If Paul Ryan has achieved anything thus far he has securely nailed down Mitt Romney's always-weak right flank. The Romney-Ryan ticket will not have to be looking over their shoulder at the Republican base in the closing weeks of the election as John McCain did four years ago.
It's almost comical to see the media try to use Ryan's younger enthusiasms to pigeonhole him. Despite earlier flirtations with Libertarianism and supply-side, Ryan developed into a hard-core spending and debt fiscal conservative in the tradition of Bob Dole and Robert A. Taft Jr. after earlier employment as a protégé of Congressman and Vice Presidential Nominee Jack Kemp and a literary flirtation with Ayn Rand whose books he consumed.
To be clear, Ryan is neither a Libertarian or a pure supply-sider despite his connections to Rand and Kemp. Indeed he is a big government Wall Street Republican who today offers a mild brand of fiscal conservatism but who spent with abandon while in the House under President George W. Bush.
My friend Larry Kudlow correctly points out that Ryan has some attractive growth oriented tax cut plans and that Romney's 20 percent tax cut plan unveiled earlier this year is also very growth oriented. Perhaps Romney and Ryan should talk about these proposals occasionally on the stump.
Ryan's famous budget is a deficit budget. It doesn't cut spending; it merely slows the growth of the deficit. Mitt Romney attacks Barack Obama for increasing the debt limit without noting that his running mate Paul Ryan has voted consistently to bust the debt ceiling.
Paul Ryan is indeed a faux deficit hawk whose budget is merely a baby step in the right direction. His voting record shows that he is open to the kind of Washington deal-making which has produced record deficits and mountains of debt.
Paul Ryan voted for TARP as well as the auto and big bank bailouts in which high powered lobbyists arranged for those who had been fiscally irresponsible to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Ryan also voted for Medicare Part D increasing the entitlements that he says he wants to tame.
In the Republican debates, Congressman Ron Paul correctly said that spending must be slashed by $1.4 trillion to bring it into balance and stop adding to the national debt. Only Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Governor Gary Johnson offers voters a pledge for a 43 percent spending cut across the board -- including defense to get America's spending and debt under control.
More importantly, Paul Ryan seems to have a zest for foreign interventionism. He voted to place our troops in Iraq indefinitely and voted to fund our war in Afghanistan. He also has little regard for civil liberties, having voted to extend The Patriot Act and for The National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the arrest and indefinite detention of a US Citizen without bail charges or trial.
Like many conservatives, Paul Ryan's conservatism is an odyssey. He may have once devoured Rand's Fountainhead and learned at the knee of supply-side apostle, Jack Kemp, but moved on to a more conventional establishment Republicanism long ago.
What he is today is an inside the beltway Republican who talks a great game on fiscal responsibility but whose record shows he has been party to an orgy of spending and debt and other big government bailouts as well as the wars we are waging on borrowed money.
My strong advice is to immediately bring in Larry Kudlow as a consultant to Paul Ryan, not advising him on economics but advising him on how to dress. Ryan dresses right out of Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries. When you are as physically fit as Paul Ryan, you need a well-cut suit, which accents your athleticism. Paul Ryan's suits are so baggy that he hides his physique. I swear to God I also think he is wearing a plastic belt. Please someone rush this man to a tailor.
Follow Roger Stone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr
Ryan also is very understanding that, while an intrusive government can definitely get in the way of economic growth, America owes its people a robust social safety net. Thus, there is no victory in cutting spending for cutting spending's sake. Rather Ryan seeks ways to change the trajectory of entitlements that are going bankrupt ultimately, bringing them to solvency.
Or maybe you actually mean the right direction after all. But then you must think that allowing the debt/GDP ratio to reach 175% while slashing Medicaid and food stamps and converting Medicare to a voucher program, all the while assuming that discretionary spending can be brought to 3.5% of GDP by 2050 (when defense ALONE, accounts for over 4% of GDP and has never fallen below that since WWII)---ALL in order to lower taxes sharply on the rich---IS the right direction.
But it's not even close.
It's fraud. And a malicious kind of fraud.