Health & Fitness
Nice Pick, Mitt!: Romney-Ryan Ticket a Winner
Mitt Romney's choice of House Budget chairman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin for VP shows wisdom and the depth of the Republican team.
Mitt Romney promised to pick a conservative for a running mate, and he has delivered. Paul Ryan is already nationally known, having proposed concrete solutions for America’s financial future, including reforming entitlement spending. He will help keep the focus on the most important issue in this year’s election: the long term solutions for America’s economy.
Paul Ryan will help, not hurt Romney’s chances of returning the President to the where Obama can most help the economy. President Obama is likable and charismatic; he can sell books and earn large amounts for speeches as a private citizen.
Obama’s policies have only hurt the economy and prolonged the Great Recession, much like Franklin Roosevelt’s policies prolonged the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Find out what's happening in Troywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Ryan a better pick than Rubio
Many conservatives had favored Senator Marco Rubio of Florida to be Romney’s running mate. He could deliver Florida and bring more Hispanic voters to the GOP, whose traditional social values fit more with Republicans than with the Democrat party.
Find out what's happening in Troywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
But Rubio is needed in the Senate, where fellow conservatives Rand Paul (KY), Jim DeMint (SC), recent Tea Party primary victor Ted Cruz of Texas and others need his support. An open seat in Florida could go to a more liberal Republican like Charlie Crist.
Paul Ryan can be replaced in the House much more easily than Rubio in the Senate. A competent accountant can manage the budget; America has plenty of them in the private sector. We need more like Martin Howrylak in legislatures and Congress, where they can promote government transparency.
Private Sector Accounting for Government
Perhaps they could persuade fellow legislators to adopt General Accounting Principles and submit their books to independent auditors like bankrupt New York City was forced to do by the state in 1976.
Now the tables are turned and the city is in good financial shape and could help the state’s miserable finances – if it agreed to keep honest books.
This is described as the second point of five in Economic Lessons from American History in Imprimis magazine, with almost two million monthly readers, available free from Hillsdale College.
More Respect for Ryan
Paul Ryan can still advocate for his ideas as Vice President, and won’t be ignored or disdained like he is now.
Marco Rubio has Presidential aspirations of his own, which would prove a distraction during the campaign, as the press would be focusing on that rather than the current issues facing our country.
Rubio may well one day be our first Hispanic President, but his path will probably not be Vice President.
Ryan can help Romney in the Rust Belt
Paul Ryan is from Janesville, Wisconsin, home of the closed GM Suburban plant. So he understands the pain of autoworkers who have lost their jobs and is popular enough to be elected there. He can help in key battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and may even help Romney take Michigan.
Congressman Ryan is as likable as President Obama and is not an ideologue. He is self-effacing and modest, even-tempered, yet can debate strongly on economic issues, because unlike Democrats, he has brought forward a viable plan.
Handwriting on the Wall for Obama
Despite his significant advantage in funds for TV ads, President Obama faces a challenge for reelection. Democrats are already distancing themselves from him, with some Congressmen not even coming to the convention in North Carolina.
Bill Clinton’s quote of Romney’s stellar business record will be replayed by the Republicans in ads. Giving Clinton a prominent role at the convention highlights that Obama is in trouble, since everyone knows that Hillary wants to challenge Romney in 2016 if Obama loses.
Vice Presidential Debate will be Interesting
The vice presidential debate should get high TV ratings this year. Vice President Biden will be hopelessly outmatched, with Paul Ryan bringing data to the table to counter Biden’s rhetoric. Biden has been in Washington so long he doesn’t remember how real people live.
Iconic Initials
Like Romney-Rubio, Romney-Ryan also has the iconic initials RR. Ronald Reagan’s legacy should be alluded to and capitalized on. This is style, not substance, but sloganeering sometimes helps win elections.
“Hope and change” worked for Obama in 2008. Now all America has is dashed hopes, and many of us are digging for spare change. Meanwhile, Obama continues to blame his predecessor and ask for more time for his raising taxes and borrowing to spend even more to take hold.
Franklin Roosevelt’s Policies Revisited
But can we afford four more years of FDR’s policies in the 21st century? TIME magazine’s November 24, 2008 cover story showed Obama smoking a cigarette with FDR’s signature cigarette holder; the article linked Obama’s policies with Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Most economists now agree that the haphazard and sometimes unconstitutional policies of the New Deal prolonged the Depression, not relieved it. World War II brought America out of the Great Depression, not the New Deal.
Media Bias and War Chest will Help Obama
President Obama and his surrogates wasted no time in painting Ryan as an extremist, when in fact they are the ones gutting Medicare by diverting funds to people who have never paid in to the system. Don’t expect most of the to ask any tough questions about it, though.
The President will use his large advantage in advertising funds to continue misrepresenting Republicans as wanting dirty air and water, throwing seniors under the bus etc., not denouncing the SuperPAC ad that accused Mitt Romney of causing someone’s death from cancer. Non-partisan fact checkers agreed this was untrue, and the Democratic party chair backpedaled but claimed she had no control over the content of the ad. So much for civility.
However, in the debate Paul Ryan will get the chance to tell the American people directly that his plan to reform Medicare did not change anything for people over fifty-five. Patient truth telling will reveal who is telling the big lie.
Conclusion
Paul Ryan’s key point of whether we are going to pass a bankrupt nation on to our kids and grandkids will resonate. His own three children will also be better off with him having a more relaxed job as Vice President.
The sooner we do something to solve our 40% overspending problem and stop the trillion dollar deficits the easier it will be to dig out of the hole. Digger a deeper hole by borrowing more money is not the solution. We can’t “owe our soul to the company store.” There is no one to bail us out but ourselves.
We have to do something now. Getting started in January is much better than waiting another four years for a new President if Obama is reelected.