Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican… is ruling out a 2012 run for president.
“I’ll give you as Shermanesque a quote as I can,” said Ryan. “I am not going to run for president. I’m just not going to do it. My head’s not that big, and my kids are too small.”
but Sarah Palin likes him for President:
Over the weekend, Ryan was singled out for praise by Palin during her interview with “Fox News Sunday.”
Asked to handicap the potential Republican presidential field, Palin refrained from commenting on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, three Republicans actively weighing a White House run in 2012.
Palin said, however, that she was “very impressed” with Ryan before later adding that it would be “absurd” not to consider running for president herself.
“[W]e have some strong — some young Turks in this party,” said Palin. “Paul Ryan — I’m very impressed with Paul Ryan. . . . He’s good. Man, he is sharp. He is smart, articulate. And he is passionate about these commonsense solutions that America has got to adopt to get us on the right road.”
I don’t like Pawlenty, and Huckabee and Romney are not conservative enough either. Huckabee is too far left on economic issues and Romney is too far left on social issues. But Ryan is just right.
That quote about his head being too small and his kids not being big enough is at the end of this video:
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.
Lately, I have been busy working my way through the Indivisible e-book that the Heritage Foundation published. The e-book is about 85 pages long, and features leading fiscal and social conservatives, writing from the point of view that they do not normally adopt! In the e-book, Paul Ryan, a huge fiscal conservative, writes about the right to life. Check it out. I just ordered 5 more copies of Indivisible from the Heritage Foundation along with some of their new booklet on Regulations.
Jennifer Rubin over at Pajamas Media writes that the GOP has had enough with the Democrats’ big-spending socialist agenda, and they are ready to try something completely different: small government conservatism. Instead of just being the party of “NO”, the GOP intends to market a series of common sense conservative policies directly to Americans.
Rubin writes:
Minority Leader John Boehner has a new video out listing a number of Republican themes and promising a Republican alternative budget from reformer Rep. Paul Ryan. The themes are simple: lower taxes, restrain the growth of government, a market-based health care plan, domestic energy development, and ending bailout mania. Boehner’s video does not have many details, but its core message is clear: Republicans are tired of being the punching bag for an administration that wishes to paint itself as the only source of ideas capable of solving the country’s problems.
But I didn’t like John Boehner’s video as much as this one from Rep. Paul Ryan:
He can make the case in the House of Representatives:
And look, he can take on the leftist news media, too:
Fun! Rubin continues with some links to wonderful policy ideas:
Truth be told, for months, Republicans inside and outside of government have been throwing out ideas on how to revive the economy. Americans for Tax Reform has ten ideas to help small business. Newt Gingrich has twelve ideas to promote job growth and recovery. And budget draftsman Paul Ryan has had “A Road Map for America’s Future” for some time. But the mainstream media is uninterested in reading through all of this, much of the conservative blogosphere is too invested in carping about the shortcomings of elected leaders and in fighting among themselves, and the president, of course, has made a habit of disparaging his opposition’s lack of creative ideas.
…the task here is to capture the public’s dissatisfaction with the Democrats’ bailout and pork-laden approach to governance and remind voters that Republicans in fact do have ideas — ones that favor lower taxes and less spending.
As soon as I read this, I rushed over to the Cato Institute to see their take on Ryan’s plan, and I found an article by Michael D. Tanner.
Health Care: Ryan would reform our employment-based insurance system by replacing the current tax exclusion for employer-provided insurance with a refundable tax credit of $2,500 for individuals, and $5,000 for families. This would encourage employers to take the money they currently spend providing health insurance and give it directly to workers, who could then use it to purchase competitive, personally owned insurance plans. That would be insurance that met their needs, not those of their bosses, and people wouldn’t lose it if they lost their jobs.
Ryan would also allow workers to shop for insurance across state lines. That would mean residents of states like New Jersey and New York, where regulation has made insurance too expensive for many people, could buy their insurance in states where it cost less. And increased competition would help bring insurance costs down for all of us.
Since I am a clean-living, never-married single guy, this would basically add a bunch of money to my take home pay. More money for donations to Reasonable Faith and the Discovery Institute! So far so good!
Tanner continues:
Social Security: Like Medicare, Social Security is hurtling toward insolvency. Rep. Ryan would preserve the program unchanged for current recipients and workers older than age 55, but he would allow younger workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes privately through personal accounts. Unlike the present system, workers would own the funds in their accounts, and when they died, they could pass any remaining funds on to their heirs.
Taxes: Rep. Ryan would radically simplify today’s hopelessly complex, cumbersome and bureaucratic tax code. He would give filers a choice: They could pay their taxes under existing law, or they could choose a new simplified code, with just two tax rates (10 percent on the first $100,000 for joint filers; $50,000 for individuals, and 25 percent above that).
Human Events has some more details on the tax policy:
The tax reform aspect of the bill is appealing, offering a simplified tax system that has only two rates and eliminates the alternative minimum tax (AMT) and the death tax. The bill also abolishes taxes on interest, capital gains and dividends among other aggressive tactics that will make a noticeable, long term change.
And this interesting quotation from Ryan:
“Our fate is not inevitable…we can change it,” he said. “I want to be the Paul Revere of fiscal policy in this country.”
Now, that two-tier tax plan was one of the reasons why I preferred for Fred Thompson in the primaries… but the rest of my party wanted style, instead of substance. You blithering toadies! Who cares how warm his belly is? He opposes taxes and abortion, you hamster-brains! Oh, well. There’s always 2012, where we can try to run Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal or maybe even Michele Bachmann!
WINTERY KNIGHT 