It won’t happen, but it should: Lame duck Paul Ryan should go hard in his last seven months as House speaker, wielding all the co-equal power inside his gavel to do everything he said he would when he was still young and vowed his principles would never be dimmed.
Tax cuts are nice and, along with his vice presidential bid, will make up most of his legacy. His ability to make peace and avoid civil war inside the GOP conference deserves praise. So do his efforts to decentralize decision making, even if the reforms were unevenly applied in the end, at least they were more than mere lip service.
Ryan presided over the House during two of the most trying presidential administrations in modern political history. Not everything has gone as he might have wished. Deficits have ballooned. Spending increased. Government expanded.
When Ryan picked up the gavel, for instance, the United States spent $439 billion more than it collected in revenue. Today that number is more than $600 billion and is expected to reach a trillion by 2020.
All of that would be disappointing but expected had John Boehner, or perhaps Eric Cantor, been speaker. But with Ryan, it is soul crushing. He was the one who sold Republicans on passing potentially risky budgets that included entitlement reform. He made those charts and talked about fiscal responsibility. He didn’t drink the Tea Party Kool-Aid so much as he mixed it himself. Rank-and-file Ryan said “we have a debt crisis right in front of us” and warned it was the sort of thing that brings down Empires – past and future.”
Of course, Ryan wasn’t going to balance the budget in a day as speaker. But at least he was going to try to get our national fiscal house in order. Obviously, whatever attempt he made was not enough.
So after three years of promises and lots of compromises, Ryan is going to retire. Chances are Republicans will lose the House, and that’s an opportunity. Ryan should become resolute and defend all his old talking points with the remainder of his strength. He should work with the administration to claw back some of the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill through a rescission package. And he should also introduce the dream entitlement reform package, knowing full well it won’t go anywhere.
Burn bright and be the promised conservative majority.
None of that will happen. Even if Ryan charged forward, it’s not clear his caucus would follow. Keeping them from each other’s throats has been enough of a challenge already. Ryan, instead, will make an Irish exit and be the quintessential D.C. gentleman. But wouldn’t it be more fun if he was bare knuckled and unafraid in these last seven months?
