WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan
of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs May 29,
the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he
had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test. Ryan showed
him his plan to reform the economy. McCain expressed interest and said
he would turn it over to his campaign's economists.
That was truly ominous. If the Kemp-Roth tax cut had been handed over
to economists three decades ago, it likely would have died in its crib
and aborted the national and Republican revival under President Ronald
Reagan. Ryan's plan is more sweeping than the proposal by his boss and
mentor Jack Kemp, who dealt only with taxes. In 70 pages, "Ryan's
Roadmap for America's Future" shows the way to reform taxes, control
spending and brake runaway entitlement outlays.
Ryan has proposed far too much to handle for nervous House Republican
leaders. They have refrained from publicly knocking Ryan down only
because they are in a state of terror over their party's desperate
condition, as indicated by plummeting polls and special election
defeats. More important is the yet unstated reaction by McCain,
famously uninterested in economics but never shy on courage to defy the
conventional wisdom.
Actually, to embrace Ryan's Roadmap requires more political insight
than courage. Ryan was met with enthusiastic approval at some 35 town
meetings in his southern Wisconsin industrial district, where he
unveiled his plan over the last two months. His constituents, who sent
liberal Democrat Les Aspin to Congress for 22 years, are legendary
"Reagan Democrats" who have soured on the GOP. Ryan believes they are
far ahead of politicians in their alarm over entitlements. "Do we have
the guts to act?" asks Ryan.
Ryan fears potential national disaster is ahead because we "will exceed
the European extent of government and bring our economy to extinction."
With the U.S. government share of the economy at 20 percent, he sees it
rising to a calamitous 40 percent when his three children (ages 3, 4
and 6) reach their 30s, requiring a doubled tax rate. President Bush's
appropriations rose $49 billion over the last year, and the
Democratic-controlled House upped that ante. But spending enacted by
Congress is dwarfed by statutory increases in Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.
Ryan's Roadmap makes a serious effort, as neither Congress nor the Bush
administration did, to cut appropriated spending. Ryan calls it
"Gramm-Rudman on steroids" (referring to successive spending control
measures beginning in 1985).
But his boldest thrust comes in radical changes to entitlements,
including an option for persons under 55 years old to buy private
retirement insurance, plus reduced benefits and delayed retirement for
Social Security. His Internal Revenue reform would amount to an
optional modified flat tax (advocated in principle by McCain) and
substituting a small business consumption tax for the corporate income
tax rate -- while holding federal taxes to 18.5 percent of gross
domestic product.
It is hardly likely the Republican leadership would embrace Ryan's
daring agenda if it cannot even bring itself temporarily to forego
pork-barrel spending by passing a moratorium on earmarks. But Ryan
represents a younger breed of reform Republicans who now have junior
leadership positions.
Ryan, 38, top Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been
working closely with freshman Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 43, who has been
named chairman of the national platform by Minority Leader John
Boehner, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, 45, the party's chief deputy
whip. After another expected bad GOP defeat in the 2008 congressional
elections, Ryan, McCarthy and Cantor could constitute the party's new
House leadership.
But who will be in the White House? McCain so far has generated little
excitement in his own Republican base, much less among Reagan
Democrats. His cautious political and economic advisers flinch at
complicated tax changes, massive budget cuts and tampering with Social
Security. But a campaign based on Barack Obama's shortcomings may not
be enough on Election Day. While Ryan says the people are more than
ready for his strong medicine, McCain has not yet agreed.
