replace with Real Reform New York Times op-ed By PAUL RYAN Published: March 25, 2010 Times Topics: Health Care Reform ON Thursday night, Congress sent to President Obama the reconciliation package to remove some of the embarrassing provisions in his signature legislative achievement, health care reform. But a serious fix for what ails health care in America will entail far more than merely tweaking the new law of the land; we will need to repeal the entire faulty architecture of the government behemoth and replace it with real reform. To be clear: it is not sufficient for those of us in the opposition to await a reversal of political fortune months or years from now before we advance action on health care reform. Costs will continue their ascent as the debt burden squeezes life out of our economy. We are unapologetic advocates for the repeal of this costly misstep. But Republicans must also make the case for a reform agenda to take its place, and get to work on that effort now. So what can we do? Health care experts across the political spectrum acknowledge that a fundamental driver of health inflation is the regressive tax preference for employer-based health insurance. This discriminatory tax treatment lavishes the greatest benefit on the most expensive plans while providing no support for the unemployed, the self-employed or those who don’t get coverage from their employer. Reform-minded leaders like Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, pushed legislative proposals that would directly address this issue. I helped write a plan that would replace the bias in the tax code with universal tax credits so that all Americans have the resources to purchase portable, affordable coverage that best suits their needs, with additional support provided for those with lower incomes. All these ideas, though, were dismissed early on, as they didn’t fit with the government-driven plan favored by the majority. But going forward it’s important that we reconsider this regressive tax issue. Then, when helping Americans with pre-existing conditions obtain coverage, we should focus on innovative state-based solutions, including robust high-risk pools, reinsurance markets and risk-adjustment mechanisms. I intend to continue advancing true patient-centered reforms like attaching tax benefits to the individual rather than the job, breaking down barriers to interstate competition, and promoting transparency and consumer-friendly coverage options. We should ensure that health care decisions are made by patients and their doctors, not by bureaucrats, whether at an insurance company or a government agency. By inviting market forces into health care, we can encourage a system where doctors, insurers and hospitals compete against one another for the business of informed consumers. We must also immediately begin dealing with our crushing debt burdens, which this legislation will worsen. The Democrats’ fiscal arguments never did add up: they claim that their program will reduce the deficit even though the federal government will pick up the tab for more than 30 million uninsured Americans and subsidize millions more. Even after accounting for the $569 billion in tax increases and $523 billion in Medicare cuts, the true costs of this legislation — concealed by timing gimmicks, hidden spending and double-counting — will make the deficit explode, plunging us deeper into debt. Washington already has no idea on how to pay for its current entitlement programs, as we find ourselves $76 trillion in the hole. Our country cannot afford to avoid a serious conversation on entitlement reform. By taking action now, we can make certain that our entitlement programs are kept whole for those in and near retirement, while devising sustainable health and retirement security for future generations. The case for attempting health care reform was not difficult to make. Skyrocketing health care costs are driving more and more families and businesses to the brink of bankruptcy, leaving affordable coverage out of reach for millions of Americans and accelerating our path to fiscal ruin. The challenge was how to deal with the seemingly inexorable increase in health care costs. Yet the Congressional majority went at this goal backward: with the force of the federal government, cover all Americans — then figure out which screws to twist to contain costs. Democrats opted for this approach because their concern was never about costs. It was about expanding coverage through an expansion of government. As the dust settles from this historic and fiscally calamitous week, we have to try to steer this country back in the right direction. The opposition must always speak with vigor and candor on the need for wholesale repeal and for real reform to fix what’s broken in health care. Paul Ryan, a Republican, is a representative from Wisconsin. Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:29:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26791&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26791&mname=Article Paul Ryan v. the President The Republican dissects ObamaCare's real costs. Democrats stay mute. Wall Street Journal – Review & Outlook – March 4, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704548604575097602436388116.html “Every argument has been made. Everything that there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it," President Obama declared yesterday as he urged Democrats to steamroll his plan through Congress. What hasn't been heard, however, is even a shred of White House honesty about the true costs of ObamaCare, or its fiscal consequences. Nearby, we reprint Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's remarks at the health summit last week, which methodically dismantle the falsehoods—there is no other way of putting it—that Mr. Obama has used to sell "reform" and repeated again yesterday. No one in the political class has even tried to refute Mr. Ryan's arguments, though he made them directly to the President and his allies, no doubt because they are irrefutable. If Democrats are willing to ignore overwhelming public opposition to ObamaCare and pass it anyway, then what's a trifling dispute over a couple of trillion dollars? At his press conference yesterday, Mr. Obama claimed that "my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions—families, businesses and the federal government." He said it is "fully paid for" and "brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades." Never before has a vast new entitlement been sold on the basis of fiscal responsibility, and one reason ObamaCare is so unpopular is that Americans understand the contradiction between untold new government subsidies and claims of spending restraint. They know a Big Con when they hear one. Mr. Obama's fiscal assertions are possible only because of the fraudulent accounting and budget gimmicks that Democrats spent months calibrating. Readers can find the gory details in Mr. Ryan's pre-emptive rebuttal nearby, though one of the most egregious deceptions is that the bill counts 10 years of taxes but only six years of spending. The real cost over a decade is about $2.3 trillion on paper, Mr. Ryan estimates, and even that is a lowball estimate considering how many people will flood to "free" health care and how many businesses will be induced to drop coverage. Mr. Obama claimed yesterday that the plan will cost "about $100 billion per year," but in fact the costs ramp up each year the program exists. The far more likely deficits are $460 billion over the first 10 years, and $1.4 trillion over the next 10. What Mr. Ryan calls "probably the most cynical gimmick" deserves special attention, which is known in Washington as the "doc fix." Next month Medicare physician payments are scheduled to be cut by 22% and deeper thereafter, though Congress is sure to postpone the reductions as it always does. Failing to account for this inevitability takes nearly a quarter-trillion dollars off the ObamaCare books and by itself wipes out the "savings" that the White House continues to take credit for. Some in the liberal cheering section now claim that this Medicare ruse isn't Mr. Obama's problem because it was first promised by Republicans and Bill Clinton in 1997. But then why did Democrats include the "doc fix" in all early versions of the bill to buy the support of the American Medical Association, only to dump this pricey item later when hiding it would make it easier to fake-reduce the deficit? The President was (miraculously) struck dumb by Mr. Ryan's critique, and in his response drifted off into an irrelevant tangent about Medicare Advantage, while California Democrat Xavier Becerra claimed "you essentially said you can't trust the Congressional Budget Office." But Mr. Ryan was careful to note that he didn't doubt the professionalism of CBO, only the truthfulness of the Democratic gimmicks that the budget gnomes are asked to score. Yesterday Mr. Obama again invoked the "nonpartisan, independent" authority of CBO, which misses the reality that if you feed the agency phony premises, you are going to get phony results at the other end. The President also claimed the reason his plan is in trouble, and the reason Democrats must abuse the Senate's rules to ram this plan into law, is that "many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies." So most of Mr. Obama's first year in office has been paralyzed over nothing more than minor regulatory hair-splitting. This is so preposterous that the President can't possibly believe it. Congress's spring break begins on March 29, and Democratic leaders plan on jamming this monster through Congress before then. Americans have to hope that enough rank-and-file Democrats aren't as deaf to fiscal honesty as this President. Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A18 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:31:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26414&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26414&mname=Article Red Alert As Obama's national-debt panel prepares for deliberations, one congressman proposes how to get back in the black.    By Paul Ryan | NEWSWEEK  Published Feb 19, 2010 From the magazine issue dated Mar 1, 2010   Imagine your family's finances if you spent and borrowed like Washington: you'd owe $60 in credit-card loans for every $100 of income. Every month you'd pay back a little but borrow even more. In 10 years, you'd owe $87 for every $100 you made. At some point you'd hand off the debt to your kids. If they worked until 2035, they'd owe more than $180 for every $100 they earned. In 2050, your grandkids would owe more than $320. By 2080 they'd owe seven times their earnings. Of course, lenders would cut them off well before then, and your family would be ruined. But this is the path your government is on right now.   Today, our country faces a fiscal meltdown - and Washington's continued cowardice is a big part of the problem. The social-insurance strategies of the 20th century - Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - are driving our federal government and economy to collapse. It's long been obvious that we're ill prepared for the retirement of the baby boomers. Now, the recession and Washington's recent spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.   Consider just one program: Medicare. Today, this program is short $38 trillion of what it promises to provide your parents, you, and your kids. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family's share: $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.   Social Security's surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Without shoring up its finances, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.   Both Republicans and Democrats share the blame for failing to be candid about the difficult choices we face and for continuing to make promises that cannot be kept. Some apparently have no sense of shame about shaking a tin cup at China and Japan.   I've put forward a specific solution to meet this challenge, a plan the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says can achieve its goals of paying off government debt in the long run - while securing the social safety net and making possible future economic growth. I call it "A Roadmap for America's Future." If followed, this is what will happen:   HEALTH CARE You, not your government or your boss, should own your health plan. The Roadmap replaces a tax break that benefits only those with job-based health insurance with tax credits that benefit every American. It addresses the key drivers of rising health-care costs, securing universal access to quality, affordable health coverage.   MEDICARE Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current program. For those now under 55, the Roadmap turns Medicare into a health-care program like the one enjoyed by members of Congress. Future seniors will receive a voucher and will be able to choose from a list of Medicare-certified insurance plans that best suit their needs. The government subsidy will provide additional support for those with lower incomes and higher health costs.   SOCIAL SECURITY Everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. My plan offers those now under 55 a choice: continue to take part in traditional Social Security or join a retirement system like Congress's own plan. Future seniors will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in savings accounts they will own. These accounts will be guaranteed and managed by the federal government - not by a private investment firm. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase.   PRO-GROWTH TAX REFORM To get the economy going again, the Roadmap offers the option of a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax, eliminating loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. Corporate income taxes will be replaced by a simple 8.5 percent business consumption tax.    For specifics on these and other reforms, go to americanroadmap.org.   Critics say that any attempt to cut entitlements is tantamount to political suicide. Nonsense. Most Americans see such reforms as common sense. It makes sense to gradually increase the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare - Americans are living decades longer than when these programs were first enacted. It also makes sense to tie benefits to income so that those with fewer resources receive more support. Arguing in favor of "means testing" Medicare premiums, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the respected Maryland Democrat, put it well late last year: "We have to buck up our courage and say that if we try to take care of everybody, we won't be able to take care of those who need us most."   One frequent charge against these reforms is, however, correct: the Roadmap does shift power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects the merits and sustainability of a cradle-to-grave welfare state, which drains individuals of their self-reliance. The plan unapologetically applies our nation's founding principles - individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise - to the challenges of today. And the Roadmap does this in a way that honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.   I welcome the debate on how to tackle our fiscal crisis - and the larger debate on the proper role of government. But I'd encourage those taking aim at the Roadmap to arm yourselves with a specific alternative. My dad used to say, "Son, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem." (That was usually when I was being part of the problem.) Now we must make the same demand of politicians in Washington: Don't patronize the American people as if they were children - deferring difficult decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. Tell the American people the truth and offer them a choice, and they will do what's right.   Ryan of Wisconsin is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee.   Find this article at: http://www.newsweek.com/id/233915 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:01:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26327&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26327&mname=Article REAL CLEAR POLITICS   February 12, 2010 Paul Ryan's Lonely Challenge By Robert Samuelson WASHINGTON -- Paul Ryan, a six-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin who is the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, has yanked himself from obscurity by doing something no one else in Congress or apparently the White House has done: design a specific plan to control long-term government spending and budget deficits. That he stands virtually alone is a damning commentary on our politics. Many public policy problems are genuinely hard. How to guarantee job creation? Provide financial stability? Improve inner-city schools? There are no panaceas. By contrast, solutions to the long-term budget imbalance are obvious: cut spending or raise taxes. Given the predictable retirement of baby boomers, it was no secret that promised government benefits would overwhelm the existing tax base. This problem could have been fixed. It hasn't because our political culture is so wedded to public opinion that it can't (or won't) govern. To govern is to choose, and our leaders recoil from unpopular choices. Americans want generous benefits and low taxes, so that's what the system -- led by either Democrats or Republicans -- provides. President Obama continues this tradition. His administration's long-term budget projections show skyrocketing debt. In 2008, federal debt held by the public equaled 40 percent of the economy (gross domestic product). The administration has it rising to 77 percent of GDP in 2020, 99 percent in 2030 and 218 percent in 2050. In reality, not choosing is a choice: to govern by crisis. Someday, the debt and associated interest payments (projected at $840 billion in 2020, a seventh of federal spending) may trigger a financial backlash. Lenders won't lend or will demand much higher rates. Congress would then be forced to cut benefits or raise taxes. The unstated hope is that the crisis occurs on someone else's watch. Ryan rejects this consensus. He would make choices now. Here are some features of his plan: -- Social Security: For those 55 or older today, the program would remain unchanged. For those younger, benefits would be reduced -- with no cuts for the poorest workers. Workers 55 or younger in 2011 could establish individual investment accounts that would be funded with part of their payroll taxes. Government would guarantee a return equal to inflation. -- Medicare: Current recipients and those enrolling in the next decade would continue under today's program, though wealthier recipients would pay somewhat higher premiums. In 2021, Medicare would become a voucher program for new recipients (those today 54 or younger). With vouchers, recipients would buy Medicare-certified private insurance. In today's dollars, the vouchers would ultimately grow to $11,000. Eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security would slowly increase toward 69 and 70, respectively. -- Spending Freeze: From 2010 to 2019, "non-defense discretionary spending" -- about a sixth of the federal budget, including everything from housing to parks to education -- would be frozen at 2009 levels. -- Simpler Taxes: Taxpayers could choose between today's system or a streamlined replacement with no deductions and virtually no special tax breaks. Above a tax-free amount ($39,000 for a family of four), taxpayers would pay only two rates: 10 percent up to $100,000 for joint filers and 25 percent on income more than that. Parts of Ryan's plan I like. It acknowledges the necessity of controlling Social Security and Medicare benefits. Eligibility ages should rise, reflecting longer life expectancy. Medicare vouchers might force a restructuring of the health care delivery system so that networks of hospitals, doctors and clinics compete on the basis of cost and quality. Simpler taxes would be desirable. Other parts I dislike. Individual Social Security accounts are a confusing mix of government welfare and private investment. Medicare reforms should start sooner. The discretionary spending freeze would probably result in across-the-board cuts when we should eliminate bad programs. Ryan limits taxes to 19 percent of GDP, slightly above their 1970-2009 average of 18 percent. As a result, Ryan's plan -- though producing much less debt than Obama's budgets -- still doesn't work. It wouldn't balance the budget until 2063, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. Yikes -- that's far too distant. Any sound proposal would include greater tax increases than conservatives like and greater spending cuts than liberals like. But the larger point is that Ryan is trying to start a conversation on the desirable role and limits of government. He's trying to make it possible to talk about sensitive issues -- mainly Social Security and Medicare -- without being vilified. President Obama recognized that when he called Ryan's plan a "serious proposal." But since then, Democrats have resorted to ritualistic denunciations of him as pillaging Social Security and Medicare. Legitimate debate becomes impossible. If Democrats don't like Ryan's vision, the proper response is to design and defend their own plan. The fact that they don't have one is a national embarrassment. Copyright 2010, Washington Post Writers Group http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/12/paul_ryans_lonely_challenge.html Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:20:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26197&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26197&mname=Article GOP Rep. Paul Ryan tackles Obama's path to deficit disaster By Michael Gerson The Washington Post Wednesday, February 10, 2010 The new era of Democratic bipartisanship, like cut flowers in a vase, wilted in less than a week. During his question time at the House Republican retreat, President Obama elevated congressman and budget expert Paul Ryan as a "sincere guy" whose budget blueprint -- which, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget -- has "some ideas in there that I would agree with." Days later, Democratic legislators held a conference call to lambaste Ryan's plan as a vicious, voucherizing, privatizing assault on Social Security, Medicare and every non-millionaire American. Progressive advocacy groups and liberal bloggers joined the jeering in practiced harmony. The attack "came out of the Democratic National Committee, and that is the White House," Ryan told me recently, sounding both disappointed and unsurprised. On the deficit, Obama's outreach to Republicans has been a ploy, which is to say, a deception. Once again, a president so impressed by his own idealism has become the nation's main manufacturer of public cynicism. To Ryan, the motivations of Democratic leaders are transparent. "They had an ugly week of budget news. They are precipitating a debt crisis, with deficits that get up to 85 percent of GDP and never get to a sustainable level. They are flirting with economic disaster." So they are attempting some "misdirection," calling attention to Ryan's recently updated budget road map -- first unveiled two years ago -- which proposes difficult entitlement reforms. When all else fails, change the subject to Republican heartlessness. From a political perspective, Democratic leaders are right to single out Ryan for unkind attention. He is among their greatest long-term threats. He possesses the appeal of a young Jack Kemp (for whom both Ryan and I once worked). Like Kemp, Ryan is aggressively likable, crackling with ideas and shockingly sincere. But unlike Kemp -- who didn't give a rip for deficits, being focused exclusively on economic growth -- Ryan is the cheerful prophet of deficit doom. "For the first generation of supply-siders," he explains, "the fiscal balance sheet was not as bad. The second generation of supply-siders needs to be just as concerned about debt and deficits. They are the greatest threats to economic growth today." Fiscal Obamaism is not just a temporary, Keynesian, countercyclical spike in spending; it is deficits to infinity and beyond. "It is the interest that kills you," Ryan says. In a few weeks, he expects the CBO to report that, in the 10th year of Obama's budget, the federal government will "spend nearly a trillion dollars a year, just on interest! This traps us as a country. Inflation will wipe out savings and hurt people on fixed incomes. A plunging dollar will make goods more expensive. High tax rates will undermine economic growth. It is the path of national decline." But unlike other deficit hawks, Ryan courageously -- some would say foolhardily -- presents his own alternative. His budget road map offers many proposals, but one big vision. Over time, Ryan concentrates government spending on the poor through means-tested programs, patching holes in the safety net while making entitlements more sustainable. He saves money by providing the middle class with defined-contribution benefits -- private retirement accounts and health vouchers -- that are more portable but less generous in the long run. And he expects a growing economy, liberated from debt and inflation, to provide more real gains for middle-class citizens than they lose from lower government benefits. Ryanism is not only a technical solution to endless deficits; it represents an alternative political philosophy. For decades, culminating in the Obama health reform proposal, Democrats have attempted to build a political constituency for the welfare state by expanding its provisions to larger and larger portions of the middle class. Ryan proposes a federal system that focuses on helping the poor, while encouraging the middle class to take more personal responsibility in a dynamic economy. It is the appeal of security vs. the appeal of independence and enterprise. Both sides of this debate make serious arguments, rooted in differing visions of justice and freedom. But the advocates of security, including Obama, have a serious problem: They are on a path to economic ruin. In his Kemp-like way, Ryan manages to find a bright side. "The way I look at it, we were sleepwalking down this path anyway. The Democratic overreach woke people up. It was a splash of cold water in the face of every voter. Now we have a new, more serious conversation. And I'm not going to back down." mgerson@globalengage.org Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:23:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26178&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26178&mname=Article Paul Ryan’s Express A congressman with a presidential-level agenda. BY Matthew Continetti, Weekly Standard February 15, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 21 - http://weeklystandard.com/articles/paul-ryan’s-express Representative Paul Ryan’s 40th birthday coincided with the House GOP retreat in Baltimore on January 29. Ryan’s wife and three children joined him for the event. President Obama was also there, at the invitation of the House Republican leadership, to deliver remarks and answer questions from selected members. And he had a surprise in store for the six-term Wisconsin Republican: a spur-of-the-moment, presidential-level debate over the federal budget. Hmm, Ryan thought. This is interesting. The two engaged in a back-and-forth over the president’s increase in discretionary spending during fiscal year 2010. Later, Obama said that Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget and Ways & Means Committees, is “a pretty sincere guy” with “a beautiful family.” Later still, the two went at it once more, this time over the politics of Medicare. “I want to make sure that I’m not being unfair to your proposal,” Obama said. He was talking about Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” an ambitious plan to overhaul the welfare state and pay off the national debt (you can read the 95-page document at www.americanroadmap.org). For Americans under 55, the Roadmap would fundamentally restructure Medicare and Medicaid through means-tested vouchers, while introducing opt-in personal accounts to Social Security. It would replace the corporate income tax with a business consumption tax; repeal the Alternative Minimum, dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes; and reduce the six current tax brackets to two—one at 10 percent, the other at 25 percent. And that’s not all. Other parts of the plan include job training programs, budgetary reforms, and a free-market health care proposal modeled on Ryan’s Patients Choice Act. “This works,” Ryan told me last week. “It solves our fiscal crisis. It turns it around.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agrees with him. No question, the Roadmap is a big idea. But it isn’t a new one. Ryan initially released the proposal in 2008, when it fell flat. “First they laughed at us, then they ignored us,” says Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Ryan ally. What’s changed? America has fallen into a vat of red ink. The financial crisis and recession have darkened the country’s long-term fiscal outlook. Unemployment stands at 9.7 percent. The president’s fiscal year 2011 budget forecasts record deficits and debt long into the future. Inflation, punishing interest rates, high taxes, and economic stagnation are not far behind. Hence the Democrats, who can’t defend their own budgets, desperately want to change the subject. They’ve found one they like: what’s wrong with Ryan’s Roadmap. Obama, White House budget chief Peter Orszag, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen have all attacked Ryan’s proposal as hurting the elderly. So has the Democratic National Committee and the White House-friendly media. In his latest column, Time magazine’s Joe Klein writes that the Roadmap is “an all-out assault on the financial security of the nation’s most devout voters.” The Washington Post’s domestic policy blogger wrote last week that “Ryan’s budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent.” Not so. Ryan preserves the current entitlement system for everyone over the age of 55. Nor do the critics mention that the only way to avoid a fiscal crisis decades from now is by means-testing benefits, raising the retirement age, and otherwise reducing the government’s future obligations. The alternative is insolvency and “austerity plans” imposed by the IMF.  Liberals accuse Ryan of cutting future Medicare benefits. True enough—but they’re missing the point. “Any reform would do that,” he says. “They want to do it by a government monopoly and rationing. We attack the root cause of health care inflation by introducing free-market mechanisms into the system.” Ryan’s political problem is that he’s a congressman with a presidential-level agenda. The Roadmap is a realistic way to clean up America’s fiscal mess, but there is no chance of it becoming law as long as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid run Congress and Barack Obama is president. Moreover, Bush’s failed Social Security reform and Obama’s doomed health bill show that a president has to have large congressional majorities as well as public approval to pass major changes to entitlement law. What the Roadmap needs is support from a Republican presidential aspirant. Ryan insists it won’t be him, however. He says he has no plans to run for president in 2012. His disavowal, he goes on, is “Shermanesque.” That may disappoint conservatives and Republicans who have found Ryan to be an engaging television presence and a successful political entrepreneur. He’s young, charismatic, wonky, and well spoken. He’s already held his own against President Obama. His national profile is on the rise. He recently endorsed conservative favorite Marco Rubio in the Florida Senate Republican primary. He’s scheduled to speak at two fundraisers in New Hampshire later this month. Devin Nunes jokes that he’s the charter member of the “Draft Ryan” club. As the budget outlook grows darker, expect membership in the club to rise. Because sometimes you don’t pick the moment. Sometimes the moment picks you. Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:16:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26157&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26157&mname=Article New Donors Drive Ryan’s Cash On Hand to $1.5 Million Campaign adds more than 1,000 individual donors in 2009, 60 percent of Wisconsin contributors gave less than $100   Janesville, Wis. – Driven by donations from a growing number of new contributors in 2009, First District Congressman Paul Ryan today reported a year-end, re-election account cash-on-hand amount of $1,565,450. “The outpouring of support from people who have never before participated in the political process is amazing,” said Ryan. “Every month, hundreds of first time contributors are sending donations and telling me to continue speaking out about the need to spend and borrow less, get the economy growing, fix health care and the tax code and leave a better America for the next generation.” During 2009, Ryan added 1,143 new donors to his campaign, including 751 in the last quarter of the year. The number of Ryan’s individual donors currently stands at 13,280. As part of his pledge to fully disclose campaign contributions, Ryan provides a link to his complete Federal Elections Campaign report at: http://images.nictusa.com/pdf/368/10930015368/10930015368.pdf#navpanes=0 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:23:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26117&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26117&mname=Article http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/paul-ryans-moment/ February 3, 2010, 1:11 pm by Ross Douthat Paul Ryan’s Moment Across the first thirteen months of the Obama era, Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been one of the few conservative politicians offering detailed alternatives to the Democratic agenda. When Obama released his initial budget, Ryan responded by issuing a sweeping fiscal roadmap that envisioned bringing the U.S. budget back into balance across the next three decades. While many of his fellow Republicans were greeting Obama’s health care push with Medicare demagoguery, Ryan was busy co-sponsoring (with Tom Coburn, among others) the “Patients’ Choice Act,” an imperfect but impressive alternative to the Democrats’ approach. And now, with the release of Obama’s second budget, which projects deficits as far as the eye can see, Ryan has updated his fiscal roadmap as well — and suddenly, people are paying attention to him. More specifically, liberals are paying attention to him. Last year, Ryan mainly got attention from conservative pundits desperate to prove that their side had ideas as well. Now, though, he’s become the right-wing foil of choice for the Obama administration and liberal bloggers alike. The president went out of his way to mention Ryan’s roadmap during his “question time” with House Republicans last week, calling it “a serious proposal” and advocating a “healthy debate” about its contents. Yesterday, at a hearing before Ryan’s own committee, Peter Orszag likewise deemed the roadmap a “serious proposal,” albeit one whose approach to fiscal stability “many policymakers might find objectionable.” (Orszag had made similar comments during a conference call with reporters on Monday.) And the liberal commentariat has engaged in an extended debate about whether Ryan’s vision is “so honest it’s crazy, or so crazy it’s not serious.” (That line belongs to the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, whose own conclusion is that the Ryan roadmap amounts to a “dystopian parable” of what our entitlement system might become.) Liberals are giving Ryan his moment in the sun — or, if you prefer, his moment as a lightning rod — because they think that his small government plan makes big government look good. To a point, they’re probably right. The Ryan plan achieves a balanced budget, in large part, by transforming Medicare into a voucher program, with subsidies for the poor and means-testing for the better-off, and then holding the growth of the voucher below the projected growth in health-care costs. This would not be immediately popular with seniors, to put it mildly: It’s hard to imagine any scenario in which such a voucher could be kept low enough to achieve the kind of extraordinary savings Ryan has in mind (he envisions government spending dropping well below 20 percent of G.D.P.) without inspiring a full-scale revolt from the old-age lobby. But the size of Ryan’s proposed voucher could be increased, to accommodate political realities, without doing violence to his overall vision of what government should be doing, and where it could be cut. And that vision is more appealing, I think, than many liberals are giving it credit for. What Ryan is proposing, ultimately, is a comprehensive blueprint for a conservative welfare state. A simplified tax code, consisting of a two-bracket income tax with a large standard deduction and a business consumption tax, would pay for a means-tested safety net, and a system of tax credits, risk pools and low-income subsidies would underwrite a free (or, well, somewhat freer) market in health care. In other words, Ryan would balance our books by shifting away from programs that shuffle money around within the middle and upper-middle classes — taking tax dollars with one hand and giving health-insurance deductions, college-tuition credits, home-mortgage deductions, Social Security checks and so forth with the other — and toward programs that tax the majority of Americans to fund means-tested support for the old, the sick, and the poor. “If conservatives could design their ideal welfare state,” Paul Pierson has written, “it would consist of nothing but means-tested programs.” The Ryan blueprint doesn’t go that far, but it takes serious strides in that direction. Depending on how you fiddle with the tax rates and where you set the subsidies, his overall framework could be the basis for a welfare state that’s at once much smaller than the leviathan we’re headed for at our current rate of spending and more progressive in the way that it distributes spending and tax subsidies. It’s a conservative vision, clearly, and not a liberal one: It shifts much more responsibility to individual and families, overall, than anything most Democrats would be comfortable supporting. But in its broadest outlines, Ryan’s roadmap holds out the possibility of at least some common ground between the limited-government right and the redistributionist left — and long-term solvency into the bargain. That’s Ryan’s own view of the matter. “I would argue that I make a lot of concessions here to the left,” he told me. “I’m not trying to win an award from the Cato Institute.” He was quick to acknowledge that his blueprint would still work with somewhat less austerity, and somewhat larger benefits: “I pay off the debt completely, and over time I wipe all these unfunded liabilities off the books. But if we do half that, that’s fantastic.” And he was emphatic, in our conversation, about the plausibility of bipartisan conversation: “I’m just trying to get this debate going. I put this plan out there is hoping that other people would do the same thing, and then we can start debating it. There are plenty of ways to fix this thing, and … I’m not suggesting that I have all the answers. I’m suggesting that I have an answer, and I’m hoping other people will bring their answers to the table.” Implicit in this call for conversation, of course, is the reality that nothing as sweeping as Ryan’s blueprint seems to have any chance of becoming law in our current political system. I’ve been writing a lot recently about the virtues of incrementalism, given the failures of nearly every comprehensive reform push, from Reagan to Clinton to Gingrich to Bush to (possibly) Obama, across the last three decades. Ryan’s proposals, which fold together tax reform, health care reform, Social Security reform and Medicare reform (with a few other ideas bundled in as well), are as anti-incremental as you get. They offer the G.O.P. a set of policy ideals, but not a plausible path to implementing them. When I asked Ryan about this problem, he raised the possibility that our looming fiscal armageddon will concentrate the minds of lawmakers, and make sweeping solutions more imaginable. “I think [comprehensive reform] is going to become possible,” he told me, “because the status quo is just so unsustainable. We will have a debt crisis in this country that will require emergency actions if we don’t fix this fast.” But then he also added that “if I can get an inch in the right direction, versus the mile, then I’d take the inch.” And he suggested that on a tactical level, the Obama administration had the right general idea: Start by tackling health-care reform, “the biggest money mover,” as a means to broader entitlement reform, and then deal with Social Security and the tax code further down the road. “Orszag’s right,” Ryan said, “when he says that health-care reform is entitlement reform. They’re just making it much worse, and adding much more to it.” The other difficulty, of course, is that even if there were a politically-feasible path toward the kind of overhaul Ryan has in mind, it’s not clear how many Republican politicians would want to take it. Ryan is circumspect about this problem: He talked hopefully about the “maturation” of the G.O.P., as it goes from being “an opposition party to being the alternative party,” and suggested that “we’re going through our growing pains faster than I’d expected, which is a pleasant surprise.” At the same time, he allowed that “the problem in the minority [is that] you sometimes revert into a posture where ‘I don’t have to do anything controversial, I just can be against that and win by default.’ I’m not interesting in winning by default. And I’m worried that if we get the majority back by default, we’ll screw up again.” And when I brought up Republican politicians who have embraced a “Medicare now, Medicare forever” approach to critiquing the Obama health care proposals, Ryan turned grim in a hurry. “I don’t do that,” he said sharply. “I don’t do that.” For now, this honesty leaves him in a relatively lonely position — both within his party, and in Washington more generally. (The Obama plan for long-term fiscal solvency is … to appoint a commission charged with proposing plans for long-term fiscal solvency.) “I’m trying to encourage people to jump in the pool with me,” Ryan said ruefully. “I’m in there alone right now.” But there are advantages to being in the pool alone, as well. There are hundreds of Republican politicians in Washington, but Ryan is one of the few worth taking seriously on substance — and one of the few, as a result, who can critique the Obama administration without resorting to gimmickry or sloganeering. And in a party that’s suffering from deficits of both leadership and substance, that’s pretty good position for a young congressman to occupy. Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:34:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26064&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=26064&mname=Article C-Span's Washington Journal - Watch Paul's extended interview - http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291511-6 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:33:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25827&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25827&mname=Article Down With Big Business Paul Ryan, 12.11.09, 10:22 AM EST How the government is smothering dreams and stifling growth. In 1979, Robert Bartley's editorial writing at the Wall Street Journal not only garnered a Pulitzer Prize, but also exposed a pernicious threat to free enterprise. In a piece titled "Down With Big Business," which focused on how General Motors was using its muscle and government connections to squeeze out competitors, Bartley concludes we ought not rely on big business to defend free markets. It's up to the American people--innovators and entrepreneurs, small business owners, Bartley's "XYZ Bumperlight Lens Company"--to take a stand. Thirty years later, this crony capitalism is back with a vengeance, accelerated by an aggressive program by President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. It is wreaking havoc on economic recovery and fueling continued resentment among the American people. The actions taken at the height of the financial panic last fall, with credit markets frozen, succeeded in preventing a systemic--and catastrophic--collapse. Since bringing us back from the precipice however, the Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] has morphed into crony capitalism at its worst. Abandoning its original purpose providing targeted assistance to unlock credit markets, TARP has evolved into an ad hoc, opaque slush fund for large institutions that are able to influence the Treasury Department's investment decisions behind-the-scenes. No longer concerned with preserving overall financial market stability, Treasury's walking around money continues to be deployed to reward the market's Goliaths while letting its Davids suffer. We were told that the financial giants, most prominently Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) and JP Morgan, were "too big to fail." We were given the same slippery justifications in diverting TARP funds beyond their original intent--moving into auto companies and heavy-handed neo-industrial policy. Yet in communities across America, bank regulators are busily shutting down banks that were "too small to succeed." The disconnect turns to frustration as bailed-out firms Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan announce record profits, while the community bank closes its doors. With risk aversion preventing small businesses from accessing capital, job losses continue to mount and the engines of economic growth continue to stall. Small firms have to file for real bankruptcy--not the bailout bankruptcy afforded to AIG ( AIG - news - people ), Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ), GM, Chrysler and others. Washington is working hard to nationalize other sectors of our economy too. The House Finance Committee is pushing a massive financial "reform" bill, effectively creating banking utility companies. The Treasury Department has effectively nationalized the housing finance sector, with Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) & Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) demonstrating how fast big businesses, through a federally blessed and backed oligopoly, can fall. Now, on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, health care and energy lobbyists continue to fall over themselves to cut their deals--knowing that if they aren't at the table, they'll be on the menu. The problem today has escalated far beyond partisan politics. Big businesses' frenzied political dealings are not driven by party or ideology, but rather by zero-sum thinking in which their gain must come from a competitor's loss. Erecting barriers to competition is a key to maintaining advantage and market share. With Washington leading the way, it makes sense for the big boys to redirect their resources to their lobbying shop and government affairs office. They're far less interested in expanding the economic pie than with making certain that they get their slice. To be clear, the federal government should not stack the deck against big businesses either. The government does not have a stake in the fight between David and Goliath--our only concern is to make certain that it is a fair fight. The government today is far from an unbiased arbitrator, and it is smothering dreams and stifling growth. We've been down this road before. There was a time in this country when the airlines, railroads, the energy sector, trucking and bus industry were all firmly under government control. The problem was not only excessive government meddling, but large established firms cooperating to protect their market share and erect barriers to new entrants. Some initial progress on breaking up these monopolies began during the Carter administration. Then came the Reagan Revolution, whose key underpinnings were empowering small businesses, lowering the hurdles that keep new entrants out, and unleashing the power of competition, innovation, and the American entrepreneurial spirit. President Reagan, aided by leaders such as my mentor, Congressman Jack Kemp, successfully implemented a comprehensive strategy to reduce marginal tax rates, ease government's burdens on entrepreneurial activity, restrain non-defense spending, ease trade barriers and tame the scourge of inflation. The progress continued after the Reagan administration. The most infamous manifestation of crony capitalism during these days was Ma Bell. One company, the former iteration of AT&T ( T - news - people ), locked arms with the federal government to create a legalized telephone monopoly. Ma Bell was regulated like a utility, and for decades the industry (consisting of one company) languished in mediocrity. Americans were held hostage to lackluster service and even required to rent their phones from the telephone company. These clunky devices only performed analog voice calls and everyone avoided long distance dialing because of its outrageous expense. Legal action was taken, ultimately leading to the breakup of AT&T/Ma Bell in 1984. While far from perfect, the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed for competition and innovation to be unleashed. The robust technological and digital revolution that followed brought Americans faster voice, video and Internet services at lower costs. These innovations were the result of the interaction of producers and consumers; the work of innovators and entrepreneurs no longer stifled by monopolistic giants and government control. For every encroachment into the market by the federal government--under the guise of "reform"--there exist pro-market alternatives that Republicans must articulate and passionately defend. University of Chicago's Luigi Zingales, who has written extensively on the issue of crony capitalism, reminds policymakers that the path forward requires “adopting a pro-market, rather than pro-business, approach.” We must champion an aggressive reform agenda to tackle our outdated financial regulatory structure, the convoluted and anti-competitive tax code, and the looming entitlement crisis, and to fix what's broken in health care, energy, and more. We should focus on removing the hurdles the government has erected, rather than further centralizing power in Washington. The legislative reform must focus on empowering individuals instead of bureaucrats. We cannot lose our commitment to individual liberty--a commitment we've shed blood to defend in generations past. The American idea cannot be defeated. This is not a contest for one political party, one sector of our economy, or one segment of the population. We all stand to lose as crony capitalism drains the life from our economy; but we all stand to gain from the fruits that genuine, vigorous, free market competition provides. Paul Ryan represents Wisconsin's First Congressional District. He serves as ranking member of the House Budget Committee and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:42:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25326&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25326&mname=Article An exclusive to Washington's Elusive Quest for Jobs By Paul Ryan Representing Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District November 18, 2009 With unemployment at 10.2%, it is imperative that we focus on job creation. In the halls of Congress, there are reports of yet another "stimulus" spending bill. It is great that jobs are again on the agenda, but to continue to do the same thing (simply spend more money) and expect different results is the definition of insanity. As the private sector continues to shed jobs, the size and scope of the federal government is expanding at breakneck speed: trillions in new taxes, spending, and debt; the creation of new government entitlement programs; unprecedented power grabs over our financial, health care, and energy sectors. Washington needs to drop its adherence to the notion that spending your money and printing new money are the only answers to promoting jobs here at home.     As we open another stimulus debate, it is instructive to revisit the passionate and vocal case made earlier this year for the trillion dollar spending package (H.R. 1). In January of 2009, President-elect Obama’s economic team released a detailed report that made clear the need for their spending bill and the consequences if we didn’t rush one-trillion dollars out the door ("The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act", 1/10/09). The following chart, along with updates that mark the actual unemployment data, makes clear the disparity between Washington’s promises and the dismal results. In his first Weekly Radio Address since taking office, President Obama urged swift passage of his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which he argued would "immediately jumpstart job creation" (White House, 1/23/09). He added, "If nothing is done, the unemployment rate could reach double digits." Shortly after the massive spending bill became law, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure the skeptical public by stating, "We must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package. The choices that were made in it were to create jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs and jobs as soon as possible" (Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, 3/10/09). In June, when pressed to explain why jobs, jobs, jobs were not materializing, Vice President Joe Biden noted, "The speed of job growth will really pick up in the next few months" (Time Magazine, 6/2/09). Since that time, the economy lost 1.33 million jobs. By any objective standard, the so-called stimulus has been a failure. Since the stimulus was enacted, the private sector has lost over 3 million more jobs and the unemployment rate has reached double digits. In addition to dismal jobs numbers, the record new spending has contributed to a $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit this year. In the face of these irrefutable facts, the Obama Administration and leaders in Congress continue claim that they’ve "created or saved" millions of jobs. They argue that things would have been worse had Congress failed to shovel trillions of dollars out the door. Yet again, facts continue to tell a different story. The data used to back up these claims has come under widespread scrutiny. According to an independent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis, a White House report citing that "640,000 jobs were created or saved by the stimulus package" was "rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers based more on satisfying federal formulas than creating real jobs" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/5/09).   Recovery.gov has been rightly criticized for crediting jobs that don’t exist, jobs at companies that don’t exist, and jobs in Congressional districts that don’t exist. Earlier today, I visited the Obama Administration’s Recovery.gov myself to check out its impact on Wisconsin: http://www.house.gov/ryan/recovery1.htm. The Administration claims to have spent $2.4 billion in the state of Wisconsin, resulting in 10,073 jobs "created or saved." In the Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, taxpayers spent roughly $1.5 million per job. More troubling, millions more of your money has apparently been spent in six congressional districts that don’t exist. Despite promises of unprecedented accountability, it is unclear what has happened to the $1.2 million earmarked for the non-existent 55th Congressional District of Wisconsin, as the Badger State only has eight congressional districts. These false jobs claims are not only embarrassing, but further erode the trust between Wisconsinites and their federal government. This exercise illuminates Washington’s fundamental error in its elusive quest for job creation: the belief that only greater government spending can generate jobs. Because every dollar Congress spends must first be taken from the economy, Congressional spending can’t grow the economic pie - it just redistributes the slices. Congress must recognize that real, sustained growth and job creation comes from the work, savings and investment of American families and businesses - not from the federal government. Should this message get through to the White House and leaders in Congress, what can Congress do to encourage small businesses and entrepreneurs to take risks, expand their operations and create jobs? As argued during the previous stimulus debates, there are legitimate steps Congress can take to help the American economy in both the near and long term, including the following: ·         Support Real Policies for Growth. Fast-acting tax policy - such as allowing expensing on all new investments - would boost incentives to expand business operations and create jobs. In addition, lowering the corporate income tax rate - currently the second highest in the industrialized world - would help attract investment in the U.S., and reduce the incentives to shift business operations and jobs overseas. ·         Provide Tax Certainty. Due to next year’s expiration of past tax laws, the Majority is set to hit Americans with new tax increases on investment, savings, businesses, families and workers. This threat is stifling business investment and job creation today because of the uncertainty in tax laws. Congress should permanently extend the current tax laws and drop its insistence tax increases. This would serve as a de facto tax cut, increasing the after-tax rate of return on investment and unlocking billions in private, idle capital. ·         Get Spending Under Control. Congress threatens to erase any potential economic gains if we fail to get a grip on our fiscal crisis. We are set to double our national debt in five years, triple it in ten - and then the spending really explodes as the baby boomers retire. Absent serious reform, our entitlement programs will not only grow themselves right into extinction, but they will impose a crushing blow to our budget, our currency, and our economy in the process. We should stop the creation of a new health care entitlement and make sustainable existing programs that strengthen our health and retirement security. I will continue to promote my efforts to tackle this challenge head on (www.americanroadmap.org; www.house.gov/ryan/budgetreform/). If the Majority puts aside its ideological commitment to growing government, these ideas could be included in bipartisan solutions to bring jobs back into our economy. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:39:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25041&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=25041&mname=Article There's a better way to address national health care reform By Paul Ryan Posted: Oct. 10, 2009 JSOnline // enlarge photo   Ryan It is often a surreal experience traveling between Wisconsin and Washington. In Janesville, we're concerned, first and foremost, about getting jobs and economic growth back to southern Wisconsin. We agree that we ought to fix what's broken in health care but aren't too sure about Washington's prescription. We're also anxious about the unsustainable expansion of government, along with the Packers' offensive line. In Washington, it is all health care, all the time. For those who have yet to fall in line, you're branded as a mindless obstructionist or worse. Let's bridge this gap, and make some sense of the health care debate. There are fundamental differences on how to tackle the fundamental drivers of exploding costs, while ensuring access to quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans. The trillion-dollar, thousand-page bills making their way to the floors of the House and Senate include many troubling components of concern for Wisconsinites. The drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage plans would devastate more than 200,000 Wisconsin seniors enrolled in these plans. A massive expansion of Medicaid eligibility would impose even greater financial burdens on already cash-strapped states, not welcome news in light of the recent suspension of Badger Care Plus enrollment. In addition to asking seniors and states to do more with less, the costly overhauls would hit Wisconsin families and employers already struggling to make ends meet with massive new tax hikes, additional mandates, restrictions and penalties. The proposals create a costly new health care entitlement, exacerbating the fiscal burdens we pass to our children. There is a better way forward. We can address the problems in health care without the government taking it over. Here are a number of reforms that I have proposed to reorient health care around the individual, bringing the forces of true choice and competition to health care: • We must equalize the tax treatment of health care, which currently hides and inflates the true cost of coverage, discriminating against the unemployed and self-employed. A more equitable solution would be to offer universal, refundable tax rebates for all Americans to purchase health coverage. • Innovative risk adjustment mechanisms, reinsurance or risk pools would help extend coverage to those with pre-existing and chronic medical conditions. • Individuals who reside in one state should be able to buy a more affordable health insurance plan in another state. We should open up these markets and allow true competition to help drive down health care costs. • Making data on the pricing and effectiveness of health care services transparent and widely available is critical for the functioning of an effective health care marketplace. For individuals and families to shop for their health care, they must have a better sense of what they are expected to pay - and what they are getting for their money. • We must enact meaningful medical malpractice reform to combat the practice of doctors overtreating and overprescribing patients for fear of legal retribution. • We must fulfill the mission of health security for America's seniors and low-income populations. Rather than cut benefits or shift burdens onto states, meaningful reforms to Medicare and Medicaid will help strengthen these programs in the near term and ensure the sustainability of these critical programs for future generations. Many of the reforms above are a part of my fiscally responsible, patient-centered health care alternative - H.R. 2520 - The Patients' Choice Act. While we work to bring the forces of choice and competition to health care, I owe it to my employers - the residents in southern Wisconsin - to offer you a choice on better policies and innovative ideas to tackle this critical issue. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District. Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:37:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=24579&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=24579&mname=Article The American Spectator Health Care Reform and the American Character By Congressman Paul Ryan on 7.23.09 @ 6:09AM While it's important to analyze the relative financial costs and benefits of health care proposals which Congress is considering, our greatest challenge cannot be limited to the economics of the issue. Our transcending concerns are moral and political. The American character itself and the principles of free market democracy which protect and preserve it may be lost beyond recovery if Congress chooses the wrong path to health care reform -- the path down which the Obama Administration seems determined to lead our country. How are health care and American character linked? Public health has always been a government priority. The unquestioned power to quarantine for contagious sicknesses in order to protect the community's health has been used for centuries. Selling unwholesome food and drink, carrying on industrial trades that infect or pollute the air, as well as neglect, unskillful management, and experimentation by doctors and pharmacists have traditionally been treated as crimes and grounds for civil lawsuits. Immunization programs to protect populations against disease have long been accepted as a legitimate government service. The Framers of our Constitution were deeply influenced by the thought of William Blackstone, England's greatest legal thinker. In his Commentaries, Blackstone explained that every individual has a "right of personal security" which includes protection against acts that may harm personal health. This right is part of the natural right to life, which means that it does not come from government but from "nature and nature's God." As the American Founders declared, the purpose of government is not to create new rights but to secure pre-existing natural rights of all persons, to life as well as liberty and pursuit of happiness. In other words, the priority of protecting people's health, which is implicit in our founding principles, no more requires government to provide health care programs than, say, the legitimate concern that people be housed requires the government to build public housing. Government has a duty to secure these rights, but this obligation is normally met most effectively by establishing the legal and economic conditions for free markets that expand the opportunity and prosperity of all. When markets apparently fail to meet these needs properly -- today's health care delivery is an example -- government should begin not by filling the need itself but by looking to and correcting its own interventions and making competitive free markets more effective. The Founders' highest hope in declaring independence from Britain, fighting the Revolution, and writing the Constitution was to secure human freedom. They established a "new order of the ages" for Americans to govern themselves in freedom, as individuals and as citizens of communities, states, and nation. There were to be no classes such as kings or nobles, clerics or intellectuals like those who ruled in old Europe by a supposed higher right. Popular consent alone would grant the power to govern Americans, and then only for a limited time between democratic elections. Under the Founders' model of "federalism," the central government had a few great powers while most areas of society (e.g., public health) were left to the states to regulate and the people to order in free markets. They encouraged America's citizens to take on the primary responsibility for controlling their lives: government's mission was limited to setting up legal conditions for men and women to act in freedom in order to achieve their potential. The pursuit of happiness requires the cultivation of good character traits. Free citizens must avoid seeing themselves as passive victims of a government over which they have no control. Persons who assume the burden of responsibility for their actions, successes, and failures develop traits such as courage, fairness, initiative, charity, self-restraint, industriousness, enterprise, and above all prudence, the wisdom which directs each toward the right means needed to flourish as a mature person. A very short description of the American character would be: this ensemble of moral qualities that make it possible for persons to live under self-restraint, without dependency, in personal relationships with others in community under God. As Tocqueville discerned in Democracy In America, a human being who fails to practice these fundamental habits, especially the key virtue of practical wisdom, will gradually lose the ability to sustain basic human qualities and sentiments. Lacking the habit of making prudent decisions every day about one's well-being and learning to accept the consequences of those decisions, one becomes a victim of necessity, passively serving unaccountable rulers who take it on themselves to define and satisfy the victims' needs, desires, and pleasures. Tocqueville's chief worry was something he described as a new kind of despotism. In generations to come, many citizens in democratic nations might be tempted to trade their liberty, which demands risk-taking, hard work, and self-restraint, for the easy security and benefits a "soft despotism" would bring. Tocqueville saw the path to this gray future in the growing centralization of government which had been at work in Europe for centuries. America's Founders, for their part, risked their whole experiment in free market democracy on preserving the character of citizens in order to resist every such design to turn Americans into European-style servants of the government. Under the Constitution, health issues were left not to a distant central government but to states and individuals under the states' "police powers." Decentralization strengthened the people's close control over health issues and encouraged a diversity of medical practices and legal responses to health needs. Some were more successful than others. The states were in effect different laboratories applying varying approaches to public health concerns. Except for emergencies, public health was mostly advanced by free markets under local and state regulation, and spurred by federal patent and copyright incentives. Congress in the early 20th century enacted laws to prevent interstate sales of unsafe medicines. The federal government also recognized a role in providing nationwide health-related information, establishing the Laboratory of Hygiene in 1887 and its successor, the National Institutes of Health, to carry out biomedical and health-related research, and in preparing for pandemics that don't respect state boundaries. Ultimately, under our system of federalism and free market democracy, the health of Americans has improved and flourished beyond the hopes and imagination of earlier generations. Federal intervention in health care, with the best of intentions, has sometimes proven inapt and difficult to eliminate after it has become obsolete. For example, federal tax code changes appropriate to the World War II era have resulted in making employers the major providers of health insurance rather than the employees, thus distorting employment opportunities and other job decisions. Other federal laws and regulations in the 20th century resulted in excessive government intervention and health insurer overinvolvement in treatment issues that rightfully belong to health coverage buyers, patients, and doctors. Because of these interventions, along with Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. today does not have an efficient and competitive free market in health care delivery. The federal government entered the area of health care delivery most massively in 1965 with the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. Real cost control quickly became a nightmare. Fraud proliferated despite all attempts to stop it. Program costs have continually been underestimated. When Medicare began in 1966, the cost to the taxpayers was about $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $12 billion by 1990 (including inflation), yet the actual cost by then was nearly nine times as much -- $107 billion. By 2006 Medicare reached $401 billion while Medicaid added another $309 billion for a total of $710 billion. The failure to control Medicare's costs demonstrates why the Constitution inherently leans toward solving society's problems by means of free market democracy and decentralized government. * * * * * America is now being pushed headlong into enacting a massive federal government-run health care program. The rush, of course, is the Congressional Democrats' chosen strategy prompted by the Obama Administration's hunger for a big victory. This strategy may be politically expedient, but it is extremely irresponsible, unwise, and unfair to the American people. Government-monopolized health service flatly contradicts both the moral principles of free market democracy and the excellence of health care that still draws patients from socialist utopias to the capitalist United States for medical treatment. This untested experiment with our national health demands no less than responsible public debate and prudent political judgment. Right now America is getting neither. Right to our north, our neighbor Canada has a government health care system that should be an important part of our public debate. Liberals point to the Canadian system as a model for the U.S. The government is the single payer for health service, though most providers are in the private sector. In Canada the waiting list is up to more than 4 months between patient referrals and actual treatment for a dozen of the specialty procedures most needed. The average Canadian now has to wait over a month after getting a primary doctor's instruction just for a CT scan, and more than two months for an MRI. Canada's medical equipment is old, unreliable, and obsolete. Canadians notoriously travel to the U.S. if possible for treatments for everything from cancer and emergency care to hip surgery and childbirth. That nation has long suffered a professional "brain drain," its doctors fleeing the government-run health care program to practice in the U.S. Our government tried to make this more difficult, yet according to a 2007 report, one in nine doctors trained in Canada is now practicing medicine here. Has the Obama Administration explained to Americans the facts about Canada's "model" of government health care? Is this the kind of national health service the U.S. should imitate? (Page 2 of 3) It is clear that the Democratic plan is prohibitively expensive and fiscally reckless. It will fail to control health care costs, exacerbate our growing debt, and require crushing taxes. Their approach would spend trillions more dollars, mandate that all employers provide health insurance, impose massive new tax burdens on workers and heath care practitioners, and exacerbate our entitlement crisis with the creation of another open-ended entitlement. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has informed the Senate that their health care plan would worsen the overall fiscal outlook, and its review so far of the House proposal draws the same conclusion. It makes the fiscal situation even worse. That plan will undermine the excellence of American health care and displace those who are happy with their insurance coverage. (Surveys show that 80 percent or more are satisfied with their current arrangements.) It will stifle the energy and ingenuity which have given this nation's science and technology the edge in global medical research and innovation. Their plan will insert the government between doctors and patients. This would constrain the freedom of medical providers, limit patient options, and restrict the right of patients to make personal health care decisions in consultation with their doctor. Their plan will vastly expand the reach of government into the private lives of Americans and increase dependency on the state. Rather than help to expand people's choices, it would provide more direct benefits and establish more limitations, gatekeeping, and red tape. The Democratic plan's bureaucratization of health care is not compassionate. Impersonal agencies, whether of governments or insurance providers, make decisions about how to heal patients not according to needs but according to budget-driven calculations. Bureaucratic indifference replaces compassionate caregiving by loved ones under a free market with a spectrum of health services. Today's bureaucratized market badly needs reform to make personalized health care possible. But their plan moves in the opposite direction. Its logic requires government rationing of health care resources. The first step was taken back in February when the Economic Stimulus package's fine print set up a new agency (the Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, or CCER) patterned on Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). This agency's stated purpose is to identify medical practices that produce outcomes that work as opposed to those that don't work. As long as there is a competitive private health care market, CCER's impact will be limited. But under a national health care insurance plan, providers will not be paid out of the plan for health care which CCER disapproves of. Once competing plans have been driven out, the government's approval or disapproval will dictate the care providers may offer to beneficiaries, automatically denying treatments for certain categories of patients. England's NICE operates as a rationing bureaucracy. NICE decisions for or against new medicines, surgeries, and other treatments are life-and-death matters. They determine whether patients under Britain's government health program will be allowed or denied access to preferred forms of care. NICE's determinations are pushed and pulled by two forces: national budgeting calculations and factional political pressures. Under NICE rationing, the government has capped the amount that may be spent on treatments to extend someone's life by six months. The amount is $22,000, an arbitrary number chosen by government accountants, not medical professionals. The idea that the government should make decisions about how long people should live is deeply offensive to everything America stands for. It is no answer to say that health care resources are limited and will be rationed one way or another. Under systems of market freedom, the limited amount of all services and goods, including health care, are rationed by individuals and their personal caregivers as they allocate their own resources among many competing producers. But should government do this, based on financial spreadsheets and political pressure groups? I believe this is morally and politically abhorrent to all Americans because it denies our most basic personal rights. We should treat our sick, special needs patients, and elderly better than this. President Obama denies that he wants to ration health care under his government-run program. Granting his sincerity and ability to stop Congress from mandating it, four or eight years from now there will be another President who will not be bound by Obama's anti-rationing rhetoric since national health care would be a fait accompli by then. Government rationing, like it or not, is the logical endpoint of government health care. Any authentic solution to the problem of affordability should be consistent with our first principles of moral and political freedom, should respect doctor and patient privacy, restrain spending, and channel the energy of our free market system, not dry it up. There is no lack of sensible alternative solutions offered by Republicans to empower patients and health insurance buyers, not big government or insurance company bureaucrats. Senators Coburn and Burr, and Congressman Nunes and I co-authored The Patients' Choice Act which would eliminate government-driven market distortions that now exclude millions from affordable health care delivery. More uninsured Americans can be covered by spending current dollars more wisely and efficiently than by throwing trillions more dollars at the problem. Our health care delivery alternatives are based on principles that respect timeless American moral and political truths. We believe health care arrangements should reflect a commitment to compassion, family choice, and individual freedom, together with responsibility for the nation's economic well-being. * * * * * What is at stake in this battle goes far beyond health care. This debate may prove to be a surrogate for the defining issue of our generation. If we follow the path the Obama Administration wants, our nation will reach a tipping point where a majority of citizens pay little or no taxes and become dependent on federal welfare. Tax cuts would be politically unfeasible because more people will have a stake in government benefits than in free enterprise and personal initiative. The spirit of risk-taking will be smothered by an all-providing government. The American character, however, rests on the great experiment in individual freedom begun over 200 years ago. It cannot survive without it. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider that America's private and public sectors now spend about $2.5 trillion a year on health care, more than twice what any other country spends per person, amounting to about 17 percent of our nation's GDP. If government is now to take over the whole cost burden as another entitlement, the tipping point will be inevitable. This democratic system under which each person bears the responsibility for working to fulfill his or her potential, maturely judging risks and rewards, will be replaced by a nation of passive subjects indebted only to their leaders for the welfare they receive to keep them alive. If President Obama and his party are serious about establishing a radical new government-driven health care program, rather than force an untested program on the whole nation, why not follow federalism by encouraging one or two states to adopt such a plan as a pilot program? Former Governor Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican, led in the creation of a state universal health care program three years ago, and Jon Huntsman, Republican Governor of Utah, has spearheaded major market-based health care reforms in that state. The benefits, costs, and satisfaction in these state health care "labs" would be useful information before we decide on a federal role. If the majority party truly wants more competition, as they say, why propose government insurance instead of enabling more non-profit insurance? Page 3 of 3) If they have no intention of transforming the system into Medicare for all, why do they tie all payments to Medicare? And if the majority is so worried about our skyrocketing national debt and the burden on the next generation, why do they want to create an entirely new entitlement that would deal a staggering blow to our economy -- an entitlement that rivals the size and liabilities of Medicare? The answer to these questions is that this is ultimately not about health care but about advancing an ideological crusade. Our nation, founded on the credo that unalienable rights were granted to all not by government but by "nature and nature's God," is to be remade into a "benevolent" social welfare state. Federal government health care is the first step down that path. Until now, people in other nations that have chosen that path might at least come to the United States. But where will Americans go when the U.S. also has socialized health care? There will be no place of freedom left to us. The exceptional character of the American people is not free-floating. It lives, as one of our greatest Americans, Martin Luther King, once wrote, by "those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence." I do not believe our citizens want to trade the American character for socialist materialism supplied by European-style health bureaucrats. Yet this is really what the debate is about. Both sides agree that the current system is not working well. Both sides have proposed reforms, but they point to opposite paths. A government-run health care monopoly or a patient-centered reform that expands health care delivery while affirming free market democracy: the stakes in this debate could not be higher. If Americans understand this, I am confident they will insist that Congress reject social welfare medicine and enact reforms to restore real freedom in health care. Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:20:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=23128&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=23128&mname=Article Capitalizing on Common Ground By Paul Ryan Representing Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District July 14, 2009 There is no debate in Washington more critical, more consequential, and more controversial than the current debate over health care reform. Unfortunately, Washington is missing an opportunity to truly engage the American people in the debate they deserve – keeping details under wraps, making decisions behind closed doors, and rushing legislation through Congress without regard to legitimate concerns and alternative solutions. As three House committees are set to markup health care legislation this week, finding common ground would mark a positive step forward in tackling the long overdue need for health care reform. Unfortunately, the Majority’s track record in the 111th Congress does not provide us with much hope. If it seems as if there is no room for agreement in Washington’s partisan atmosphere, let’s look at some shared principles, and even some shared policy reforms to get there. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike agree on the following goals of health care reform: contain costs; expand coverage; preserve the current coverage enjoyed by most Americans. Beyond these broad strokes, there are some policy prescriptions that would certainly find bipartisan approval if we were communicating in a bipartisan fashion: transparency on price and quality in health care; prevention and wellness; the promotion of electronic health records; and long overdue medical liability reform. I see no reason – outside of partisan gamesmanship – why these common sense provisions couldn’t be included in health care reform legislation this year. Even on some controversial elements, there is more agreement than first meets the eye. From all ends of the political spectrum, you will be hard-pressed to find an economist that would defend the current tax treatment of health care. Jason Furman, President Obama’s deputy economic advisor, has written, “Replacing the current tax preference for insurance with an income-related, refundable tax credit has the potential to expand coverage and reduce inefficient spending at no net federal cost.” Plain and simple, the current health care tax exclusion discriminates against millions of Americans and helps inflate the costs of health care. Those in the highest tax brackets and those with the most generous insurance plans receive the largest tax benefits. If you are self-employed, unemployed, or don’t get your coverage from your employer, the current tax code gives you nothing. I believe that we should equalize the tax treatment of health benefits and provide all Americans with the resources they need to purchase quality, affordable health insurance. The tax treatment of health care was poisoned with election year campaign politics and has been ‘taken off the table’, but it is a reform that we must revisit. Of course, there are some more fundamental divides, as many in Washington believe that health care in America should revolve around the federal government – not patients and their doctors. It takes an uncomfortable faith in Washington to believe that spending can be restrained and bureaucratic waste can be contained if only we gave government more control. Despite sky-rocketing costs remaining our top concern, the Majority has concluded that we are not spending enough on health care in America. We already spend over two-and-a-half times more on health care than any other country, with government alone spending roughly $1 trillion last year. Rather than add trillions more on top of that – as the Majority is proposing, let’s take the money we already spend on health care, and spend it more efficiently, more effectively. In the face of a looming entitlement crisis, the Majority remains intent on creating a costly new government health care entitlement, believing that it can fairly compete with non-subsidized private plans. Here is how it works: the federal government ‘option’ would reimburse doctors at below market prices in order to control costs, forcing those with private coverage to make up the difference. With costs continuing to mount, employers will increasingly find it more cost-effective to dump their employees onto the government-run plan and pay an additional 8% payroll tax for each worker. Some estimates state that under this public plan option, two out of every three Americans would lose their current coverage. The President has yet to reconcile this actuarial fact with his promise: “if you like what you got, you can keep it.” With more Americans forced onto the government-run plan, the only way to contain costs will be through rationing by the federal government. The decision as to whether or not you need a potentially life-saving treatment will not be a decision you, your family or your doctor will make, it is a decision the government will make on your behalf. The more Americans learn the details of what is being rushed through Congress, the more folks will be looking for alternatives. Thankfully, many in Congress have put forward innovative, patient-centered solutions. These alternative reforms demonstrate that we can achieve universal access to quality, affordable health care in America, without adding trillions in new taxes and debt, and without the federal government taking it over. The consequences of getting reform wrong go beyond costly missteps to America’s economic, fiscal, and personal health: Washington-centered health care is an affront to the American ideal. Government-run health care threatens our historic reliance on personal responsibility and initiative, to be replaced by passivity and dependence on a full-blown welfare state. There is room for common ground on common sense reforms – to not only promote fiscally-responsible, patient-centered health care, but also to preserve the identity of an America rooted in free enterprise, limited government and individual liberty. (The article above was originally published in The Hill on July 14, 2009) Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:08:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22917&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22917&mname=Article To see the details to Paul's recent FEC filing - check out link below: http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00330894 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:18:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22898&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22898&mname=Article Ryan calls for unity among Republicans Janesville lawmaker says infighting hurts GOP By Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Jun. 3, 2009 Washington - Speaking at a forum on the state of conservatism, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan called for a ceasefire of sorts between two of the movement's key factions, traditionalists and libertarians. "Whenever Republicans lose an election, a factional dispute arises about economic issues versus moral or social issues. Traditionalists and libertarians blame each other, each claiming Republicans would do better without the other," said Ryan, the Janesville lawmaker. "Why anyone would think a minority could grow into a majority by splitting itself in half is a political and mathematical mystery to me," he said. Two speakers Ryan was one of two Midwestern conservatives featured at the gathering, hosted by the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, which is funded by Milwaukee's Bradley Foundation. The other was Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Both men are popular in the conservative movement and regarded as good political models by fellow Republicans. Daniels has been touted as a potential presidential candidate in 2012, but he ruled that out here Wednesday. Daniels said conservatives need to be activist, aggressive and experimental in their ideas but friendlier in tone. He skeptically noted President Barack Obama's much-discussed desire for "empathy" in a Supreme Court nominee. But the governor said that in the political and public-policy debate, empathy is a quality that the right needs to display. "The ability to put oneself in the place, and to feel deeply about, the concerns and the hopes and the dreams and the fears of other people is something that must be visibly a part of what we do," said Daniels, adding that conservatives have to "assert with credibility that we understand what is going on in the lives of everyday people." The stated theme of Wednesday's event was "Making Conservatism Credible Again," part of a running conversation on the right about the lessons of the GOP's election defeats and the future of the movement. Like other gatherings of its kind, it featured a mix of horror about the Obama agenda (spending, deficits, government ownership of car companies); faith that conservative principles remain popular with the public; confidence that Democrats are overreaching; anxiety about how long it will take to come back politically; and gallows humor about the plight of the GOP. A far larger gathering on the left was held this week in Washington, an annual conference of liberal activists organized by the Campaign for America's Future. According to a straw poll, 90% of those in attendance approved of the president's performance, 3% viewed Rush Limbaugh favorably, and more than 80% backed an investigation of the fraud and excesses of Wall Street. At the conservative event, meanwhile, Ryan lamented what he described as the threat to Western civilization posed by the erosion of market freedoms, and Daniels decried the "shock-and-awe statism of the last few months." Wooing young voters Daniels said conservatives need to be single-minded about addressing their political arguments to young voters, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in the last election. He cited as one example the "terrifying deficits" in the Democratic budget and "the threat that poses to every young person in this country." On the issue of immigration, a divisive one within the GOP, Daniels said it was vital to push newcomers to assimilate and speak English. But he added: "I in any way becoming a . . . think it's a grave, grave mistake to act as though more multi-ethnic society is a threat to America. It's a reality, and it can be the strength of America as it's always been, if we embrace it." Daniels said conservatives and Republicans would have to show political patience because of the GOP's loss of credibility while in power. "We're going to have to spend some time in the penalty box," he said. Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:31:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22538&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22538&mname=Article Wall Street Journal – May 21, 2009 Republicans Offer Health-Care Plan By JANET ADAMY WASHINGTON -- Republican lawmakers stepped up their opposition to Democrats' plans for overhauling the nation's health-care system, introducing legislation on Wednesday that would give Americans tax credits to pay for health insurance. The plan, backed by some Republicans in the House and Senate, offers a glimpse into how the GOP is mobilizing against Democrats' effort to create a public insurance plan and to require companies to provide or otherwise pay for health-insurance coverage for workers. Republican lawmakers say such measures would bureaucratize the nation's health system and stifle job creation. Given the Democrats' control of Congress, the Republican plan has little chance of passage. But it reflects some Republican lawmakers' growing dissatisfaction with a bipartisan effort to fix the health-care system. Congressional leaders hope to pass a health-care overhaul this summer. The government would run a health plan "with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office, and the incompetence of Katrina," according to a summary of the Republicans' plan unveiled on Wednesday. Called the Patients' Choice Act, it would eliminate the tax break that employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their workers. Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the system of employer-based coverage is becoming "a 21st century relic" as companies become less generous with benefits. President Barack Obama has tasked Congress with drawing up legislation to reduce health-care costs and expand health-insurance coverage. He and many Democrats want to create a new public insurance plan to help cover the uninsured and create competition for private insurers. The Republican plan introduced Wednesday shares some things in common with measures Democrats are pushing. Both parties want to create insurance exchanges that make it easier to comparison-shop for health-care plans. They also want to shift health-care dollars toward preventing chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, not just because it will make Americans healthier, but because prevention is cheaper than treating people once they get really sick. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), who is leading the effort to draft a health overhaul, said that while this Republican measure meets many of his goals, eliminating the tax incentives for employer-provided health benefits "would destroy the employer-based health-care system we have today." Karen Davenport, director of health policy at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund, said the Republican plan's tax subsidy wouldn't cover half of the cost of the average family's health-care premiums. Rep. Ryan introduced the legislation with Sens. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Richard Burr (R., N.C.), and Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.). Many Democrats are backing the idea of curbing the health-care tax exclusion, which exempts employer health-care benefits from taxation. Under proposed changes, wealthy individuals and people with particularly generous benefits could pay some taxes on their benefits. But most Democrats don't want the exemption eliminated altogether, as called for under the Republican plan. Thu, 21 May 2009 14:10:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22343&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22343&mname=Article Paul D. Ryan: Please be alarmed StarTribune – Minneapolis – St. Paul We can't continue to ignore the crisis in Medicare and Social Security. By PAUL D. RYAN Last update: May 18, 2009 - 5:29 PM It has become a yearly drill: The Medicare and Social Security trustees sound a clear warning that, without reform, both of these programs will go bankrupt in the not-so-distant future. It has also become a yearly drill for those in Washington to respond to the alarm by hitting the snooze button. This year's trustees' report makes clear the growing urgency of this problem -- especially with the effects of the recession -- and the severity of the repercussions should this avoidance habit continue. Highlights of the report include: SOCIAL SECURITY •In just seven years, Social Security's benefit obligation will exceed its cash income from tax revenues, thus other programs will begin to be tapped for resources. •By 2037, the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted. As a result, future retirees will face an immediate across-the-board benefit cut of up to 24 percent. •Over the next 75 years, the trust funds have an unfunded liability of $5.3 trillion. MEDICARE •This program, which finances health care for retirees, is also headed for bankruptcy, but at greater speed and with more severe consequences. •According to the trustees, the entire program's unfunded obligations have risen to $37.8 trillion. •The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which is financed by a dedicated payroll tax, will this year begin running a cash deficit; by 2017, it will be bankrupt. To his credit, President Obama has acknowledged the need to address these problems. But his budget actually makes the problem worse by expanding the already unsustainable growth of entitlement spending by $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years. The administration has also indicated it will ignore the trustees' fourth consecutive Medicare funding warning (also included in the report), passing up the special procedure the warning provides: to force Congress to take action on critical Medicare reform. We no longer have the luxury of waiting; with each year of delay, the problem gets exponentially worse, and the likelihood grows that Congress will be forced to react with deep cuts in benefits or increases in tax or debt burdens to intolerable levels. The programs will fail to meet their obligations, and in the process will put immense burdens on the economy and the budget, crippling our ability to compete in the global marketplace and shrinking future Americans' standards of living. We must steer a different course. If we act now, we can transform this problem into an opportunity -- to make these important programs stronger, more responsive, more resilient, more sustainable and more in line with the way our economy really works. That is why last year I introduced comprehensive legislation called "A Roadmap for America's Future." My bill not only addresses the Medicare and Social Security crisis, but also Medicaid, health care and our overly complex, anticompetitive tax code, to ensure America can regain its footing on the path to a secure, prosperous future. Here are its key components: •It fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by rescuing and strengthening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These vital programs will be made permanently solvent under my plan. •By reforming our tax code, it promotes solid economic growth and job creation here in America and puts the United States in a position to lead -- not merely survive -- in the international marketplace. •It lifts the burden of debt from the shoulders of future generations by returning federal spending growth to sustainable levels. This is a real plan, with real proposals, real numbers to back them and real legislation to implement it. It is ambitious, and not everyone agrees with every aspect of it. That's fine; we must have this debate. Inaction is no longer an option. Paul D. Ryan, of Wisconsin, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the ranking Republican on the House Committee on the Budget. We no longer have the luxury of waiting; with each year of delay, the problem gets exponentially worse, and the likelihood grows that Congress will be forced to react with deep cuts in benefits or increases in tax or debt burdens to intolerable levels. The programs will fail to meet their obligations, and in the process will put immense burdens on the economy and the budget, crippling our ability to compete in the global marketplace and shrinking future Americans' standards of living. We must steer a different course. If we act now, we can transform this problem into an opportunity -- to make these important programs stronger, more responsive, more resilient, more sustainable and more in line with the way our economy really works. That is why last year I introduced comprehensive legislation called "A Roadmap for America's Future." My bill not only addresses the Medicare and Social Security crisis, but also Medicaid, health care and our overly complex, anticompetitive tax code, to ensure America can regain its footing on the path to a secure, prosperous future. Here are its key components: •It fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by rescuing and strengthening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These vital programs will be made permanently solvent under my plan. •By reforming our tax code, it promotes solid economic growth and job creation here in America and puts the United States in a position to lead -- not merely survive -- in the international marketplace. •It lifts the burden of debt from the shoulders of future generations by returning federal spending growth to sustainable levels. This is a real plan, with real proposals, real numbers to back them and real legislation to implement it. It is ambitious, and not everyone agrees with every aspect of it. That's fine; we must have this debate. Inaction is no longer an option. Paul D. Ryan, of Wisconsin, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the ranking Republican on the House Committee on the Budget. Tue, 19 May 2009 09:58:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22313&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=22313&mname=Article You can see Paul's most recent FEC filing for the period covering January 1, 2009 through March 31st, 2009. http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_10+H8WI01024 (Double click on above link or copy/paste it in your web browser) Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:26:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21920&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21920&mname=Article Fox News ran a profile piece on Paul Friday, April 3rd, during the 5:00 p.m. news hours. Carl Cameron does the interview and gives you his prospective on our Representative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRo5j_CS-tA Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:38:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21780&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21780&mname=Article Wall Street Journal – Op-Ed Wednesday, April 01, 2009 The GOP's Alternative Budget President Obama offers us the option of European big government. By PAUL D. RYAN Today, the House of Representatives will consider two budget plans that represent dramatically different visions for our nation's future. We will first consider President Barack Obama's plan. To be clear, this is no ordinary budget. In a nutshell, the president and Democratic leaders in Congress are attempting to bring about the third and final great wave of progressivism, building on top of the New Deal and the Great Society. So America is placed in a special moment in our history -- brought about by the deep recession, Mr. Obama's ambitious agenda, and the pending fiscal tidal-wave of red ink brought forward by the looming insolvency of our entitlement programs. If this agenda comes to pass, it will mark this period in history as the moment America turned European. House Republicans will offer an alternative plan. This too is no ordinary budget. As the opposition party, we believe this moment must be met by offering the American people a different way forward -- one based on our belief that America is an exceptional nation, and we want to keep it that way. Our budget applies our country's enduring first principles to the problems of our day. Rather than attempting to equalize the results of peoples' lives and micromanaging their affairs, we seek to preserve our system of protecting our natural rights and equalizing opportunity for all. The plan works to accomplish four main goals: 1) fulfill the mission of health and retirement security; 2) control our nation's debts; 3) put the economy on a path of growth and leadership in the global economy; and 4) preserve the American legacy of leaving the next generation better off. Under the president's plan, spending will top $4 trillion this year alone, and consume 28.5% of our nation's economy. His plan would mean a $1 trillion increase to the already unsustainable spending growth of our nation's entitlement programs -- including a "down payment" toward government-controlled health care and education; a $1.5 trillion tax increase to further shackle the small businesses and investors we rely on to create jobs; a massive increase in energy costs for families via cap and trade. Moreover, the Obama plan would result in an exploding deficit, a doubling of the nation's debt in five years, and an increase of that debt to more than 82% of our nation's GDP by the last year of the budget. This approach will ultimately debase our currency and reduce the living standards of the American people. Instead of doubling the debt in five years, and tripling it in 10, the Republican budget curbs the explosion in spending called for by the president and his party. Our plan halts the borrow-and-spend philosophy that brought about today's economic problems, and puts a stop to heaping ever-growing debt on future generations -- and it does so by controlling spending, not by raising taxes. The greatest difference lies in the size of government our budgets achieve over time (see nearby chart). While our approach ensures a sturdy safety net for those facing chronic or temporary difficulties, it understands that the reliability of this protection and the other functions of government depend on a vibrant, free and growing private sector to generate the resources necessary for it. Here's an outline of what we propose: - Deficits/Debt. The Republican budget achieves lower deficits than the Democratic plan in every year, and by 2019 yields half the deficit proposed by the president. By doing so, we control government debt: Under our plan, debt held by the public is $3.6 trillion less during the budget period. - Spending. Our budget gives priority to national defense and veterans' health care. We freeze all other discretionary spending for five years, allowing it to grow modestly after that. We also place all spending under a statutory spending cap backed up by tough budget enforcement. - Energy. Our budget lays a firm foundation to position the U.S. to meet three important strategic energy goals: reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, deploying more clean and renewable energy sources free of greenhouse gas, and supporting economic growth. We do these things by rejecting the president's cap-and-trade scheme, by opening exploration on our nation's oil and gas fields, and by investing the proceeds in a new clean energy trust fund, infrastructure and further deficit reduction. - Entitlements. Our budget also takes steps toward fulfilling the mission of health and retirement security, in part by making these programs fiscally sustainable. The budget moves toward making quality health care affordable and accessible to all Americans by strengthening the relationship between patients and their doctors, not the dictates of government bureaucrats. We preserve the existing Medicare program for all those 55 or older; and then, to make the program sustainable and dependable, those 54 and younger will enter a Medicare program reformed to work like the health plan members of Congress and federal employees now enjoy. Starting in 2021, seniors would receive a premium support payment equal to 100% of the Medicare benefit on average. This would be income related, so low-income seniors receive extra support, and high-income seniors receive support relative to their incomes -- along the same lines as the president's Medicare Part D proposal. We strengthen the Medicaid safety net by converting the federal share of Medicaid payments into an allotment tailored for each state's low-income population. This will enhance state flexibility and sensitivity to spending growth. In one of the most valued government programs -- Social Security -- our budget begins to develop a bipartisan solution to the program's pending bankruptcy by incorporating some of the reforms advocated by the president's budget director. Specifically, we provide for a trigger that would make small adjustments in the benefits for higher-income beneficiaries if the Social Security Administration determines the Social Security Trust Fund cannot meet its obligations. This is a modest but serious proposal which would not affect those in or near retirement, but is aimed at helping develop a consensus, across party lines, toward saving this important retirement program. We also assure that benefits for lower-income recipients are large enough to keep them out of poverty. - Tax Reform. Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system. Individuals can choose to pay their federal taxes under the existing code, or move to a highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates. Specifically, couples pay 10% on their first $100,000 in income (singles on $50,000) and 25% above that. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%, and the death tax is repealed. The proposal includes generous standard and personal exemptions such that a family of four earning $39,000 would not pay tax on that amount. In an effort to revive peoples' lost savings, and to create an incentive for risk-taking and investment, the budget repeals the capital gains tax through 2010 for all taxpayers. On the business side, the budget permanently cuts the uncompetitive corporate income tax rate -- currently the second highest in the industrialized world -- to 25%. This puts American companies in a better position to lead in the global economy, promotes jobs here at home, and strengthens worker paychecks. We hope the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress do not distort and preach fear about our Republican plan. Some may be tempted to appeal to the darker emotions of envy and insecurity that surely run high in times like these. Yet we know Americans are stronger, smarter and prouder than this ploy assumes. In the recent past, the Republican Party failed to offer the nation an inspiring vision and a concrete plan to tackle our problems with innovative and principled solutions. We do not intend to repeat that mistake. America is not the greatest nation on earth by chance. We earned this greatness by rewarding individual achievement, by advancing and protecting natural rights, and by embracing freedom. We intend to continue this uniquely American tradition. Mr. Ryan, from Wisconsin, is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:18:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21662&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21662&mname=Article A Republican Road to Economic Recovery Obama's proposals – the good, the bad, and some better alternatives. By Paul Ryan Wall Street Journal - March 2, 2009 Inheriting countless challenges, Congress and the Obama administration have moved quickly on many fronts to implement their economic agenda. After two months of drastic interventions, has hope replaced fear, and confidence pushed aside uncertainty? Hardly. The budget the president released last week, however, does provide some certainty about where we are headed: higher taxes on small businesses, work and capital investment. Add to this the costly burdens of a cap-and-trade carbon emissions scheme and an effective nationalization of health care, and it is clear that the government is going to grow while the economy will shrink. In a nutshell, the president's budget seemingly seeks to replace the American political idea of equalizing opportunity with the European notion of equalizing results. A constructive opposition party should be willing to call out the majority when it falls short. More important, Republicans must offer alternatives. In this spirit, here is what I would do differently: - A pro-growth tax policy. Rather than raise the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, it should be dropped to 25%. The lower tax brackets should be collapsed to one 10% rate on the first $100,000 for couples. And the top corporate tax rate should be lowered to 25%. This modest reform would put American companies' tax liability more in line with the prevailing rates of our competitors. We've seen 10 years of growth in our equity markets wiped out in recent months, while 401(k)s, IRAs and college savings plans are down by an average of 40%. The administration and congressional Democrats want to raise capital gains tax rates by a third. Instead, we should eliminate the capital gains tax. It supplies about 4% of federal revenues, yet it places a substantial drag on economic growth. Individuals already pay taxes on income when they earn it. They should not be socked again when they are saving and investing for their retirement and their children's education. Capital gains taxes are a needless burden on investment, savings and risk-taking, activities in short supply these days. Getting rid of this tax could help establish a floor on stock prices and stem the decline in the value of retirement plans by increasing the after-tax rate of return on capital. Democrats oppose this, playing on emotions of fear and envy. But while class warfare may make good short-term politics, it produces terrible economics. - Guarantee sound money. For the last decade, the Federal Reserve's easy-money policy has helped fuel the housing bubble that precipitated our current crisis. We need to return to a sound money policy. That would end uncertainty, help keep interest rates down, and increase the confidence entrepreneurs and investors need to take the risks required for future growth. I believe the best way to guarantee sound money is to use an explicit, market-based price guide, such as a basket of commodities, in setting monetary policy. A more politically realistic path to price stability would be for the Fed to explicitly embrace inflation targeting. Transcripts from recent meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings suggest that the Fed may already be moving in this direction. This would be an improvement over the status quo: It could help combat near-term deflation concerns while also calming the market's longer-term inflation fears. - Fix the financial sector. A durable economic recovery requires a solution to the banking crisis. There are no easy or painless solutions, but the most damaging solution over the long term would be to nationalize our financial system. Once we put politicians in charge of allocating credit and resources in our economy, it is hard to imagine them letting go. The underlying structural problem at our financial institutions is the toxic assets infecting their balance sheets and impairing their operations. In order to help purge these assets from the system, we need a government-sponsored, comprehensive solution, but one that is transparent and temporary, and which leverages -- rather than chases away -- private-sector capital. The general idea is to establish an entity or fund to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions and then hold them until they could be sold once the market has recovered. The Treasury has announced its intention to use capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, along with financing from the Fed's soon-to-be operational Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, to set up such an entity. It will be a tall task to get all the details and incentives right, but the administration's general strategy appears to be sound. A good model for this government-sponsored entity is the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), which helped clean up bank failures in the wake of the savings-and-loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s by absorbing and selling off bad bank assets. The circumstances of today's financial sector are different, but the goals of our current efforts should mirror the general merits of an RTC-like entity. We should aim to recoup a portion of our initial expenditures, and we should leave only a fleeting government footprint on the financial sector and the economy. - Get a grip on entitlements. With $56 trillion in unfunded liabilities and our social insurance programs set to implode, we must tackle the entitlement crisis. President Barack Obama deserves credit for his recent efforts to build a bipartisan consensus on entitlement reform. But we can't solve the entitlement problem unless we acknowledge why the costs are exploding, and then take action. I have proposed legislation, called "A Roadmap for America's Future," that would bring permanent solvency to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. By transforming these open-ended entitlements into a system with a defined benefit safety net for the low-income and chronically ill, in conjunction with an individually owned, defined contribution system for health and retirement, we can reach the goal of these programs without bankrupting the next generation. It would also show the world and the credit markets that we are serious about our debt and unfunded liabilities. Republicans can help Washington become part of the solution, not part of the problem. We can do this by pushing to enact tax policies that boost incentives for economic growth and job creation, focus the Fed on price stability, fix our banking system to get credit flowing again, stop reckless spending, and reform our entitlement programs. Our economy is begging for clear leadership that inspires confidence and hope that the entrepreneurial spirit will flourish again. Our goal must be to offer Americans that leadership. Mr. Ryan, from Wisconsin, is ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and also serves on Ways and Means. Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:08:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21102&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=21102&mname=Article An exclusive to The JournalTimes.com True Cost of the So-Called “Stimulus” Bill By Paul Ryan Representing Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District February 13, 2009 7:49 am With Congress poised to vote on the so-called “stimulus” bill today, it is worth noting more precisely what it is we are voting on. As a result of budget gimmicks and hidden costs, Congressional leaders successfully produced headlines across the nation claiming that this bill weighs in at only $790 billion. While it is a sad state of affairs in Washington that the word “only” precedes a figure of that magnitude, even more worrisome is that the true costs will be far greater – in both its final price tag and its painful consequences. In addition to shutting out Republican input, Congressional leaders have also sought to hush up the dirty little secret of this spending package’s true cost. Prior to the House of Representatives first passing the $820 billion package two weeks ago, I asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) how much it would cost to finance the new debt we’d incur should H.R. 1 become law. According to CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, the additional interest costs would add $347 billion to the total cost of the bill, putting the tab at above $1.2 trillion. This amounts to over $10,000 per American family. The more alarming hidden costs take the form of artificial funding cliffs: temporary spending increases that lead to abrupt, and sharp, spending reductions after 2 years. These programs include health care benefits for the unemployed, early childhood education, nutrition programs for seniors, and funding for state and local law enforcement agencies. Due to immense pressure that will mount to maintain the funding levels in these programs, the reductions are highly unlikely to occur. As Milton Friedman presciently lamented, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” If these programs are extended as expected, CBO Director Elmendorf estimates that the total additional budgetary impact of H.R. 1 will be $1.7 trillion above the $820 billion sticker price. The CBO goes further to add that the additional interest costs on the new debt would amount to an additional $745 billion. When we strip away the budget gimmicks and funding cliffs, this is a $3.27 trillion bill! This amounts to roughly $30,000 per American family. The urgency of our deepening recession requires a better path forward. I share President Obama’s concerns with the consequences of inaction, but he is selling the false choice of his three trillion dollar bill or nothing. After my amendments to improve the package were rejected, I worked with my fellow House Republicans in drafting an alternative economic recovery package – focused on extra assistance for those hit hardest, responsible infrastructure investments, and fast-acting tax policy that provides job-creating incentives – not one-time rebate checks – for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and working families. This alternative was voted down by the Congressional Majority, and I acknowledge that the party in power can legislate as they choose. But what they can’t choose is their own sets of numbers and their own sets of facts. The fact is that this legislation will cost hard-working Wisconsinites far more than they’re being told. For more on H.R. 1’s funding cliffs: http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/press/2007/pr20090205stimulus.pdf To read CBO Director Elmendorf’s letter specifying these hidden costs: http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/press/2007/pr20090212cbo.pdf Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:06:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20832&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20832&mname=Article An exclusive to JournalTimes.com An Economic Stimulus That Actually Works By Paul Ryan Representing Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District January 27, 2009 In the past several months, the federal government took action in our economy without precedent and with great haste. This week, the Democratic Majority will rush through Congress another unprecedented intervention: a trillion dollar spending package. The Majority’s bill (H.R. 1) is expected to come to the House floor this Wednesday. As drafted, this bill is not worthy of our new president’s signature. Despite claims of a new era of bipartisanship, this so-called “stimulus” legislation received no Republican input. The Democratic Majority roundly rejected my good-faith efforts last week to offer improvements to the bill to encourage job creation and economic growth. I hope – but don’t expect – that we can still make much needed improvements to enact a stimulus bill that actually works. We must arrest the painful job losses in Southern Wisconsin and get our economy back on track, and I fear that H.R. 1 moves us in the wrong direction. As outlined in previous posts, here is what economic recovery legislation could and should do: Immediate Tax Relief: Fast-acting tax policy would boost incentives to expand business operations and create jobs. Specific tax reforms include addressing our job-killing corporate income tax rate – the second highest in the industrialized world – and instilling tax certainty by dropping the Majority’s promise to increase taxes on investment, savings, businesses, families, and workers in 2010. Assistance for the Unemployed: Assistance should be directed to those hit hardest by this recession – including families in Southern Wisconsin coping with painful layoffs – by extending unemployment insurance and Trade Adjustment Assistance. Unfortunately, here is what the Majority’s stimulus legislation looks like: Wasteful, Special Interest Spending: The Majority’s stimulus bill amounts to little more than a special interest wish list: $600 million for brand new, “green” cars for Federal government employees; $650 million for digital TV coupons; $200 million for sod and beautification of the National Mall; and so on. $54 billion is spent on 19 programs deemed “ineffective” or “results not demonstrated” by the Office of Management and Budget. Only 5% of the spending is on transportation infrastructure, while most of the package amounts to throwing borrowed money at dubious special interest projects. Little Impact in the Short-Run: Even if borrowing and spending is the answer to our economic crisis, only a small fraction of the spending in the Majority’s bill will take place in 2009. By the start of fiscal year 2011, roughly half of the spending from this bill will remain unspent. Fast-acting tax policy is far more effective, with evidence demonstrating that marginal rate cuts give you a far larger bang for your buck than government spending. Recycled Rebate Checks: Much has been made about the inclusion of tax cuts in H.R. 1. The tax provisions in this bill do not encourage risk-taking; they do not encourage investment and job creation. The bulk of the tax ‘cuts’ are simply rebate checks - $10/week for individuals and $20/week for couples. We tried rebate checks last year, and they simply don’t work. Does Very Little to Help Protect and Create Jobs: Only 2.7% of this stimulus package is dedicated to helping businesses keep and create jobs. We need to help small businesses, entrepreneurs and the self-employed survive this recession and give them incentives to expand. 70% of our jobs in America come from small businesses. Yet there are more taxpayer dollars dedicated to arts and culture, car for federal employees, and renovating federal buildings, than to helping small businesses grow. Even if it produces the 3 million jobs -- as claimed by the Obama Administration -- it will cost $275,000 per job. This dwarfs the annual income of the average American or the tax bill he or she pays. They are the ones that will ultimately foot this bill. Guarantees Future Tax Hikes: The last thing taxpayers need is a tax increase. The calls for new record spending would only exacerbate our exploding budget deficit, a national debt nearing $11 trillion, and well over $50 trillion of unfunded promises. By adding over $1 trillion dollars to this abysmal fiscal situation, we are guaranteeing tax increases in the near future. To hit a recovering economy with massive tax increases is a recipe for disaster. Worse yet, people’s future expectations of tax hikes on the horizon chills investment today –discouraging firms to grow, discouraging people from hiring, discouraging job creation. Here is what economic recovery legislation can’t do: Can’t Spend Our Way Into Prosperity: If – as Washington likes to suggest – higher government spending leads to stronger economic growth, our economy today would be the strongest in our nation’s history. Rather than focus on a short-term pop, policies should emphasize a permanent boost to American competitiveness and long-term recovery. No Silver Bullet: Our economic crisis cannot be solved with a single silver-bullet piece of legislation, especially one that is focused on throwing borrowed money at a deeply rooted financial problem. We must heed the lessons from history – both at home and elsewhere – that warn of the dangers of excessive government spending, taxing, and borrowing. These are painful economic times, and the desire for an immediate economic recovery is shared by all – but we have to be realistic about the pitfalls of costly missteps. We should enact a stimulus package that tackles the fear and uncertainty gripping the marketplace, empowers the engines of economic growth, and encourages sustained economic growth and real job creation. Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:42:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20579&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20579&mname=Article Wall Street Journal OPINION | JANUARY 16, 2009 Beware of the Big-Government Tipping Point Socialized health care fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and state. By PETER WEHNER and PAUL RYAN For most of our nation's history, our approach to economics has favored enterprise, self-reliance and the free market. While the American economy has never been entirely laissez-faire, we have historically cared more about equality of opportunity than equality of results. And while Americans have embraced elements of the New Deal, the Great Society and progressive taxation, we have traditionally viewed welfare as a way to help those in dire need, not as a way of life for the middle class. We have grasped, perhaps more than any other nation, that there is a long-run cost to dependency on the state, including an aversion to risk that eventually enervates the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for innovation and prosperity. This outlook, once assumed, is now under attack due to a recent series of political and economic events. The first is the unprecedented intervention by the federal government, in the form of a $700 billion relief package intended for our financial institutions after the credit crisis last September. This was followed by extending billions of dollars of federal assistance to America's auto makers in order to prevent their imminent bankruptcy -- the first emergency bailout that went to companies outside the financial sector. We understand why the federal government did this, and even supported legislation that, while hardly perfect, prevented an economic meltdown. Nonetheless, the consequences of this undertaking are enormous. Not only has the size of the expenditures been staggering -- there is talk of another stimulus package worth an estimated $825 billion -- but we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of government's relationship with the polity and the economy. The last several months are a foreshadowing of a new era of government activism, rather than an unfortunate but necessary (and anomalous) emergency action. We will soon shift from a market-based economy to a political one in which the government picks winners and losers and extends its reach and power in unprecedented ways. This shift is exemplified by the desire of President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress to push us toward government-run health care. For all his talk of allowing consumers to select their own health-care coverage, Mr. Obama's proposal, as he laid it out in his campaign, will provide strong financial incentives for employers and individuals to sign up with a new, Medicare-style government plan for working-age people and their families. This plan will almost certainly use a price-control system similar to the one in place for Medicare, allowing it to charge artificially low premiums by paying fees well below private rates. These low premiums will serve as a magnet for enrollment and will devastate the private companies trying to compete in the health-insurance market. The result will be the nationalization of the health-care sector, which today accounts for 16% of U.S. gross domestic product. Nationalizing health care will be profoundly detrimental to the quality of American medicine. In the name of cost control, the government would make private investment in medical innovation far riskier, and thus delay the development of potentially lifesaving treatments. It will also put America on a glide path toward European-style socialism. We need only look to Great Britain and elsewhere to see the effects of socialized health care on the broader economy. Once a large number of citizens get their health care from the state, it dramatically alters their attachment to government. Every time a tax cut is proposed, the guardians of the new medical-welfare state will argue that tax cuts would come at the expense of health care -- an argument that would resonate with middle-class families entirely dependent on the government for access to doctors and hospitals. Of course, this health-care plan is occurring against our particular fiscal backdrop: Without major reform, our federal entitlement programs will soon double the size of government. The result will be a crushing burden of debt and taxes. In short, we may be approaching a tipping point for democratic capitalism. While the scope of the challenge should not be underestimated, those of us worried about this fundamental reorientation of politics and economics have several things working in our favor. Among them is that a public accustomed to iTunes, Facebook, Google, eBay, Amazon and WebMD is not clamoring for centralized, bureaucratic government. The strong American instinct for individual initiative and entrepreneurship remains intact. In addition, confidence in government -- from Congress to those responsible for oversight of the financial system -- is quite low. Our sense is that at the moment, the public is not thinking in terms of "big government" or "small government." Instead, Americans want efficient government -- one that is modern, responsive and adaptive. People want government to act as a fair referee, providing guardrails that allow individuals to rise without intrusively dictating individual decisions. If conservatives hope to win converts to our cause, we need to understand this new moment and put forward an agenda that reforms key institutions in a way that advances individual freedom, without creating an unacceptable level of insecurity. This is no easy task, and it must begin with providing a compelling alternative to what contemporary liberalism and Mr. Obama are about to offer. This especially includes health care, where we must start by recalling that our current health-insurance system was designed to meet the needs of a 20th century economy and World War II-era employment laws. It is hopelessly outdated, yet the Obama plan would make the system even more sclerotic. The core of our message needs to be a commitment to creating a health-care plan that meets the demands of the modern economy. We need to convince concerned citizens that we can help the uninsured find coverage in the private sector and use market incentives to contain costs. The result will be a system that makes it possible for everyone to afford health insurance, including those with pre-existing conditions. Tax credits, high-risk pools, insurance choice and regulatory reform can form the basis of a transformation from today's enormously costly and inefficient third-party system into one driven by ownership, choice and competition. And at the nucleus of this redesigned system will be the patient-doctor relationship. If we hope to succeed in making our case, it will require a concerted education campaign that relies on hard data and facts, rigorous and accessible public arguments, and persuasive public advocates. This is quite a tall order. But if we do not succeed in resisting greater state involvement in the economy -- and health care is meant to be the beachhead of this effort -- we will move from a limited welfare state into a full-blown one. This will reshape, in deep and enduring ways, our nation's historic sensibilities. It will lead here, as it has elsewhere, to passivity and dependence on the state. Such habits, once acquired, are hard to shake. Between now and the end of this decade may be one of those rare moments in which among other things will turn decisively one way or the other. The stakes could hardly be higher for our way of life. Mr. Wehner, a former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, is a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:32:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20467&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20467&mname=Article Our entitlement programs are not sustainable Posted on December 18, 2008 4:06 AM · By Paul Ryan View full bio Editor's note: The United States' unfunded financial obligations have grown to $56 trillion, a one-year increase of roughly $3 trillion, according to an analysis of the Treasury Department's annual Financial Report of the U.S. Government. In response, U.S. Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) co-wrote the following letter this week to their Congressional colleagues. Dear Colleague: Today, the U.S. Treasury released the Financial Report of the U.S. Government, revealing that the nation's budgetary crisis is much worse than most people realize, both in the short-and long-term. Among the report's sobering highlights are the following: For Fiscal Year 2008, the nation's accrual deficit exceeded $1 trillion, more than twice the previously reported amount of $455 billion. This is a record deficit in nominal terms and represents a deficit of nearly 7.1% of GDP. The reason for the difference is that the traditional measure of our nation's budget deficit is determined using cash accounting instead of the accrual-based method. The accrual, or net operating cost, method used in the Report is the preferred method of American businesses, state and local governments, and it more accurately illustrates the Federal Government's financial position in any given year. The long-term fiscal gap, primarily unfunded obligations of our nation's entitlement programs, has grown to $56 trillion! This is an increase of roughly $3 trillion in just one year. As a result, every man, woman, and child in America's share of this bill is over $185,000. As the Financial Report illustrates, our budgetary situation is dire. Putting the nation on a sustainable course demands bipartisan attention and action. We believe that Democrats and Republicans must put their differences aside and work together to address this problem. In the short-term, it is essential that the American people understand the full picture of the Federal government's financial position. The unified deficit does not reflect the full obligations of the Federal government. We must also work together to cut waste from the budget and truly prioritize how the Government spends the taxpayer's money. In the long-term, we must find a way to put out entitlement programs on a sustainable basis so that we do not leave future generations with a mountain of debt. Out entitlement problem demands action and every year that we do not act, the situation gets worse. We hope that members of congress from both parties will begin to take these problems seriously and work together to address them. To learn more about the nation's budgetary crisis, we strongly encourage you to read the financial report, which can be found at the following address: http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/index.html. Sincerely, Jim Cooper and Paul Ryan, Members of Congress Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:32:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20252&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20252&mname=Article By: Ronald Kessler, Newsmax Monday, December 1, 2008 5:19 PM http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/paul_ryan_republicans/2008/12/01/156948.html Republicans must take risks and push bold ideas if they are to regain power in Washington, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a rising star of the GOP, tells Newsmax. Ryan, who recently turned down colleagues’ requests that he run for House minority leader, says Republicans need to “fire all the political consultants who tell us don’t take risks.” As Ryan sees it, “We have too many politicians afraid of embracing change and big ideas in our own party. What matters most is not whether we can come up with great sound bites or have soothing rhetoric. What matters is that we come up with the best ideas, based upon our principles that solve our problems.” Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says Ryan represents a younger generation of “bright and thoughtful conservatives” who can help the GOP reclaim its standing. Ryan, 38, says he decided not to run for minority leader because, “I have a 3-, 5- and 6-year-old. The job generally requires so much more time away from home than my current job as a policy leader in the Congress. I literally just did not like the commitment that came with it, with respect to taking time away from my family.” Republicans need to return to their fundamental principles — liberty, freedom, self-determination, free enterprise — and apply them to the problems and challenges of the day, Ryan says. “For one reason or another we’ve failed to do that — part out of political fear, fear of our own ideas — and we’ve been politically timid,” he says. “We need to go to the American people with a very specific plan for how we keep American ideals alive. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not we’re going to embrace bold ideas and big solutions to get us out of the political wilderness.” Ryan has introduced a bill enhancing health and retirement security and aiming to reduce debt and promote jobs and business competitiveness. The proposals are outlined in what Ryan calls “A Roadmap for America’s Future.” Included in the proposals is a plan to ensure universal access to health insurance and make Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security permanently solvent. The proposals also include a new tax code that would give taxpayers a choice: pay taxes according to the present system or pay according to a highly simplified code with just two rates that fit on a postcard. The option comes with virtually no special tax deductions, credits, or exclusions. Sen. Jim DeMint, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, has enthusiastically endorsed the ideas and plans to introduce similar legislation. Ryan says the economic recovery plan being pushed by Democrats to build more roads and bridges is “more make-work that does not grow the economy.” Calling it ideologically driven, Ryan says Japan took the same approach in the 1990s and regretted it. “They refer to the 1990s of Japan as the lost decade,” he says. “They had basically a decade of economic stagnation with these kinds of public works projects and tax rate increases on capital. And we should not be repeating the mistakes that they made just in the last decade.” The Democrats’ approach is “more about members of Congress just cranking up spending programs than actually growing the economy,” Ryan says. “If we were serious about growing the economy, we would make permanent lower tax rates on capital savings and investment, rather than bake them in the cake or build in massive tax increases, which is hampering investment, which is lowering people’s expectations for our economy. "It’s going to prolong our recession. But that’s not in the cards. It’s not where this new administration is going, and it’s not where this Congress is going.” Ryan says the roadmap ”achieves the objective of health and retirement security, albeit through an individual defined-contribution-style system. It does so by keeping our government limited, so we can keep our freedom and pay off our debt. And it also makes our economy and our companies much more competitive in a global, 21st century economy.” Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:16:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20023&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=20023&mname=Article WALL STREET JOURNAL – 11/11/08 - Op Editorial - Take Some Political Risks by Paul Ryan - After two straight electoral defeats, it is time for a substantial party shake-up. We don't need a feather duster; we need a fire hose. We need to be honest about the root causes of our current financial crisis: loose money, crony capitalism and a lack of market transparency and information. We need to adopt a policy of sound money by requiring the Federal Reserve to focus exclusively on keeping inflation in check, as I've proposed with my Price Stability Act. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose excesses helped lead to the current mess, must be taken off the backs of taxpayers. We need a complete overhaul of our outdated financial regulatory system to emphasize market transparency and accountability. The greatest threat to our nation's future prosperity is the explosion of entitlement spending. Our entitlement programs are headed for a painful collapse that will bankrupt this nation and leave our children with an inferior standard of living. If we don't tackle these problems, they will tackle us. We must also offer bold alternatives to the destructive tax policies that the Democratic majority will work to enact. We must go beyond simply calling for lower taxes. We need a complete overhaul of our tax code. At a time of fierce global competition, the individual and business tax reforms I put forth earlier this year would encourage companies to invest in America, promote jobs here at home, and strengthen the paychecks of American workers. We must take control of the health-care debate, and champion patient-centered alternatives to the socialized health-care proposals advocated by the Democrats. Health-care decisions should be made by individuals and their providers, not government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats. We need to offer reforms that make health care more affordable, more portable and more transparent, while strengthening the social safety net. We cannot simply put up roadblocks to the emboldened Democratic majority. We need to offer an alternative future. Absent reform, our federal government will double in size within a generation. We must change course from this path of stagnation, and we must have leaders willing to provide a path that keeps alive the American ideal and keeps our government limited. Our party has become too fearful of our own ideas. Since 1997, congressional Republicans began a steady retreat from principled leadership to political expediency. A party built on spending discipline and government reform succumbed to the siren songs of government expansion and earmarked giveaways. Republicans squandered the opportunity to limit and reshape the relationship between the federal government and the individual. I ran on these bold ideas and innovative solutions in a congressional district carried by Barack Obama -- yet I received 64% of the vote. I challenge my colleagues to rethink political risk taking. Taking on our most serious fiscal challenges will restore relevancy to the Republican Party and will keep alive America's commitment to freedom and prosperity. Mr. Ryan is a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:40:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19876&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19876&mname=Article Wall Street Journal 11-8-08 Ryan for the Republicans The party needs an economic spokesman . After the shellacking it received at the polls Tuesday, the Republican Party faces a choice. It can put the loss down to the country's fatigue with the Bush Administration and the bad luck of running amid a financial panic and shrug it off. Or it can choose a new direction, with new leadership, and retake the high ground it once occupied, especially on the economy. These columns are devoted to ideas, not party, and ordinarily we would not insert ourselves into the internal debate over party leadership. But in the current political and economic climate, it is important that somebody offer an effective argument against the interventionist, antigrowth conventional wisdom that dominates the majority party in Congress. And if the Republican Party would offer that counterargument, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan seems to be the right man to make the case. Mr. Ryan was first elected in 1998, and he has always won re-election comfortably in a state and a district that are not particularly safe territory for Republicans. Racine County, which represents the biggest piece of Mr. Ryan's district in southeastern Wisconsin, voted for Barack Obama, 53%-46%, but still voted to re-elect Mr. Ryan 62%-37%. He is, in other words, a politician practiced in speaking to and winning over voters who are not necessarily die-hard Republicans. But the most important reason that Mr. Ryan is the right man at the current moment has nothing to do with electoral calculation. The 38-year-old Mr. Ryan cares about free markets and economic growth and can talk about those subjects in a way that makes sense without falling back on ideology, bromides or oversimplification. He engages these subjects with a vigor that befits his age, and while he has been in Congress for nearly a decade, his is a fresh face on the national scene, one not associated with the bipartisan failures of Congress. Mr. Ryan is also an effective communicator on television, which will be an important outlet for reaching the American people and presenting an alternative to the economic ideas of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. This summer, with a Presidential election well underway and his party in the minority, Mr. Ryan unveiled a far-sighted "Road Map for America's Future." It is a remarkable document: Other politicians, including Presidential candidates, boldly declare their intentions to push any hard or painful choices off to blue-ribbon commissions. Mr. Ryan's Road Map puts into legislative language not mere general principles, but a plan to pay for all the promises we've made to seniors while preventing government spending from achieving French proportions. "I want to be the Paul Revere of fiscal policy," he said at the time, raising the alarm on our long-term liabilities even while President-elect Obama and others insist that there's nothing to see when it comes to the long-term insolvency of Medicare and Social Security. More generally, the Republican Party needs a prominent figure who can discuss the full range of economic issues -- growth, the dollar, global trade and monetary policy included. The economy was the top issue on voter minds in this election, and Republicans lost. The party needs someone who can put these issues into a context that voters can understand and relate to. And looking at the national field, there seem precious few candidates for the job. Mr. Ryan did not solicit our support, and we should note that he said Thursday that he isn't seeking the leadership job. John Boehner, the current leader, wasn't the cause of this year's GOP losses and is the favorite to retain his position. If that's what House Republicans want to do, so be it. Our job is to say what we think in any case. And Mr. Ryan's economic knowledge and youthful energy make him the best choice to pull his party in a more promising direction. Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:50:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19775&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19775&mname=Article Check out this link: http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3177848&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/ Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:34:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19752&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19752&mname=Article Ryan: “Big Ideas Win” Congressman Paul Ryan shuns pundits, secures impressive victory, and has $850,000 in the bank Janesville – Congressman Paul Ryan secured 64% of the vote on Tuesday in his reelection to serve Wisconsin’s First Congressional District. At the conclusion of this election cycle, Ryan for Congress remains on strong financial footing, with roughly $850,000 cash on hand. The impressive victory was notable in light of the anti-incumbent mood of the electorate, and the bold entitlement reform proposal Ryan unveiled earlier this year. Following yesterday’s consequential election, Congressman Paul Ryan issued the following statement: “I’d like to share my thoughts on the lessons that I learned from my recent experiences as both a member of Congress and a candidate for Congress. “With sky-rocketing health care costs and the retirement of the baby boomers, our entitlement programs are headed for a painful collapse – a collapse that will bankrupt this nation and leave our children with an inferior standard of living. This reality is acknowledged by nearly all, but there is a dangerous vacuum of ideas on how to solve this crisis. Tasked to tackle our nation’s most pressing problems, I devoted this past year to a comprehensive reform of health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the federal tax code, and our budget process. This bold, innovative reform package – “A Roadmap for America’s Future” – would fulfill the mission of health and retirement security, lift the crushing burden of debt we’re handing to our children, and strengthen American jobs and competitiveness in the 21st century. It is real legislation that tackles directly the most fundamentally broken institutions in our federal government, and does so with conviction and candor. “I was told by pundits and pollsters alike that this would be political suicide. I was told by colleagues in Congress that this is Roadmap is just what we need, but that they could not publically support something so bold. Everybody’s afraid to put a big idea out there for fear of being demagogued by the other party. Few are willing to do anything risky in an election year. The problem with this notion is that it is an election year every other year in the House – so nothing gets done and our leaders kick the can of reform down the road for the next generation to deal with. “As the dust settles from election night, I am reminded of the words of those cautious critics. In a Congressional district where the top of the ticket went to the Democratic candidate, I secured well over 60% of the vote. When I held listening sessions around the district to discuss the merits of my proposal, I was not met by hostility, but rather with applause and relief that finally somebody was talking about innovative reforms and actual solutions. Recognizing the comprehensive and courageous nature of my reforms, I was applauded by newspaper editorial boards around the state – even by those that disagreed with some of the specifics of the proposal. “I challenge my colleagues to rethink political risk-taking. Clinging to the status quo and shrinking away from our most serious fiscal challenges is a recipe for electoral defeat. When a politician’s sole focus is to play it safe to keep their job, they deserve to lose it. I hope that my colleagues get the message – our nation’s future depends on it.” Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:42:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19707&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=19707&mname=Article From the Wall Street Journal OCTOBER 3, 2008 What Leadership Looks Like Voting for what's right, not what's safe. If political leadership is hard to come by in Washington, it's because it invites political retribution. Just ask Republican Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan, perhaps the free market's truest friend in Congress, earlier this week voted to help rescue that free market. He hated the Paulson plan, but hated more the economic crash he is convinced will follow inaction. And in casting his "yes" vote on Monday, he knew what was coming: "The easiest thing would be to vote no and go hide in my office and watch the markets collapse. I will suffer politically for this, but I will sleep at night." He was right. For his sin of acting to forestall economic mayhem, Mr. Ryan is being pilloried in Wisconsin, where he's in a competitive race. He's been accused of abandoning his conservative principles, of "caving" and "bailing out" Wall Street. He received 3,000 calls last week and wryly notes the "only one in favor came from Hank Paulson." House Republicans spent this week justifying their positions on the failed bill, invoking taxpayers or credit markets or electoral pressures. Here's a better way to analyze votes: There were a few conservatives who for years took unpopular positions against the government-inspired credit mania, yet this week had the guts to act to calm the markets. And there were many Republicans who for years aided and abetted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yet this week ran for political cover. Mr. Ryan is among the former. As early as 2000 he was warning in House hearings that Fan and Fred were rushing into subprime loans and mortgage-backed securities, growing and concentrating their risk, and putting taxpayers on the hook. He's so vociferously called for more supervision that he was once stalked by a Fannie Mae lobbyist. In 2002 he co-sponsored legislation that would have put these beasts under SEC accounting standards. Fan and Fred, and their congressional enablers, killed it in committee. In 2005 he signed on to a bill that would have subjected the giants to modest reform. The Fan-Fred alliance speared it in the Senate. In 2007, Mr. Ryan opposed a proposal by Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer to gut systemic risk protections for the duo. It passed 383 to 36, with 162 Republicans voting for the companies. Many were the same members who this week thought it too politically risky to stabilize a market rocked by the very Fan-Fred privileges they granted. The congressman was no fan of Mr. Paulson's plan, and initially rallied conservatives around a rival approach. When it became clear that the administration's approach was the only thing going, he spearheaded negotiations to rid it of its worst liberal elements and to include more taxpayer protections. As credit spreads widened, he said he also realized this was a "Herbert Hoover moment, where he sat by and let a Wall Street crash turn into a Great Depression . . . There are times when free-markets stop and rational thinking goes out the window. It then isn't enough to be a laissez-faire conservative and let Rome burn . . . This bill is not perfect, but doing nothing is far worse than passing this bill." Compare this to Mr. Ryan's GOP colleagues in Wisconsin. Jim Sensenbrenner and Tom Petri were among those 162 Republicans that let Fan and Fred bust the bank. Yet when this week's day of reckoning came, Mr. Petri complained it was a "half-baked plan," while Mr. Sensenbrenner declared he wouldn't "subsidize Wall Street." Oh, for this righteousness during the half-baked Fan-Fred subsidy days. And this from two guys in safe seats. This has left Mr. Ryan alone to defend his position back home. It hasn't helped that his colleagues are spinning this as bravery, crowing that it was they who listened to constituents and they who acted on free-market principles. Never mind that these principles were nowhere in evidence back when it mattered. And never mind that should America crash, it will be the free market offered up as sacrifice to the regulatory mob. It also hasn't helped that John McCain came out blaming this on Wall Street's "casino culture." Having initially placed this at the foot of the business community -- rather than at the foot of a political class that encouraged corporate excess -- Republicans fed into the left's line that this is a "bailout" of greedy executives. This has left grown-ups like Mr. Ryan struggling to explain the need to stabilize the financial system overall, and to protect Main Street from shedding its own blood. Mr. Ryan is now busy sending out charts of Libor spreads to radio talk-show hosts (no joke), intent on explaining the seriousness of the crisis, and hopeful his credibility will see him through. "The best outcome is that [those of us who voted yes] take a political hit but avert a crisis," he says. How's that for leadership? Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:02:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=18949&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=18949&mname=Article Janesville Gazette Editorial 10-1-08: "Congress needs true leadership to pass bailout" OUR VIEWS 10A - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 Congress needs true leadership to pass bailout This time, Congress must get it right. Whenever Congress votes again on a revised emergency economic stabilization package, be it tonight, Thursday or someday soon, it must pass the plan. The world is watching—from Asian markets to Main Street U.S.A. Many folks here in the Heartland can’t grasp why Congress should offer $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out unscrupulous Wall Street entrepreneurs. They can’t understand why regulations weren’t in place to prevent this financial disaster. But they can understand the pain of watching their retirement accounts and college savings investments plunge like rocks in the river. Did it make sense to reject a $700 billion plan if the result was investors losing more than $1 trillion the same day? Maybe you don’t need a car loan or home loan right now. But we all can understand the crisis when we see co-workers laid off and hear fears that some Wisconsin companies that rely on short-term borrowing to meet payrolls might not get the cash they need. We need leadership. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, did an admirable job of leading a revolt against the blank check that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson wanted. Ryan led a small team that drafted an alternative to the three-page bill that Paulson proposed. The bill that Congress rejected by 23 votes Monday included many of Ryan’s provisions. It offered protections for taxpayers in the form of insurance and limits for executive pay. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made a mistake by bringing the package to a vote. She should have realized that she didn’t have the votes and that rejection would spark a panic-driven sell-off in the stock market. On “The Stan Milam Show” Tuesday, Ryan said Pelosi was told that between 60 and 70 Republicans, no more than 72, would vote for the package. Sixty-five supported it. Pelosi, too, should have kept quiet instead of blaming the Bush administration before the vote. Sure, the administration shares the blame. Ryan said as much Tuesday. But let’s set blame aside for now. There’s plenty to go around. Whatever revised plan returns for a vote, we hope it includes more provisions that Ryan suggested. He has studied economics and understands them better than the folks on Main Street and most of his colleagues in Washington. Ryan says most constituents who contacted his office opposed the bailout. That’s understandable. But it’s really a misnomer to call it a Wall Street bailout. It’s about making money available to stabilize and restore confidence in the credit market here on Main Street. Banks need that money to keep the economy from seizing up. “The easy thing for me to do was just go hide in my office and vote the political winds,” Ryan told Milam. Instead, Ryan voted for a bill he didn’t love because he knew it was the right thing to do for the good of the economy. Too many others—many of whom face tough re-election bids next month— voted with the political winds while silently hoping the bill would pass. Next time, more members of Congress must show true leadership. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:39:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=18884&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=18884&mname=Article Congressman Ryan Introduces “A Roadmap for America’s Future” Earlier today, Wisconsin’s 1st District Congressman Paul Ryan unveiled a bold, comprehensive proposal to solve America’s looming fiscal crisis. Ryan’s plan, titled “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” transforms the Federal Government and strengthens American society for future generations. The challenges facing the United States are immense. America’s health care crisis has left millions uninsured, with millions more facing skyrocketing medical costs. The cumbersome tax code punishes hard work and puts American businesses and American-made products at a competitive disadvantage against foreign competitors. Most troubling, the Federal Government is locked on an unsustainable fiscal path, with trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security represent the promise of health and retirement security for millions of the most vulnerable Americans, yet these 20th-century programs are headed for bankruptcy. This fiscal reality is no longer in question. What remains in doubt is whether America’s leaders will lead and set a different course for the next generation. Ryan’s Roadmap tackles head-on the interrelated crises in health care, entitlement spending, the outdated Federal tax code, and our growing debt. “A Roadmap for America’s Future” includes specific policy proposals, backed up by numbers, which will be introduced as legislation. At a press conference earlier today, Congressman Ryan made the following remarks: “Washington is broken, and has yet to face up to our most pressing domestic challenges. My Roadmap for America’s Future will fulfill the promise of health and retirement security, lift the crushing burden of debt we’re passing to our children, and will strengthen American jobs and competitiveness for the 21st century. “As our nation’s leaders continue to drag their feet on these reforms, we risk severing the great American legacy. This legacy provides that each generation tackles their historic challenge and leaves the next generation more secure and more prosperous. It is our duty to leave our children with a better America, and I believe that my Roadmap for America’s Future will fulfill this duty.” Check it out at http://www.americanroadmap.org Wed, 28 May 2008 15:44:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10018&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10018&mname=Article How to Tackle the Entitlement Crisis By PAUL D. RYAN Wall Street Journal May 21, 2008; Page A19 While Congress will have a partisan debate over the federal budget this week, there is a growing, bipartisan consensus about the greatest threat to our nation's long-term economic prosperity: the explosion of entitlement spending. Unfortunately, Washington is not planning to address that problem this week, or any time soon. By doing nothing, we are shackling our future with unsustainable debt and taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of government will consume nearly 40% of the economy by the time my three young children reach my age (38). This will require more than doubling the average tax burden of the past 40 years just to keep the government afloat. Continuing down this path will eventually strangle our economy. To meet this challenge and secure our fiscal future, I'm introducing a comprehensive legislative plan called "A Roadmap for America's Future." Here are its components: - Health Insurance. The bill provides universal access to affordable health insurance, by shifting the ownership of health coverage from the government and employers to individuals. It provides a refundable tax credit – $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families – to purchase coverage. Individuals will be able to buy insurance offered by any provider in any state – not just the one where they live – and carry it with them if they move or change jobs. This will encourage, and enable, people to shop for the coverage best suited to their needs and financial circumstances. Insurance companies will also have an incentive to diversify coverage at competitive prices. The active participation of individuals and families in a national, competitive market will restrain health-care costs. The plan also establishes transparency in health-care price and quality data, so this critical information is readily available before someone needs health services. It also encourages the adoption of health information technology. - Medicaid and Medicare. The bill modernizes Medicaid by giving states maximum flexibility to tailor their Medicaid programs to the specific needs of their populations. It also allows Medicaid recipients to avail themselves of the health-coverage options open to everyone else through the tax-credit option. The bill secures the existing Medicare program for those over 55 – so Americans can receive the benefits they planned for throughout most of their working lives. Those 55 and younger will, when they retire, receive an annual payment of up to $9,500 to purchase health coverage – either from a list of Medicare-certified plans, or any plan in the individual market, in any state. The payment is adjusted for inflation and based on income, with low-income individuals receiving greater support and a funded medical savings account. - Social Security. Workers under 55 will have the option of investing over one-third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts. These personal accounts are likely to grow faster than the traditional benefit. They are also the property of the individual, and are thus fully inheritable. The bill includes a guarantee that no one's total Social Security benefits from the personal accounts will be less than if he had chosen to say in the current system. Combined with a more realistic plan for growth in Social Security benefits, and an eventual increase in the retirement age, the Social Security program can thus become sustainable for the long term. - Tax Reform. The current federal tax code is complex, burdensome and discourages economic growth. It cannot be fixed with incremental changes; it needs a complete overhaul. To accomplish this goal, the bill first of all offers individuals a choice of how to pay their taxes – either through the existing law, or through a simplified code with a tax return that fits on a postcard, just two rates and virtually no special tax deductions, credits or exclusions (except the health-care tax credit). Taxpayers themselves choose which code serves them better. The rates in the simplified code are 10% on income up to $100,000 for joint filers ($50,000 for single filers); and 25% on taxable income above these amounts. There is also a generous standard deduction and personal exemption totaling $39,000 for a family of four. The alternative minimum tax is eliminated. And to promote long-term investment in economic growth, taxes on capital gains, dividends and estates are also eliminated. On the business side, the bill gets rid of our uncompetitive corporate tax – currently the second highest in the industrialized world – and replaces it with a business consumption tax of 8.5%, which is half the average industrialized world rate. The roadmap I'm offering is a real plan, with real proposals, real numbers to back them, and real legislation to implement it. Based on the analysis of government actuaries, it is projected to make Social Security and Medicare permanently solvent, lift the growing debt burden on future generations, and hold Federal taxes to 18.5% of GDP. Many will disagree with this approach. But it is my sincere hope that it will spur Congress to move beyond simply rehashing the problem – to the politically difficult, but critical task of debating, and implementing actual solutions. Mr. Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, is a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Wed, 21 May 2008 09:46:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10017&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10017&mname=Article A prescription for transforming health care By: Rep. Paul Ryan Sep 26, 2007 06:58 PM EST Health insurance is owned by employers or the government, and this means patients don’t really control their own health care choices. When Congress takes up the children’s health insurance bill this week, the debate will reflect the much broader discussion of health care reform in general. This larger issue certainly deserves the attention it’s getting: Health care consumes about one-seventh of our economy and is vitally important to Americans’ standard of living. The most frequently cited challenges in health care are, of course, cost and coverage: Health care costs are rising too fast, and nearly 50 million people have no health insurance at all. Unfortunately, many of the proposed reforms try to address these legitimate concerns in an incremental and piecemeal fashion. Many reforms also contain — or lead in the direction of — a standard mix of impersonal regulations, mandates and centralized control that will only add more layers of burdensome complexity. What’s needed is a fresh vision — a 21st-century approach that transforms health care itself in a way that builds on our nation’s most fundamental strengths. Here are some of the criteria that should apply: · Reform must be comprehensive. Health care is not a separate and discrete part of our economy. It is a dynamic network of participants in both the private and public sectors, who are constantly interacting and readjusting to one another. Further complicating this arrangement are the federal tax code, the government’s large and costly health programs — Medicare and Medicaid — and the lack of transparency in the cost of medical services, to name just a few. Because the components of health care range so widely, addressing the problems in only one or two areas while leaving the others unchanged will yield only limited and temporary benefits. We must look to the broad landscape to ensure that health care reform will be truly beneficial and lasting. · It should be built on the principle of individual ownership. Comprehensiveness, however, does not necessarily require greater complexity. In fact, the most profound benefits are likely to come from the broad application of well-known, long-standing principles. One of these is ownership. Individual ownership has long been a central component of America’s prosperity. Yet this principle still does not apply in health care, one of our most valued resources. One reason is the federal tax code, which creates a bias in favor of third-party payers of health insurance and against individual purchasers. As a result, health insurance is owned by employers or the government, and this means patients don’t really control their own health care choices. Health insurance should be owned by the individuals who use it. This would restore the most important relationship in health care — between the patient and the doctor — and would also encourage insurers to develop a greater variety of coverage options, making the health insurance market itself more effective and more efficient. · It must provide health care security. Clearly, any reform plan must provide a sustainable safety net for low-income people or those with health problems that put affordable coverage out of their reach. A number of state governments have established “high-risk” insurance pools for such individuals — proving once again that state governments often are more responsive to their specific populations. We should encourage more of this state-based creativity, and at the same time arm individuals with the resources to buy across state lines if necessary. · It must promote our international competitiveness. These things must be achieved without vastly expanding government spending and taxes. These burdens are the greatest threat to our nation’s ability to compete and lead in the international economy; a failure of economic competitiveness will jeopardize our ability to provide ever-improving health care services and make them available to everyone. This is another reason why reform in the health care market must be with reforms of government health programs. The problems in health care are complex and demanding — but they are not impossible. What’s needed is a comprehensive, forward-looking approach that builds on our creativity, our economic strengths and our compassion. Above all, it should transform health care to respond to the most important contributor toward America’s prosperity: the individual American. Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:38:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10001&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=10001&mname=Article Monday, September 24, 2007 The Thinker Wisconsin's Paul Ryan has emerged as a major policy influence pushing for health care reform. by Duncan Currie Weekly Standard 10/01/2007, Volume 013, Issue 03 Like many other House Republicans, Wisconsin's Paul Ryan felt deeply torn over the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. He was loath to endorse a massive new entitlement program, given the already parlous future of U.S. retirement spending. But Ryan also viewed Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), the bill's most notable free-market element, as a vital means toward establishing "a beachhead against socialized medicine." Indeed, he had sent a letter to House conferees urging them to include HSAs in the final legislation. With an HSA-only bill impractical--Senate Democrats would have staged a filibuster--Ryan accepted the tradeoff and voted to approve the Medicare Modernization Act. "I was very mixed," he says today. "I made my decision as I came to the floor." He ultimately "felt an obligation to support it, given that they answered my demand for HSAs." Nearly four years later, Ryan stands by that decision, noting that the new "Medicare Advantage" subsidies encourage seniors to get their benefits from private insurers. He also lauds tax-free HSAs as "one of the best things" the Republican Congress achieved in the last decade. "It's put us on offense on health care for the first time in 20 years." Elected in 1998, Ryan, 37, is one of a small number of GOP House members with a passionate interest in revamping the U.S. health care system. A self-described "Dick Armey conservative," he regrets that the party has lost its "fiscal brand" through profligate spending and corruption. Shortly after the 2006 election, Ryan vaulted over a dozen Republicans with more seniority to become the ranking member on the Budget Committee. Known for his wonkishness and collegiality, he insists that restoring a "limited-government philosophy" is essential to regaining power and complains that "this notion of 'big government conservatism' is what got us in trouble." But Ryan also recognizes that Republicans must not be complacent about spiraling medical costs. In April 2005, when he introduced legislation to provide health care tax breaks for small businesses and the uninsured, Ryan said the "skyrocketing" cost of insurance was "the biggest domestic crisis facing most Americans today. It affects our jobs, our economy, and our families' way of life. We have to get a handle on this problem." His aim is to forge a credible, coherent Republican alternative to the Democrats' vision of increased government control. He emphasizes the need for market-based reform. "About a dozen of us care about this issue greatly," Ryan says of his GOP House colleagues, citing in particular Louisiana's Jim McCrery, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, and Arizona's John Shadegg, who formerly chaired the Republican Policy Committee. With Democrats pushing hard for "universal coverage" and broader regulation of private insurance, more and more Republicans are realizing that, as former Bush adviser Karl Rove stressed in the Wall Street Journal last week, "This is a debate Republicans cannot avoid." They may face an uphill battle. In late February, a New York Times/CBS News poll asked which of four domestic policies "is most important for the president and Congress to concentrate on right now." Whereas 55 percent of respondents said "making health insurance available to all Americans," only 11 percent said "reducing taxes." (Nineteen percent said "strengthening immigration laws" and 13 percent said "promoting traditional values.") When asked to choose between the two parties, 62 percent said the Democrats were "more likely to improve the health care system." Only 19 percent said the Republicans. In that same poll, 90 percent of Americans said the system either requires "fundamental changes" (54 percent) or needs to be completely rebuilt (36 percent). Roughly as many people (89 percent) were either "very" (52 percent) or "somewhat" (37 percent) concerned about future health care costs. Seventy percent also considered it a "very serious" problem that millions of their countrymen lack health insurance. Most discouraging for market-oriented conservatives like Ryan were the 64 percent who agreed that "the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans." The popularity of the new Medicare prescription drug plan is also telling. As the Washington Post reported in late November, "Polls indicate that more than 80 percent of enrollees are satisfied, even though nearly half chose plans with no coverage in the doughnut hole, a gap that opens when a senior's drug costs reach $2,250 and closes when out-of-pocket expenses reach $3,600." The entitlement program "has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined." But are insured Americans really eager for Washington's role in managing the broader health industry to expand? Conservatives may take some solace from an ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey conducted in September 2006, which found that 88 percent of those already insured were satisfied with their coverage, and 89 percent of the insured were "satisfied with the quality of care they receive." Yet even among the insured, 60 percent were also "at least somewhat worried about being able to afford the cost of their health insurance over the next few years." Ryan believes the debate is entering its pivotal stage, with health care spending now chewing up around 16 percent of GDP and Democrats proposing a shift toward government-directed care. "My focus is on getting consumer-driven health care," he says. The current employer-based system insulates consumers against price volatility, but it also encourages them to rely on insurance for routine medical bills and to overuse employer-subsidized care, which drives up costs. By promoting this system, the tax code discriminates against those who buy their own private insurance. Ryan puts it bluntly: "The greatest source of health care inflation is the third-party payment system." It makes Americans more wary of switching jobs, lest they temporarily lose their insurance coverage (one of the middle-class anxieties that the Democrats campaigned on in 2006). How should Republicans respond? Ryan touts two reforms in particular. The first one, prominently championed by Shadegg in the House and South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint in the Senate, would let Americans purchase their health insurance from out-of-state companies. Such competition could depress costs across the board. The other Ryan-backed reform would provide either tax credits or tax deductions for individuals and families who buy private health insurance themselves. President Bush embraced the tax-deduction formula in his 2007 State of the Union Address. There's just one big problem: Neither of these reforms has traction in the current Democratic Congress. Any hope the Republicans had of ending the tax bias against people who buy their own health insurance died last November. The reforms outlined by Ryan will almost certainly require a GOP majority to pass and a Republican president to sign them into law. When one considers these reforms--supported by Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney--and then places them alongside the proposals of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, it becomes even clearer that the 2008 election could be a seminal moment for American health care. As Ryan admits, the Democrats now "have a real chance at meeting their aspirations." Duncan Currie is managing editor of the AMERICAN. Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:42:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9999&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9999&mname=Article Rep. Paul Ryan Selected to be Ranking Member of House Budget Committee Today the steering committee in charge of determining the minority party's leadership of House committees for the new Congress selected Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) to be the ranking member of the House Budget Committee. The 36-year-old Ryan leapfrogged over 12 more senior Republican members of the Budget Committee to attain this leadership position, for which he was the dark-horse candidate.  As the leading Republican on this committee, Ryan will have the responsibility of spearheading the minority's efforts to enact a fiscally responsible budget, improve accountability for spending requests, and closely monitor federal spending throughout the entire budget and appropriations process to prevent waste and abuse.  Upon being chosen as ranking member, Rep. Paul Ryan made the following statement:  "We have a lot of ground to cover next year, and I'm excited to have the privilege of serving as lead budget watchdog," Ryan said. "I look forward to working with my dedicated colleagues on the Budget Committee and throughout Congress to fight for a fiscally responsible budget and root out unnecessary spending."  "We owe it to taxpayers to spend prudently on key priorities - not wasteful pork-barrel earmarks, and we owe it to America's workers to resist job-killing tax hikes. By working together to instill fiscal discipline in federal spending, we can restore Americans' faith in good government and strengthen our economy for the challenges ahead. I would like to thank the steering committee for this great opportunity," Ryan said. Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:27:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9971&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9971&mname=Article Ryan to Serve as Co-Chairman of Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus Wisconsin 's First District Congressman Paul Ryan today announced that, beginning in January, he will serve as a co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. Over 300 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate currently belong to this bipartisan caucus, which works to protect the rights of America's hunters, anglers, and trappers and promote wildlife habitat conservation. Fellow Wisconsin representative Ron Kind will serve as the other House co-chairman. The term of co-chair lasts two years, throughout the duration of the 110th Congress.  "I'm excited about co-chairing this caucus and working in a bipartisan way on issues that impact my fellow hunters, fishers, and all who enjoy the outdoors," Ryan said. "Hunting and fishing are ingrained in Wisconsin's culture, and it's an honor to be able to chair this caucus and pursue our shared goals of habitat conservation and preserving sportsmen's rights."  Ryan, a bow and gun hunter, presently serves as a vice-chairman of the caucus. Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:27:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9970&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9970&mname=Article EDITORIAL: Re-elect Ryan in 1st District Posted: Wednesday, Nov 01, 2006 - 11:24:39 am CST     Paul Ryan is an exceptional representative of the people. BEFORE THE UNFORTUNATE redistricting in southern Wisconsin following the 2000 census, this community was ably represented in Congress by Janesville Republican Paul Ryan. In a deal that served primarily to protect incumbents, partisan political interests recalibrated the electoral map to carve Beloit away from the 1st District while leaving Ryan's hometown of Janesville, then tack Beloit onto the 2nd District which is anchored by Madison. That created a map that only a politician could love, and left Beloit orphaned. It's a solid argument for taking redistricting authority away from politicians and placing it in the hands of a non-partisan panel - comprised, perhaps, of judges - every 10 years. Entrenched political interests, however, fight such initiatives furiously, as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger found out last year when he dared to propose a non-partisan plan. SUCH CONSIDERATIONS ASIDE, the 1st District is indeed fortunate to have Paul Ryan as its representative. His record is so strong the opposition is barely able to mount even token resistance. Ryan is a shoo-in for re-election, as he deserves. The Daily News enthusiastically endorses Ryan for another term. The good news for Beloit is that Ryan has not forgotten the days when he represented this community. On key issues he has been eager to step up and support Beloit's interests. After redistricting, Ryan said the up-side was that Beloit could have not one, but two voices in Congress. He has been true to his word. Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:29:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9968&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9968&mname=Article 1st District needs Ryan in Congress Not only that, but if the Democrats ever want to mount a solid challenge to Ryan in the 1st District, they must convince Jeff Thomas to stop running. As we begin 12 straight days of endorsements, Ryan vs. Thomas is the Gazette Editorial Board's easiest call. Ryan is a Janesville native and still lives here. He has spent eight years in Congress and has grown in stature and expertise. A fiscal conservative, he is out front on our nation's key domestic issues. Fixing the tax-and-spend nature of Congress is one of his top priorities. He has championed legislation to reform earmarks and give the president authority to single out these individual pork-barrel spending items. If Republicans retain control of Congress, this rising star even has a shot at chairing the House Budget Committee, which sets the agenda for federal taxing and spending goals. On health care, Ryan's Health Savings Accounts have helped more than 1 million previously uninsured people gain coverage. Ryan's goal is to put doctors and patients, rather than insurance executives and courts, in decision-making roles. He has pushed for improving Medicare by giving seniors the same type of coverage as members of Congress. Ryan's Independent Health Record Bank Act, introduced in June, would let patients opt for electronic records to limit paperwork and give doctors access to complete, up-to-date information. Ryan also has pushed for giving businesses incentives to grow more family supporting jobs and requiring that every cent of Social Security taxes goes toward Social Security benefits rather than other programs. As we said in 2004, Thomas hates the "perennial candidate" label, but this is his seventh low-budget campaign for Congress. The Janesville man has yet to be competitive in the general election. In the primary, Thomas emerged from a field of five Democrats, apparently on name recognition alone. At least a couple of the other Democrats would have made better candidates. Some observers believe Thomas keeps winning primaries because Ryan supporters vote for Thomas in the primary knowing the Democrat has no chance of beating their conservative champion. That could be happening. Yet voters in Thomas' backyard see through his shallow candidacies. In September's primary, he finished third in Rock and Walworth counties. He won only by getting the most votes in the district's eastern counties. Add it all up, and Ryan is our overwhelming pick. Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:30:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9967&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9967&mname=Article Defining the Threat We Face by Congressman Paul Ryan   A debate has been raging about what to call our enemy – the terrorists and radical Muslim leaders who have committed themselves to bringing death and destruction to America, Israel, and allied democracies.  President Bush has used the term “Islamic fascists” to describe the threat we face, while Senator Feingold argues that phrase is offensive and misleading.  While I respect Russ and consider him a friend, I strongly disagree with his premise.    Words matter, especially when defining the multifaceted enemy that extends beyond national boundaries and operates as a network of jihadists waging war on the West.  If we can’t even define what we are fighting against, how are we ever going to win?  For this reason, we must strive to use the most accurate term – not necessarily the most politically correct one.    “Islamic fascism” expresses the essence of the violent, extremist, religion-driven movement that confronts us.  Both words apply, but they must be used together in order to convey the proper meaning and make the crucial distinction between peaceful Muslims and the murderous extremists of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and similar groups that distort Islam and seek to dominate or destroy those who disagree with them.        Although the term “fascist” has often been misused, carelessly or consciously, the traditional understanding of fascism as exemplified by Mussolini’s Italy, Nazi Germany, and Franco’s Spain is a governing philosophy that is totalitarian, imperialistic, and militaristic.  Fascism rejects the governing system and modern society, is hierarchical, and pursues the subordination of the individual.  It’s also fueled by racism, anti-Semitism, and resentment kindled by defeats or perceived loss of power.   Stephen Morris, a fellow at JohnsHopkinsUniversity’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, has written that fascism “refers to a revolutionary political mass movement or regime that aims to achieve national greatness by radically transforming political and social life with totalitarian rule and by a policy of imperial expansion.  Fascist ideology is reactionary in that it aspires to re-create a mythical past.”   Those who lived in Afghanistan under the Taliban and those who experienced pre- and post-revolutionary Iran can testify to the radical transformation that occurs under such regimes, as well as the loss of personal freedom.    Although it is admittedly not a perfect comparison with past fascist regimes, today we can see in al Qaeda’s brutal actions and revealing statements the militancy; disregard for individual life, liberty, and established law; and appeal for the restoration of lost greatness that are characteristic of fascism.  A statement by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on the war in Lebanon, posted this summer on a jihadist website, notes that: “The war with Israel is not about a treaty, a cease-fire agreement, Sykes-Picot borders, national zeal, or disputed borders.  It is rather a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established.  It is a jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam, from Andalusia to Iraq.  The whole world is an open field for us.”      In this declaration and others by radical Muslim groups we can see that we are dealing with a strain of fascism based on an explicitly religious ideology.  This sets it apart from what we have observed in the past, where fascist regimes were rooted in nationalism rather than religion.    Whereas the old fascism glorified the state above all and directed its imperial drive toward increasing the state’s domain, the new variation seeks to confront and dominate those who don’t believe in its warped interpretation of Islam.  In contrast to what we perceive as traditional fascist movements, its adherents work to establish an Islamic caliphate, rather than a primarily secular empire.  This is why the modifier “Islamic” is necessary if we wish to be accurate.    “Islamic fascism” underscores that the militants’ ideology is explicitly religious, but it does not encompass most Muslims and should not be viewed as an indictment of their religion.  Just as the term “Christian socialist” does not suggest that a majority of Christians embrace left-wing economic positions, the expression “Islamic fascist” doesn’t imply that most Muslims condone the extremist agenda of al Qaeda, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, or other reactionaries.  In fact, the twisted portrayal of Islam that these radicals communicate to the world constitutes the true insult to faithful Muslims who respect life and cherish peace.      Despite this, a legitimate debate may occur over whether this particular nomenclature is good strategy.  Some argue that the label could intensify misunderstanding of our goals in the Islamic world or estrange moderates.  Some prefer Islamofascism or jihadist fascism. Nevertheless, this is a point of disagreement over the tactical value of the term, not a question of its accuracy or aptness.         I believe that failure to properly identify the enemy and grasp the magnitude of the threat posed by Islamic fascists will hinder our ability to defend ourselves.  It will also hurt the cause of moderate Islamic nations striving for greater openness and democratization, including the emerging representative government in Iraq.  These are militant Islam’s other targets, and we must make clear that we stand together with their peaceful citizens in defense of freedom – including the freedom to worship as a Sunni, Shi’a, Jew or Christian.    ### Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:45:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9966&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9966&mname=Article House Passes Military Commissions Bill to Bring Terrorists to Justice First District Congressman Paul Ryan today voted in favor of H.R. 6166, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which will allow the United States to effectively and fairly prosecute terrorists while protecting our nation's intelligence capabilities and permitting the U.S. to continue interrogating terrorists to prevent future attacks. This legislation, which passed the House by a vote of 253-168, is the product of an agreement reached by the House, Senate, and White House. The Senate is expected to vote on companion legislation this week.  After the Supreme Court ruled against the military commissions that the Administration had established to try accused terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Congress needed to act to establish a constitutional judicial system to bring these individuals to justice. H.R. 6166 authorizes the President to establish military commissions to try unlawful enemy combatants who have engaged in hostilities against the U.S. and do not belong to the regular armed forces of a country.  Under this system of military commissions, accused terrorists can be tried for violating the laws of war, committing a hostile act against the U.S., or purposefully and materially supporting terrorists engaged in a hostile act against the U.S. The legislation also lists 28 specific crimes for which terrorists can be tried, including murder, attacking civilians or civilian property, taking hostages, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, and mutilation.  "It's vitally important to our national security that our military and intelligence officers can continue to interrogate terrorists in order to protect the American people and our allies," Ryan said. "We must also make sure that 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other accused terrorists are brought to justice. This legislation makes this possible."  Among its provisions, the Military Commissions Act: Establishes the procedures, rules, and legal framework for trying accused terrorists, based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Creates a process to effectively and fairly prosecute terrorists, while also protecting American troops and intelligence agents fighting terrorism around the world. Requires a detainee to be informed of the charges against him as soon as it is practicable. No person would be required to testify against himself at any commission proceeding, and no statement obtained by torture would be admissible. Sets standards for statements allegedly obtained through coercion.  Protects classified evidence, making it privileged from disclosure to accused terrorists, as well as the panel of jurists, if the disclosure of the information would be detrimental to national security. The legislation provides that intelligence sources, methods, or activities shall be protected, but the substantive findings will be admissible in an unclassified form, allowing the prosecution to present its best case while protecting classified information. Fully conforms with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, as well as all applicable U.S. laws and international treaty obligations. Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:10:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9964&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9964&mname=Article Committee Approves Ryan Bill to Expand Health Savings Account Options The House Committee on Ways and Means today approved legislation coauthored by First District Congressman Paul Ryan that would expand opportunities for both workers and employers to contribute to health savings accounts (HSAs). Together with Congressman Eric Cantor (R.-Va.), Ryan sponsored this bill - H.R. 6134, the Health Opportunity Patient Empowerment Act - to build on the promise that HSAs have already shown and allow patients and businesses to make the most of this new tool to manage health care expenses. The next step for this legislation is consideration by the full House of Representatives.  HSAs have been a health coverage option since the Medicare Prescription Drug law took effect in January 2004. Congressman Ryan coauthored the provision in that law that allowed HSAs as a vehicle for health care savings. Health savings account holders or their employers purchase a high-deductible insurance plan that covers large hospital bills and major expenses due to serious illness, while the patient's routine medical expenses are paid for out of their health savings account - an account where they set aside tax-free savings for lifetime health care needs. Individuals, employers, or even family members can contribute money to an HSA, and these accounts are portable from job to job.  Reliance on HSAs has grown dramatically since they became a viable option for health coverage. In November 2004, about 438,000 individuals were covered by HSA-type insurance plans. Today, roughly 3.2 million people are covered by HSA-type plans. Many of the new HSA holders were previously uninsured. For example, forty-one percent of eHealthInsurance's HSA plan purchasers in 2005 reported being uninsured prior to buying their HSA plan.  "For many small businesses and individuals, HSAs make it possible to afford health-care coverage, while setting aside tax-free savings for future medical expenses. This consumer-driven approach is already beginning to help rein in medical costs. It's making a difference for Wisconsin employers and families, and we need to make sure that HSAs are accessible to those interested in this coverage option," Ryan said.  Ryan's new legislation, the Health Opportunity Patient Empowerment Act, would make it easier for individuals and small businesses to contribute to HSAs and effectively use this savings option to pay for health care costs.  Specifically, H.R. 6134 would: Repeal the annual deduction limitation on HSA contributions. Currently, taxpayers with a high-deductible health plan are permitted to make deductible contributions to an HSA equal to the lesser of the amount of the high deductible or an indexed amount (currently $2,700 for single coverage and $5,450 for family coverage.) The bill simplifies compliance with the contribution limits by setting the limits at indexed amounts (currently $2,700 for single coverage and $5,450 for family coverage.) Improve notification regarding the cost of living adjustment. Under current law, the deductible requirements and contribution limits are indexed against inflation. This bill requires the Secretary of the Treasury to announce adjustments to the amounts by June 1st of each year - simplifying planning decisions for both employees and employers. Expand the contribution limit for part-year coverage. Current law limits taxpayers creating an HSA during the year outside the enrollment window to a deduction of no more than one-twelfth of the annual limit for each month the taxpayer is eligible for an HSA (in effect, prorating the amount they can contribute tax-free to an HSA that year), but subjects taxpayers to the full non-prorated high deductible amount - effectively discouraging HSA adoption. This bill would permit taxpayers starting an HSA during the year to contribute an amount up to the full annual limit.  Permit employers to contribute more to the HSAs of lower-paid employees. Current law requires employers to make comparable contributions to an HSA for all employees. Under this bill, an employer may make higher contributions for non-highly compensated employees, enabling employers to provide additional resources to employees who are neither owners of 5 percent or more of the business nor among the most highly-paid in the company. Allow the transfer of funds from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to HSAs. Under present law, a taxpayer cannot withdraw funds from an IRA prior to age 59 ½ without paying a penalty in addition to income tax (if any) on IRA funds. This bill allows taxpayers to make a one-time distribution (tax-free) from an IRA to an HSA, so HSA funds are immediately available to meet family health needs. The "roll-over" cannot exceed the HSA contribution limit for the year.  Allow employees to fund HSAs with Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) funds. Today, unused FSA benefits expire two and a half months after the end of a year. HRAs are employer arrangements which allow employees to draw against employer resources. Under current law, neither account may be used to fund an HSA, nor do FSAs and HRAs belong to the employee as HSAs do. As a result, employees may lose FSA and HRA benefits. Under this bill, employees would have the ability to start an HSA by making a one-time tax-free transfer of FSA and HRA amounts in their accounts as of September 21, 2006 to an HSA which would belong to the employee. The transfer must be made before January 1, 2012. Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:08:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9963&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9963&mname=Article House Passes Bills to Strengthen Border Security, Fight Crime Wisconsin's First District Congressman Paul Ryan today voted in favor of three pieces of legislation to improve border security and prevent dangerous illegal immigrants, including gang members, from exploiting our nation's immigration laws. The House passed these bills - H.R. 4830, the Border Tunnel Prevention Act; H.R. 6094, the Community Protection Act; and H.R. 6095, the Immigration Law Enforcement Act - which await further action in the Senate or, potentially, in House-Senate conference negotiations on future legislation. "We need to do a better job enforcing our borders, if we are serious about national security," said Ryan. "It's not just a matter of people trying to cross illegally for economic reasons. Insecure borders create an opening for terrorists to enter our country. We also have to protect our communities from criminals and gang members who are here illegally. The bills the House passed are just one part of the solution to our broken immigration system, but they contain necessary improvements to help us secure our borders and communities."  The legislation approved by the House today includes provisions that: Enact criminal penalties of up to 20 years' imprisonment for individuals who construct or finance the construction of an unauthorized tunnel across a U.S. international border. Provide for up to a 10-year prison sentence for individuals who recklessly permit the construction of a tunnel or passage crossing international borders on their property. Double the penalties for anyone caught using a tunnel or passage to unlawfully smuggle illegal immigrants, contraband, drugs, weapons of mass destruction, or terrorists. Allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use the same expedited procedures available for the removal of aggravated felons to remove other criminal aliens who are not permanent residents and are otherwise ineligible for relief.  Toughen laws against illegal immigrant gang members. Under the bill, an illegal immigrant who is found to be part of a criminal street gang would be subject to detention, deportation, and would be ineligible for receiving asylum or temporary protected status. Implement a process to extend the amount of time criminal aliens that cannot be deported can be detained, enabling DHS to keep these criminals from being released back into society. (Some illegal immigrants who are being detained by DHS are unable to be deported for a variety of reasons. Yet under current law, DHS cannot detain these illegal immigrants for more than six months, even if the individual has committed a violent crime or represents a threat to national security. This legislation addresses this by enhancing DHS's ability to detain illegal immigrants in a variety of circumstances. Reaffirm the authority of state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. Require an increase in the number of U.S. attorneys dedicated to prosecuting cases of illegal immigrant smuggling and expresses the sense of Congress that the Attorney General should adopt uniform guidelines for the prosecution of smuggling offenses. Close loopholes that have hurt DHS's ability to practice "catch and return" as opposed to "catch and release." For example, an injunction dating from the El Salvadoran civil war of the 1980s prevents DHS from placing Salvadorans in expedited removal proceedings, even though the civil war has long since ended.  Last week, the House also passed legislation that requires the systematic surveillance of America's land and sea borders and designates areas of the southern border where fences are to be constructed to secure the border. Congressman Ryan voted in favor of this legislation - H.R. 6061, the Secure Fence Act - which is being debated in the Senate. Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:51:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9962&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9962&mname=Article House Passes Bill Requiring Photo ID to Vote Legislation that would require individuals to present a government-issued, current and valid photo ID in order to be eligible to vote in federal elections passed the House today by 228-196. Wisconsin's First District Congressman Paul Ryan voted in favor of this bill, the Federal Election Integrity Act (H.R. 4844), which will help prevent voter fraud and uphold the integrity of elections.  Under this legislation, the photo ID requirement would take effect beginning with the November 2008 general election, and an additional criterion would apply as of November 2010, specifying that voters must provide a photo ID that could not have been obtained without proof of U.S. citizenship.  "In order to make sure that legal votes are not cancelled out by illegal votes, it makes sense to ask for proof of identity and citizenship from voters," Ryan said. "This is a simple step that we can take to guard against fraud at the polls and help restore citizens' confidence in the electoral process. Today, we are asked to show ID before we can board a plane, cash a check or, in some cases, make a credit card purchase. We should verify identity when it comes to voting too. "  To ensure that all citizens have access to the necessary ID, the bill requires states to set up a program to provide photo IDs which may be used to meet the bill's requirements to individuals who do not possess a government-issued photo ID but who want to vote in elections for federal office. In addition, states must provide this photo ID free of charge for those who cannot afford to pay the fee, and the bill authorizes funds to reimburse states for this cost. Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:59:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9961&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9961&mname=Article Carthage College Commencement Remarks by Congressman Paul Ryan Thank you. Prior to preparing for this speech, I had the opportunity to visit with some Carthage graduates last Saturday at a dinner here in Kenosha. I remember thinking to myself: "This is great, I’ll get some insight as to what these students are thinking so I can craft a memorable and meaningful commencement address that can make a positive influence in their lives." So I engaged these students and I think their sentiment was summed up best when I asked graduating senior Dave Shepard if he was looking forward to this ceremony, to which he said: "If we’re lucky, we can get out of there in two hours as long as the speaker isn’t long-winded." So now I’m on Plan B. So here goes a commencement address – the Cliff Notes version.To get straight to the point, it’s really quite incredible to think about the world you are entering when you consider the amazing change that’s occurring today. You are graduating from college at a dynamic time in the world, much as I did 14 years ago. For me and my generation, the "X" generation, the Cold War had just ended. The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union brought immense potential for the expansion of freedom and opportunity for countless individuals. Now, the people of the Middle East and Asia are beginning to see their Berlin Wall fall as the opportunity for liberty spreads further. The difference now is that because of technology, particularly the internet, change occurs so much faster, and we are bombarded with great challenges and great opportunities. Preeminent among these challenges are terrorism and globalization. I’ll focus on globalization: That is, the rise of India, China, and other economic powers that are no longer separated from us by oceans, but by mere broadband. It’s almost too cliché to do this, but I’ll quote from one of the better, most widely read books on the subject: The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. "The main challenge [in the world of the 20th Century] was from those practicing extreme communism, namely Russia, China, and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely, China, India, and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state; the main objective in this era is buildings strong individuals." And this is where you come in. You are entering a global marketplace with enormous opportunity and potential, and the nucleus of this society is each of you as individuals. In so many ways, America has built-in advantages in this world. In other ways, we need to adapt to succeed. Your challenge will be to constantly update your skills. You will have to make yourselves unique and irreplaceable, or at least adaptable to the changing marketplace. There will be many great jobs – no, great careers out there if you create them, if you seize them.This is why your education here at Carthage is so precious, so special. Here at Carthage you have not just learned, you have expanded your capacity to keep learning. And this capacity, along with your God-given talent and your own effort is why you are prepared to succeed. Our task as a country is to reform our government and institutions to meet these challenges so America will thrive in the 21st Century. This means benefits, like retirement and health care, must be the portable property of each citizen. It means we have to adopt an education system of lifelong learning. We have to help our entrepreneurs and businesses stay globally competitive. America has seen such challenges before, and I think we are up to this task. I am optimistic that this will be another great American century. This is our global economic challenge. There is, however, a greater challenge that you face today. This challenge is not new competition from some outside economic power, it is from within our society, and, in some cases, within ourselves. It is a cultural challenge. This challenge you are facing is a society largely infused with the notion that morals are relative and truth is simply a matter of opinion. Today the concept that there are core principles and immutable truths that apply to all humans is regarded with disbelief or disdain by many in Western society. This is so ironic, considering how our nation’s existence is rooted in natural law – in other words, the concept that there are basic principles and rights and that our laws and our government have authority to the extent that they are derived from these principles. Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers expressed confidence in overarching truths when they wrote or spoke of "self-evident" truths and "certain unalienable Rights" with which we are endowed by our Creator.I’m sure few – if any – Americans today would stand up and say that our right to life and liberty is just some people’s opinion. But take any number of specific examples, such as lying under oath, cheating on an exam, or certain kinds of stealing, and we can imagine difficult circumstances that might lead plenty of people to make excuses for such behavior. When doing the right thing is inconvenient, it’s a great temptation for all of us to want to rationalize bending the rules. And too often our modern culture shrugs this off as no big deal because, after all, everyone must decide what makes them comfortable.Our modern culture elevates tolerance of all views as a great virtue, but frequently does so at the expense of truth. This is wrong, truth and tolerance can coexist. After all, there is such a thing as right and wrong. To ignore this is to lead a life of duplicity. Don’t fall into this trap. Acknowledging that universal truth exists and that humans can come to understand a part of this truth will no doubt lead to lively discussion and debate, but reasoned debate is one of the great faculties that humans possess. Without it, and without a solid moral foundation, society will stagnate, lose confidence in itself, and succumb to other societies that actually stand for something. We won’t lose to globalization because of cheap labor from China and India. We will lose if America loses her greatness – if America follows Europe down the dark path of moral relativism. America’s greatness has always been – and I pray shall always be – in her people. You will determine this future. I hope that each of you will strive to reach your potential to seek and to know the truth. If you do, you will be happy. And the great advantage you have is the benefit of a world-class education and real role models in your lives and community. I think of two people, including one who is in this hall today: Dr. Yuri Maltsev and Ralph Tenuta. I had the pleasure of visiting with Yuri on the plane coming back from Washington, D.C. recently. What a life story. Here is a man who grew up under the jackboot of Soviet communism, who one day received a bootlegged copy of F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, one of the best books ever written in my opinion. He had the book for one night. It was illegal to read such things. This book gave Yuri and thousands of others a taste of liberty and freedom, of truth. As a result, he promptly defected to America, the land of the free, where he has gone on to achieve an impressive academic career which brought him right here to Carthage. And then there is Ralph Tenuta. A great man. A role model for us all. Ralph is a man who personifies the American dream. He has built a legacy of a large, loving family, a thriving business with loyal customers, and an extensive dedication to community service and community leadership. Ralph, you are clearly Kenosha’s finest, and I congratulate you on receiving this high honor. You deserve it. So graduates, we are here now at the end of the Cliff Notes. Seeing you here today makes me so hopeful for the future. You have expanded your minds; you have great energy; you stand on the shoulders of great role models; and you are inheriting a country and community that is the beacon of hope, liberty, and freedom. Congratulations! Tue, 19 Sep 2006 17:01:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9960&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9960&mname=Article House Passes Earmark Reform The House of Representatives today approved a House rules change co-authored by Congressman Paul Ryan that will shine sunlight on the process known as "earmarking" to bring greater accountability and transparency to Congress and deter wasteful pork-barrel spending.  By passing the rules change by a vote of 245-171, the House altered the rules under which it operates to require that all reported bills and conference reports considered in the House include a list of earmarks (funds allocated outside the normal formula-driven or competitive bidding process and targeted to a specific entity, state, or congressional district) and the name of the representative requesting each earmark. This applies not only to appropriations bills but also authorization and tax legislation.  In May, the House passed a broader lobbying accountability bill that contained similar reforms advocated by Ryan and other congressional activists for fiscal discipline and openness in the budget process. Unfortunately, the House and Senate haven't yet been able to resolve their differences on the lobbying legislation, so the House moved forward on its own to enact today's House rules change.  "This unilateral action by the House shows that we are getting serious about cleaning up pork-barrel spending. We are not going to wait for the Senate to act. We are going to reform the broken spending process in the House today," Ryan said.  "We need to bring earmarks out into the open, where they will be subject to the full scrutiny of the public and members of Congress," Ryan said. "Until now, wasteful pork projects could be slipped anonymously into large spending bills without accountability to other members of Congress or taxpayers. Today's rule change puts an end to that in the House by making sure that everyone will know about proposed earmarks and who requested them. It's a common sense step in our push to end waste and abuse in government and shine the light of day on federal spending practices."  Under the new House rule, in order for the House to consider a bill, the committee of jurisdiction must list all earmarks included in the bill and committee report along with the names of the representatives who requested each earmark. If the committee fails to include a list of earmarks, a member of Congress can raise a procedural objection on the House floor against consideration of the bill or conference report.  Fiscal hawks in the House advanced today's rule change as part of the ongoing drive to rein in unnecessary federal spending and improve transparency and accountability. Congressman Ryan's legislative line-item veto bill, which the House approved in June, is part of this larger effort.  Earlier this week, the House also passed S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, to require the Office of Management and Budget to establish a searchable website, accessible by the public at no cost, that lists all recipients of federal grants, loans, and all contracts over the $25,000 reporting threshold. This site would enable the public, the media, and Congress to easily track who is receiving taxpayer funds and doing business with the government. Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:30:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9959&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9959&mname=Article RYAN KICKS-OFF RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS Candidate highlights constituent service and legislative success while setting bold agenda for next term Joined by his family and campaign volunteers, who will participate in five parades in southeastern Wisconsin over the next five days, Paul Ryan today officially kicks off his 2006 campaign as the Republican running for reelection to the State’s First Congressional District. Ryan, a Janesville native and resident, is seeking his fifth term in Congress after winning impressive victories in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote; and with more than 65 percent of the vote in each consecutive election since 2000. “I’m renewing my promise to work my heart out for the residents of southeastern Wisconsin.  They have my word that no one will work harder for them,” said Ryan.  “I see everyone who lives in the First Congressional District as my employers.  As their employee, I pledge to them that I will say what I will do and then do what I say if re-elected.” Ryan said his goals remain threefold: provide flawless constituent services, provide principled representation and ensure that the rights of individuals and families are not trampled by the federal government through his Paycheck Protection Agenda. Throughout his service in Congress, the 36-year old Ryan has been recognized as a tireless advocate for constituents dealing with federal government agencies. “My top priority is to serve those people who are having a problem with the federal government,” said Ryan.  “Helping constituents fight the red-tape and bureaucracy is my main job.  I’ll help them get answers to their questions and lead them through the maze of the federal government.” Since taking office, Ryan has responded over 133,000 times to constituents seeking assistance with the federal government, or offering opinions about issues before Congress. “People who contact me won’t just get information. They’ll get an advocate who will work for them every step of the way,” said Ryan.  “Facing the federal government on your own can seem impossible at times, but with my help we can take on the challenge together.” To let constituents know he is their link to the federal government, Ryan has hosted 351 constituent listening sessions, repeatedly visiting every incorporated community in the 1st Congressional District since taking office. Ryan said his accessibility to constituents is further demonstrated through the continued operations of three full-time Constituent Services Centers in Janesville, Kenosha and Racine.  Also, Ryan’s Mobile Office travels on a weekly basis to other communities – making 1,609 visits over the past seven and a half years. On the subject of principled representation, Ryan said remembering that he is a public servant keeps his priorities straight. “Two types of people run for Congress.  Those who want to be somebody and those who want to get something done.  I want to get something done,” said Ryan.“Coming home each weekend to my home in Wisconsin reinforces who I work for—my fellow residents of our great state.  Raising my own family in Wisconsin reminds me of the values I learned growing up here—hard work reaps rewards, faith and family come first and honesty is the best and only policy.” In addition to his dedication to constituent services and close ties to those he represents, Ryan has distinguished himself in Congress as a rising star in the legislative arena.  After earning a coveted appointment to the prestigious and powerful Ways and Means Committee, Ryan was named to the Budget Committee and Joint Economic Committee where he has played a leading  role in crafting federal policy on budgetary, Medicare, health care and tax matters. “The issues I highlight during the campaign form the agenda that I follow during each two-year term,” said Ryan.  “From cutting taxes and reducing spending to making prescription drugs more affordable and increasing access to health care, I’ll be fighting for the rights of Wisconsinites.” Ryan said his membership on the Ways and Means Committee continues to gives him a high profile platform from which to implement his Paycheck Protection Agenda. “Nearly every vote taken in Congress has an impact on taxpayers—either money is taken from or given back to taxpayers.  Fortunately, we’ve made progress on giving more money back,” said Ryan.  “That’s why my Paycheck Protection Agenda makes sure the government does less with less.”  Just last week, the House passed Ryan’s Legislative line Item Veto Act to cut out wasteful pork barrel spending. Issues Ryan highlighted as accomplishments and goals in his Paycheck Protection Agenda included: Growing the economy by giving businesses incentives to create more family supporting jobs and punishing countries that unfairly take our jobs.  Since June of 2003, economic policies that Ryan has supported resulted in the creation of 5.3 million new jobs in the U.S.Protecting Social Security for current and soon to be retirees, while improving it for future generations.  Ryan’s plan calls for every penny of Social Security taxes to be devoted to paying for Social Security benefits, not other government programs.Improving Medicare by giving seniors the same type of coverage as Members of Congress.  The new Medicare drug plan has resulted in 87 percent of Wisconsin seniors now having prescription drug coverage—saving seniors an average $1,100 per year.Cutting taxes by making the tax code simpler, fairer and less burdensome, allowing us to keep more of what we earn.   Ryan voted for tax relief that gave a family of four with $50,000 in income a $2,050 tax cut.  The same family earning $40,000 paid no federal income taxes.Fixing the budget process to eliminate pork-barrel spending.  Ryan’s Line-Item Veto bill passed the House earlier this month.  Also, recently passed tax cuts caused tax revenues from individuals to increase 14.6 percent while corporate tax revenue increased 47 percent last year to help cut the deficit.Ensuring that parents and teachers have the local control and resources to provide our children the best education possible.  Over the past five years, education funding has increased 34 percent while schools and students are being held to higher achievement standards.Making health care accessible and affordable by putting doctors and patients in decision-making roles, not insurance executives and the courts.   Ryan’s Health Savings Account plan has resulted in over 1 million people who were previously uninsured to now have health care coverage. Winning the War on Terrorism at home and around the globe to maintain our safety, freedoms, and way of life.  A permanent Iraqi government is now in place after three successful national elections.  American troops will start to return home when Iraqi military and security forces are operational.“Although we face serious domestic and foreign challenges as a country, I believe we can overcome them.  I believe our best days as a nation still lie ahead of us,” said Ryan.  “In my mind, every day is another opportunity to work to the best of my abilities to make a difference, for the better, in the lives of the people I was elected to serve.” For the upcoming Federal Elections Commission reporting deadline at the end of June, Ryan said his campaign account will show $1.6 million dollars cash on hand.  More than 95 percent of his individual donors are Wisconsinites. Ryan will be joined at upcoming parades by his wife, Janna; their four-year-old daughter, Liza; their three-year-old son, Charlie; and their one-year-old son, Sam.  The Ryans, who attend St. John Vianney’s Parish, make their home in Janesville, where, prior to his election to Congress, Ryan worked for his family’s earth moving business. The First Congressional District includes all of Kenosha, Racine, Rock and WalworthCounties.  In MilwaukeeCounty, the district includes all of the communities of Franklin, Greendale, Greenfield, Hales Corners and Oak Creek.  In WaukeshaCounty, it includes all of the communities in the Towns of Big Bend, Eagle, Mukwonago, Muskego as well as the southern portion of the City of New Berlin and the entire Village of North Prairie. Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:31:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9939&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9939&mname=Article Cash on hand total for Congressman Ryan stands at $ 1,353,250 In this off election year, Representative Ryan continues to hear from his constituents and supporters.  Ryan’s agenda of saving Social Security, controlling taxes and government spending, protecting jobs, reducing health care cost, and working for veterans, continue to resonate with Wisconsin families as they continue with generous giving to his campaign efforts.Ryan has raised $283,356 this past quarter.  “I set a goal for myself to raise the majority of my individual donations from  people     who live and work in Wisconsin .  I’m holding myself accountable to that” say Ryan. Over 91% of Ryan’s donations were from individuals, with over 95% of those from the State of Wisconsin.   With almost 14% (13.9) of all individual donors this past quarter being 1st time donors, Ryan’s base continues to grow.  Nearly 75% of individual donors gave less than $100. With over 10,000 individual campaign contributors, Ryan receives support from a large cross section of Wisconsin voters.   Also, many organizations, including Laborer’s Political League; International Union of Operating Engineers;  International Brotherhood of Teamsters; National Federation of Independence Businesses (NFIB); National Restaurant Association; Carpenters’ Legislative Improvement PAC; Senior Housing PAC; International Association of Firefighters;  and Association of Milk Producers;  have shown their support of Representative Ryan’s efforts. “The continued support  I received from seniors, working men & women,  veterans and small business owners, reinforces that my number one priority is looking out for the best interest of the constituents I was elected to serve,” says Ryan.  First elected in 1998, Ryan continues his fight for a solution that will insure Social Securities solvency for the future of our seniors along with our children and grand children. In keeping with his promise of full disclosure of campaign contributions, a link to Ryan’s Federal Elections Campaign report is available for public access on his campaign web-site at:  www.ryanforcongress.com. For Immediate Release July 11, 2005 Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9928&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9928&mname=Article Strong support in off election year brings dividends With strong support in an off election year, Congressman Paul Ryan reported having raised $68,973 during the first 3 months of 2005.  Ryan’s first quarter Federal Election Commission (FEC) report shows he has a cash on hand balance of $1,130,905 as of March 31st.   Much of Ryan’s support has come from citizens voicing their support for his leadership insuring Social Security. During this past quarter, Ryan has held over 35 Social Security listening sessions across the 1st Congressional District.  In addition, each week Ryan visits with groups to share ideas about fixing Social Security.    “The support that I have received from seniors, working men & women, and small business owners, reinforces that my number one priority is looking out for the best interest of the constituents I was elected to serve,” says Ryan.  Ryan has been fighting for common sense Social Security reforms since being elected to Congress.   His plan stops the raid on the Social Security trust fund, protects the Social Security safety net for all seniors, and gives younger workers the option of owning their own Personal Retirement Account (PRA), just as Members of Congress and federal workers have in their Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).   “My goal is to make Social Security solvent and dependable for our seniors and to make it fair for our kids and grandkids,” Ryan says. In 2005, the majority of contributions came from individual donors.  Over 98% of the individual donors came from the State of Wisconsin , with 91.3% giving gifts of under $100.   In keeping with his promise of full disclosure of campaign contributions, a link to Ryan’s Federal Elections Campaign report is available for public access on his campaign web-site at:  www.ryanforcongress.com.   For Immediate Release April 13, 2005 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL: Susan Jacobson at (608) 754-8099 Wed, 13 Apr 2005 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9927&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9927&mname=Article Strong Statewide Support Grows War Chest During Election Year    While running a successful re-election campaign in which he garnered 66% of the vote, First District Congressman Paul Ryan also managed to end 2004 with more money in his campaign coffers than when the year began. Traditionally, candidates are forced to spend most of their campaign funds in election years.  However, Ryan reported having $1,112,581 cash on hand at the end of 2004.  He started the year with $976,667 in his campaign account according to Federal Elections Commission records.   “The success of the campaign shows the strong statewide support I have for my paycheck protection agenda,” said Ryan.  “Whether it’s your Social Security check or your paycheck from work, I’m fighting everyday to protect what’s yours.” During the most recent election cycle, 95 percent of Ryan’s individual contributions came from Wisconsin residents.  Eighty-seven percent of the individual donors gave $100 or less. Almost 50 percent (47%) of the individual donors from 2003 and 2004 were first time contributors to Ryan’s campaign. “Voters know that I say what I’ll do, and then do what I say,” said Ryan.  “I work for everyone who lives in the First Congressional District.  They are my employers.  I’m very thankful for the support I’ve received from small businesses, unions and working men and women, who live in Wisconsin .” Ryan said the impressive number of first time donors and small donations are an indication that his message is resonating with people who have not participated in the political process previously. “People are motivated by the idea that they know best how to spend, save and invest their money, not the federal government,” said Ryan.  “Voters who had felt out of touch with the election process have told me they are responding because they want their money and decision-making power taken out of Washington and returned to them.” In the 2004 election cycle, sources not considered traditional supporters of a Republican Member of Congress have continued to back Ryan. The American Postal Workers Union (AFL-CIO), the Building and Construction Trades (AFL-CIO), the Carpenters Legislative Improvement PAC, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Iron Workers Political Action League, the International Union of Painters & Tradesmen and the Transportation Workers Union all made contributions to Ryan’s campaign. Ryan said the growing number of contributions he received from unions and labor organizations demonstrates his cross-section of political support.   “Unions have endorsed my efforts through their support because I’m committed to attracting more family supporting jobs to Wisconsin ,” said Ryan.  “I’ve been working with labor and management to make our area a great place to do business.  They share my goal.”   In keeping with his promise of full disclosure of campaign contributions, click here to link to Ryan’s Federal Elections Campaign report.   For Immediate Release January 31, 2005 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL: Peggy Dooley at (608) 754-8099 Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9926&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9926&mname=Article Paul and Janna Announce Son's Birth Wisconsin's First District Congressman Paul Ryan and his wife Janna are pleased to announce the birth of their second son, Samuel ("Sam") Lowery Ryan.  The 7lb - 5oz., 20 1/2 inch baby boy was born on Friday morning (8:09 a.m.), November 26th, at Mercy Hospital in Janesville.  Both mom and baby are in good health. This is the Ryan's third child.  Their daughter Elizabeth Anne Ryan and their first son Charles Wilson Ryan are looking forward to spending time with their new little brother. "We are very blessed and thankful to have been given the gift of this child.  This is a very happy time for our family and we are grateful for all the support and warm wishes that people throughout the area have expressed to us," said the Ryan's. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 27, 2004 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL: Peggy Dooley at (608) 754-8099 Sat, 27 Nov 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9925&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9925&mname=Article Congressman Paul Ryan to address the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, September 1, 2004    First District U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan’s five minute address before the Republican National Convention in New York is now expected to take place somewhere between the 7:50pm and 8:30pm timeframe CDT on Wednesday, September 1, 2004.  The speech was originally scheduled for Tuesday, August 31, 2004 . “It is a great privilege and honor to be selected. I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about how we are continuing to make America a nation where our children and grandchildren can prosper as we have, and share a message about giving all Americans more economic freedom and security.” A fifth generation Wisconsin native, Ryan was first elected to Congress in 1998 and serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. He focuses his legislative efforts on ensuring the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security and federal budget reform. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 30, 2004  For More Information Call Ryan for Congress: (608) 754-8099 Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9924&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9924&mname=Article Wisconsin’s First District U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan issued the following statement today regarding the announcement that he will be addressing delegates and the nation at the Republican National Convention later this month in New York .   “It is a great privilege and honor to be selected.  I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about how we are continuing to make America a nation where our children and grandchildren can prosper as we have, and share a message about giving all Americans more economic freedom and security.”   “The best days of our country are still ahead of us.  Talking about how we are laying the groundwork now to make that a reality is something I am very excited about.” Ryan is tentatively scheduled to deliver his remarks on Tuesday, August 31 at 8:25 p.m. CDT .   A fifth generation Wisconsin native, Ryan was first elected to Congress in 1998 and serves on the House Ways and Means Committee.  He has focused his legislative efforts on ensuring the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security and federal budget reform. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST  13, 2004 FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL: Ryan for Congress at (608) 754-8099 Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9923&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9923&mname=Article Statewide Support Lifts Ryan to Half of Goal With less than 4 months to Election Day, First District Congressman Paul Ryan reported a cash on hand total of $1,086,597.36 in his campaign account. “Running a campaign in the First Congressional District is the most expensive in the state because candidates have to run commercials in three television markets,” said Ryan. “Thankfully, I have a broad base of support from working families across Wisconsin.  I’m grateful for their support because it takes $2 million dollars to reach voters with your message in a competitive race.”  Ryan said his agenda of saving Social Security, cutting everyone’s taxes and government spending, protecting jobs and reducing the cost of health care is resonating with Wisconsin voters. In 2004, ninety-six percent of the individual donors to Ryan’s campaign are Wisconsinites.  Over the past 6 months, his campaign has attracted 245 first time contributors whose average donations were less than $60 each. “Voters know best how to spend, save and invest their money.  They want less power and money in Washington and I’m fighting for their cause,” said Ryan. “Small dollar, non-partisan contributions from working families are fueling the engine of my campaign.” Ryan said the growing number of contributions he has received demonstrates his cross-section of political support. “I’m committed to maintaining and attracting more family supporting jobs to southern Wisconsin,” said Ryan.  “I’ve been working with labor and management to make our area a great place to do business.  They share my goal.” The Ryan for Congress Committee reported disbursements of $100,252.85 to cover expenses related to salaries, fundraising, and campaign materials. “Our grassroots operation runs year-round.  We’ve used some of our resources already because the campaign has begun. We have to be ready for the negative attacks that will come,” said Ryan. With a seasoned campaign staff, Ryan said he can focus his attention on doing what he was elected to do – serve and represent the residents of Wisconsin’s First Congressional District. “The campaign staff does all the work.  I use my time meeting with constituents, addressing problems they have with the federal government and representing the best interests of our communities,” said Ryan. In keeping with his promise of full disclosure of campaign contributions, click here to link to Ryan’s Federal Elections Campaign report. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 15, 2004 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL:  Peggy Dooley at (608) 754-8099 Thu, 15 Jul 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9921&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9921&mname=Article Candidate highlights service to constituents, but says more work remains to be done   Paul Ryan officially kicked-off his 2004 re-election campaign to coincide with his participation and that of his family and campaign volunteers in 8 parades across southeastern Wisconsin over the next two weeks.   Ryan, a Janesville native and resident, is running as a Republican in the First Congressional District and is seeking his fourth term in Congress after winning impressive victories in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote and in 2000 and 2002, garnering 67 percent of the vote each time.       “I plan on talking to as many voters as I can over the next two weeks and through Election Day to let them know I am renewing my pledge that no one will worker harder for them,” said Ryan.  “The residents of southern Wisconsin are my employers, I work for them.  As their representative, I promise to say what I’ll do and then do what I say.”   Ryan said his goals are threefold: furnishing flawless constituent services, providing principled representation and ensuring that the rights of individuals and families are not trampled by the federal government through his Paycheck Protection Agenda.   During his first three terms in Congress, the 34-year old Ryan has distinguished himself as a tireless advocate for constituents dealing with federal government agencies.   “My number one priority is providing flawless constituent services by helping people who are having a problem with the federal government,” said Ryan.  “The daunting bureaucracy can be frustrating and intimidating to navigate.  My job is to get people answers by being an advocate for every constituent who comes to me for help.”   Since taking office, Ryan has responded 101,155 times to constituents seeking assistance from or offering opinions about the federal government.   “It’s not just my role to help, but to let people know that I am available to help them,” said Ryan.  “No one should face the federal government on their own.”   To let constituents know he is their link to the federal government, Ryan has hosted 269 constituent listening sessions, repeatedly visiting every incorporated community in the 1st Congressional District since taking office.   Ryan said his accessibility to constituents is further demonstrated through the continued operations of three full-time Constituent Services Centers in Janesville , Kenosha and Racine .  Also, Ryan’s Mobile Office travels on a weekly basis to communities without permanent offices – making 1,156 visits over the past five years.   On the subject of principled representation, Ryan said remembering that he is a public servant keeps his priorities straight.   “There are two types of people in Washington .  Those who want to be somebody, and those who want to get something done.  I’m there to get something done,” said Ryan.   “Every weekend, I come home to Wisconsin to work said Ryan. “Being home re-enforces the values I learned growing up and helps me stay focused on who I work for,” said Ryan.   In addition to his mastery of constituent services and close ties to those he represents, Ryan is recognized in Washington as a rising star in the legislative arena.  After earning a coveted appointment in only his second term to the prestigious and powerful Ways and Means Committee, Ryan has played a key role in developing federal policy on Social Security, Medicare, health care and tax issues.   “The issues I campaign on each election are the issues I work on each term,” said Ryan.  “Whether it’s adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare or reducing the tax burden on working families, I’m in the thick of it fighting for Wisconsinites.”   Ryan said his membership on the Ways and Means Committee gives him a means by which to implement his Paycheck Protection Agenda.   “Just about every vote that Congress takes has an impact on taxpayers—it either takes money out of or puts money back into taxpayers’ pockets.  Thankfully, we’ve made some progress on giving more money back,” said Ryan.  “That’s why my Paycheck Protection Agenda makes sure the government does less with less.”   Issues Ryan highlighted as accomplishments and goals in his Paycheck Protection Agenda included:       Growing the economy by giving businesses incentives to create more family supporting jobs in our communities and punishing countries that unfairly take our jobs. Protecting Social Security for current retirees and improving it for future generations without increasing taxes, reducing benefits or raising the retirement age. Improving Medicare by adding a prescription drug benefit so seniors can access medications affordably with the same type of coverage that Members of Congress have. Cutting taxes by making the tax code simpler, fairer and less taxing, allowing us all to keep more of what we earn through our job, pensions, investments or Social Security. Fixing the federal budget process to give the budget the force of law, prioritize spending to reduce the deficit and cut pork-barrel projects. Ensuring that parents and teachers have the local control and resources to provide our children the best education possible. Making health care accessible and affordable by putting doctors and patients in decision-making roles, not insurance executives and the courts. Winning the War on Terrorism at home and around the globe to maintain our safety, freedoms, and way of life.“We face great challenges in this country, both at home and abroad.  But I believe that our best days as a nation still lie ahead of us,” said Ryan.  “That’s what motivates me everyday to work to the best of my ability for those I was elected to serve.”   Ryan will be joined at upcoming parades by his wife, Janna, and their 2-year old daughter Liza and their one-year old son Charlie.  The Ryans, who are expecting their third child in December, make their home in Janesville , where, prior to his election to Congress in 1998, Ryan worked for his family’s earth moving business.   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 29, 2004 FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:Peggy Dooley at Ryan for Congress, (608) 754-8099 Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9920&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9920&mname=Article Cash on Hand total for Congressman stands at $1,050,69.48 Janesville, Wisconsin - Following a surge in donations from Wisconsin residents, First District Congressman Paul Ryan reported having $1,050,969.48 in his campaign treasury.  Ryan’s first quarter Federal Elections Commission (FEC) report shows he raised $144,905 during the first three months of 2004. “My message of saving Social Security and Medicare for future generations while protecting the paychecks of working families is resonating with residents across Wisconsin ,” said Ryan. “These donors want to make sure the goals I have for making health care accessible and affordable for everyone and protecting and creating manufacturing jobs is heard by all voters during the coming election.” Ryan’s report shows he added 574 new donors during the first quarter of the year.  The average contribution from these donors was $62.00. “The support I’ve received from small business owners, unions, seniors and working men and women clearly reflects that my number priority is looking out for the best interests of the constituents I was elected to serve,” said Ryan. “They know that I believe they are best suited to decide for themselves how to spend and invest their money, not the federal government.” During the reporting period, over 94 percent of Ryan’s individual donations came from residents of Wisconsin . “I believe the way to generate support is to practice principled representation, which means saying what you are going to do and then doing it,” said Ryan.  “ Wisconsin workers believe in the work I’m doing to lower the cost of creating jobs here, while working to stop other countries from stealing our jobs.” In the past year, Ryan has received donations from several labor organizations including, The International Union of Painters & Tradesman, The International Union of Operating Engineers, the Ironworkers, and the Transport Workers Union.  Ryan has also received support from small and larger employers throughout southeastern Wisconsin . “My opponents in the upcoming election will attack my record and attempt to portray me in a negative way,” said Ryan. “The voters of this district are demonstrating through their donations that they want me to have the resources to defend the work I am doing on their behalf.” With four television markets and dozens of radio stations broadcasting in the First Congressional District, as well as many newspapers circulating, Ryan said it takes upwards of $2 million to run an effective advertising campaign. “Getting the bulk of my fundraising done early in the election cycle allows me to concentrate fully on my number one focus – representing to the best of my ability all the people I was elected to serve,” said Ryan. The Congressman’s FEC report shows 62 percent of his donations came from individuals and 38 percent came from political action committees (PACs). Please click here to view a copy of Paul Ryan’s FEC report. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2004 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL Peggy Dooley at (608) 754-8099 Fri, 16 Apr 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9919&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9919&mname=Article CONGRESSMAN POSTS $976,667.21 CASH ON HAND First District Congressman Paul Ryan today reported a year-end cash on hand total of $976,667.  Ryan reported raising $875,753 in 2003. For the last quarter of 2003, 97 percent of Ryan’s individual donations came from residents living in Wisconsin .  The average individual contribution to Ryan’s campaign was $60.62.  “I believe in principled representation. That means working for the best interests of the constituents I was elected to serve. The support I’m receiving from Wisconsinites shows they believe I’m working for them.” said Ryan. Ryan said his message of fiscal responsibility, protecting the homeland and creating jobs clearly continues to resonate as over 2,040 (646 in the last quarter alone) contributors donated for the first time to his campaign in 2003. “The generous show of support reinforces the fact that the people want me to continue my fight to make health care more accessible and affordable, to help create more jobs and to continue to support our troops in the global fight on terrorism.” For the year, 53 percent of Ryan’s contributions came from individuals, while 47 percent of contributions were generated from political action committees. In 2003, Ryan also generated support from the following unions:  the International Union of Operating Engineers; the Transport Workers Union, and the Ironworkers. “Workers and employers know I am working to protect their paychecks by fighting illegal trade practices and lowering the cost of doing business in the U.S. ,” said Ryan. Ryan’s Federal Election Commission Report will be available for viewing on his campaign web-site at:  www.ryanforcongress.com. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 29, 2004 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL: Peggy Dooley at (608) 754-8099 Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:00:00 CST http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9918&mname=Article http://ryanforcongress.com/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=9918&mname=Article