Paul Ryan explains
For years I’ve wondered about the Republican leadership in Congress. Not just the obvious—what they’re doing and what their motivations might be for doing it—but also about why we generally have heard so little from them about it. Generally, when they’ve done something that angers the conservative electorate, they haven’t even seemed to feel that they owed their constituents an explanation. At least, if they did, I often couldn’t find that explanation.
Why was it missing? Was it their outright contempt for their public? Or were they just inarticulate boobs? Or were they trying to get the word out, issuing statements and the like, and the MSM was purposely making it difficult for them by not reporting on it, knowing that the lack of explanation would be sure to foster more resentment on the part of conservative voters towards the GOP leaders in Congress?
I don’t have an answer to the question, although I think it’s some combination of the three. So when Paul Ryan took over the speakership of the House, I had no illusions that it would be all that different. And when he allowed the recent Omnibus bill to pass, and conservative voters erupted in rage, there was little reason to be surprised. The only explanation from him I managed to find was a single sentence in a blog somewhere (I no longer remember where it appeared) saying that he’d said something about inheriting a bad series of decisions from Boehner on the budget fight, was not able to do anything to change it this year, but was planning to start from scratch next year and things would be different.
But now, long after I’d stopped looking, I found this audio [hat tip: Powerline], which is Ryan’s explanation of what happened and of his future plans.
After you listen to it, you may still think it’s malarky, or worse. Plenty of the commenters at Powerline did. However, some were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Ryan hesitated to take the speakership precisely because he knew that his options would be limited in this round of budgeting, and that he would find himself carrying the can for the inevitably flawed outcome. He knew, also, that the critics would forget — if they ever paid attention to — his singlehanded effort in the 2012 election cycle to educate Americans about restoring sanity to federal spending. He’s one of the best men we have, and deserves more patience than he’s getting.
What do I think? I have no reason to trust the Republican leadership at this point, but I think it’s at least a possibility that Ryan is speaking truth, or at least some partial truth. It will be easy enough to find out, though. Next year’s actions by Ryan will tell us more about his true intent than any speculation, or any statement.
The powerline link doesn’t work.
Try this:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/12/paul-ryan-explains.php
Or the recording I made:
This audio from the Bill Bennett Show.
Paul Ryan interviewed.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41339180/Paul%20Ryan%20on%20the%20Omnibus.mp3
It is disagreeable to have to say of Speaker Paul Ryan, but perhaps can be eased somewhat in more general terms: trust no one. Let Ryan make his pudding proofs next year, and only then begin to cease to doubt him altogether — at whatever margins of fidelity to the Constitution he can prove to muster. For now, he — no less than he charges in his accusations against the Democrats — uses the US Military as a rhetorical shield against his own accountability. **We harm you to keep from harming you,** is his account. Fie. Stop doing harm would be our rejoinder.
I figured that I needed to at least listen to his explanation. But, if you do listen to that audio, you will hear Ryan spend only a sentence or two on why he thought they had to pass that bill and get it over with. Some mumbles about how Harry Reid would filibuster anything they did and another couple of sentences about how the military had to get paid. Come on, that’s an explanation?
I’m not buying it. These guys fall into 3 camps now – one is the group that really actually agree with the Democrats policies but just don’t want to be directly associated with them – the second group is just deathly afraid of confrontation and assume they will lose no matter what because of the media – and the last group, the smallest by far, are a handfull of real conservatives.
I predict that next year, it will become obvious that Ryan is in group 2 – he will always find some reason to back down. If I’m wrong and Ryan discovers that he has a spine after all, it might make way for someone like Cruz to move ahead in the race for President because people will re-gain some faith in regular order. Otherwise, it’s Trump all the way and a future sucession of dictators.
At Forbes: The Omnibus Isn’t Good Enough: Blame the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus:
Thank you, Ed (from Ypsilanti) Bonderenka. I’ve had high hopes for Paul Ryan, and have expected him to be the effective communicator that we’ve lacked in GOP political leaders. Alas, no one’s perfect, but the Bill Bennett interview helps a lot towards understanding Ryan and his strategy for going forward. My anxiety is eased, and I have hope for a better 2016 in Congress. We’ll see. I just wish the GOP leaders better understood what’s needed from them in educating the electorate.
Balderdash and bullpucky.
Ryan could have easily pruned off the most egregious elements of the Omnibus bill. He DID nothing. Were he really a cost cutter, he never could have countenanced the pork laden $1.1 trillion dollar DEBT bill that he was instrumental in passing.
Forbes asserting that the Omnibus obscenity is conservative’s fault for NOT approving it is typical ‘blame the victim’ mendacity.
“Woe to they who call evil, good and good, evil.” the prophet Isiah
I like the fact that Ryan is talking about getting back to the regular order. The Reps need to start discussing and coming to a conclusion that all can support. There have been far too many uprisings over flavor of the month issues and not enough attention to developing priorities, a stategy, and tactics. Some os the “base” seem to think that their opinions have majority support among the electorate, but I’m not convinced of that. There isn’t enough attention given to explaining positions in a way that can win over voters. Maybe Ryan can calm things down a bit. I sure hope so.
My take…I think Ryan got handed the shitty end of the stick. I’m definitely willing to give him some time to get things sorted out.
When Neo writes,” I think it’s at least a possibility that Ryan is speaking truth, or at least some partial truth,” she is really underlining how low we have sunk.
A possibility that Ryan is speaking a partial truth means, of course, a possibility also his mouth is partially or mostly full of lies.
What will it take to turn the 4th Estate back to defending the Constitution? A Trump presidency. And the ‘sensible’ Right hates Trump.
@Ann
Forbes was sold to Asian investors several years ago. It went downhill quickly after that, and I haven’t read it since. It used to be one of my favorite online magazines.
Their opinion carries zero weight with me now.
Ryan claiming that he was locked into this deal strikes me the same way as Obama claiming he was forced to pull out of Iraq because of GWB.
Utter horseshit. Leaders aren’t beholden to the previous regime.
I don’t see what stopped Ryan from pushing an alternative to this crap sandwich with the left’s wet dream list. He could have tried to pass a 30-60 day continuing resolution to avoid the limited shutdown the GOP leadership fears like the plague.
(Have you ever heard Mark Levin go off on this irrational fear? He recites the many, many times the government has been through these shutdown in the last few decades and how little, if anything, they cost the Republicans.)
Then they could have taken some time to at least strip some of the more egregious giveaways from the bill. Instead, he now has Schumer, Pelosi and Obama laughing in his face and humiliating him in public about how they took him to the cleaners. He’s pretty much lost credibility with the entire conservative base now, and exposed the phony “Freedom Caucus” as the poseurs they really are.
Ryan was not too long ago portrayed as the budget wonk, the one capable of crafting a long term plan to actually begin reducing the debt burden. At the time, I called his ‘plan’ smoke and mirrors. I was criticized for my opinion by several regular commenters at this blog. Now Ryan is revealed.
The ‘government shut down’ that makes the gope tremble with fear is pure BS. The feds never shut down. Bond payments are made (with the sale of new bonds), the social welfare checks continue to flow, and no essential obligations suddenly come to an abrupt halt. As we saw the last time, all that happens is federal agents shoo tourists away from monuments and parks, and employees of the alphabet soup agencies go on paid leave.
I for one, hope Ryan faces a serious primary challenge come 2016.
Yes: bla bla bla. And a little more bla to go with the bla.
Okay.
I will be listening when the time comes, but for me, Paul Ryan is now guilty until proven innocent.
(Such a *nice* young man, ‘e was.)
Should anyone ask me to vote for a Republican agenda, I will refute them with Paul Ryan.
@parker
At this point, the best thing that could happen to the country is to default on our debt. We’d never be able to run a deficit again. Just think of how many corrupt statist schemes that would overturn!
The 2011-2012 chatter that Ryan was a “policy wonk” made me very nervous. His wonkishness, as in his budget plan, merely slowed the monstrous growth of the federal deficit compared to Democratic desires. Remember how it was praised by the GOP?
So he proposed to reduce the slope of the Federal deficit growth curve with his “plan” is all. So much for a solution.
And we are now surprised with the Omnibus Bill? He gave us a 3 year+ Heads Up alert.
No one was listening early on in the Speaker’s battle when Ryan announced that he would be looking for a lucrative lobbying job (like Cantor) in the near future. Now that he has delivered the goods, he should have no problem finding it. Too bad that working for your country and its people is so frustrating, boring and poorly compensated. The folks organizing a primary for Ryan may be wasting their efforts. Regular order is not that difficult to arrange and an Omnibus bill is never preferable to a number of specific funding bills. Also the Senate is a bigger problem than the House, but maybe not forever – there are far more R seats up for grabs in 2016 and McConnell chances of remaining in charge are growing smaller every day. I”m sure he will breathe a sigh of relief when he can turn things back to Harry Reid next January.
@fiona
This is one of the main problems I’ve noticed recently: there’s no deterrent factor to losing your elected office. The politicians simply move over to K street to start their new careers.
So whenever you hear citizens imagining that they’re threatening politicians with losing their jobs, realize that the politicians are thinking “so what?”