In fairness, he's done a pretty good job. The government is funded through 2017, the debt ceiling is also raised through the same and we even passed an omnibus bill.
Still his hope for a kinder, gentler GOP aren't going to happen anytime soon.
"Paul Ryan talked about the ills of the criminal-justice system. He quizzed GOP presidential hopefuls at a forum here about what they’ve done to help the impoverished and vowed that Republicans, if they put their minds to it, could “make breakthroughs” in the war on poverty."
"This is what Ryan wants his Republican Party to look like. But it bears little resemblance to the one on display in the presidential primary, a battle that some senior Republicans say has gotten so coarse that it’s putting their congressional majorities at risk."
"So as Ryan tries to reassert the party’s substantive side with a series of policy rollouts in the coming months — a conservative replacement to Obamacare, tax reform, a criminal justice bill — he’s also looking to give the House GOP its own identity. The speaker’s effort could also provide his 246 members a layer of insulation from the mess playing out on the national stage."
"With the presidential candidates sparring over whether to bar Muslims from the United States and discussing the merits of spanking children, top House leadership aides say Ryan is trying to give his party something to run on. There’s almost no chance the GOP will lose the House, but significant double-digit losses are possible if the top of the GOP ticket flounders."
"In an interview hours after the Kemp Foundation poverty summit held in Columbia with several 2016 contenders over the weekend, Ryan told Politico he wants the Republican Party to be “an agenda party, a solutions party, an ideas party, so that we make our case, not based on personality, but based on ideas to the country. Because that’s the kind of election we want to win."
“I want our party to be the party of opportunity, upward mobility and the party with better ideas for fighting poverty,” he continued. And “since I want our party to be that, it goes without saying I want the House Republicans to do that, as well.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/paul-ryan-gop-2016-house-republicans-217547#ixzz3wvunO7Vk
At least he wants to do something rather than nothing like in the Boehner years. He understands that the GOP can't simply always be the opposition party they actually have to show they can be a governing party.
And good on him to want to talk about fighting poverty and upward mobility. However, his ideas for fighting poverty are exactly the wrong prescription-basically he thinks that by cutting government this will raise Americans' wages. He wants to block grant Medicare and do huge supply side tax cuts for the rich while at the same time balancing the budget.
"Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senator Tim Scott are hosting a poverty forum tomorrow for some of the R presidential candidates. In advance, they wrote a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how they’d fight poverty, and how the damn liberals keep getting it wrong (“A Republican Cure for Liberal Policy Failures on Poverty”). Jeb Bush also spoke on these issues at a recent town hall."
"Poverty’s a serious problem in America, and I of course welcome their interest. But because their diagnosis is fundamentally flawed, their prescriptions often risk increasing poverty and inequality, while restricting opportunities for millions of American children.
Ryan’s theory of the case is that anti-poverty policy as crafted by liberals gives a person a fish, as it were, instead of teaching them to fish for themselves. He writes (with Scott) that, while safety net programs “prevent extreme deprivation,” they’re “not only putting a floor under people’s feet; [they’re] gluing their feet to it.” Bush says, similarly, that “transfer payments to try to provide for people in poverty [are] actually putting limits on people’s possibilities.”
"The solution is…wait for it…less government (Ryan/Scott):"
“By limiting itself, government can actually expand opportunity when it gets out of the way and paves the road to collaboration—whether it’s between students and teachers, job seekers and employers, or people in need and people who can help. It is through that free, personal exchange that people learn the skills they need to succeed.”
"This is merely a gussied up version of “if your only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” The idea, and Ryan’s budgets very much underscore this point, is that we can help the poor more by doing less for them."
"The evidence points strongly in the opposite direction. As CBPP’s Arloc Sherman noted yesterday (and Ben Spielberg and I have explained in detail), a large and growing body of high-quality research, like that described in the graph below, shows that the impact of income support and safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid do not just occur upon receipt and immediately fade away. They have important, positive long-term benefits for children."
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/you-cant-fix-poverty-by-breaking-the-safety-net/
You can't help but notice that Paul Ryan offers from the view point of the base the worst of both worlds. He's for amnesty and he's also totally supply side and libertarian in his approach.
This is why the worry that the GOP is headed for a schism is a real one. The base is not libertarian or supply side. What they actually are in truth are Dixiecrats a la George Wallace and Donald Trump.
Still his hope for a kinder, gentler GOP aren't going to happen anytime soon.
"Paul Ryan talked about the ills of the criminal-justice system. He quizzed GOP presidential hopefuls at a forum here about what they’ve done to help the impoverished and vowed that Republicans, if they put their minds to it, could “make breakthroughs” in the war on poverty."
"This is what Ryan wants his Republican Party to look like. But it bears little resemblance to the one on display in the presidential primary, a battle that some senior Republicans say has gotten so coarse that it’s putting their congressional majorities at risk."
"So as Ryan tries to reassert the party’s substantive side with a series of policy rollouts in the coming months — a conservative replacement to Obamacare, tax reform, a criminal justice bill — he’s also looking to give the House GOP its own identity. The speaker’s effort could also provide his 246 members a layer of insulation from the mess playing out on the national stage."
"With the presidential candidates sparring over whether to bar Muslims from the United States and discussing the merits of spanking children, top House leadership aides say Ryan is trying to give his party something to run on. There’s almost no chance the GOP will lose the House, but significant double-digit losses are possible if the top of the GOP ticket flounders."
"In an interview hours after the Kemp Foundation poverty summit held in Columbia with several 2016 contenders over the weekend, Ryan told Politico he wants the Republican Party to be “an agenda party, a solutions party, an ideas party, so that we make our case, not based on personality, but based on ideas to the country. Because that’s the kind of election we want to win."
“I want our party to be the party of opportunity, upward mobility and the party with better ideas for fighting poverty,” he continued. And “since I want our party to be that, it goes without saying I want the House Republicans to do that, as well.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/paul-ryan-gop-2016-house-republicans-217547#ixzz3wvunO7Vk
At least he wants to do something rather than nothing like in the Boehner years. He understands that the GOP can't simply always be the opposition party they actually have to show they can be a governing party.
And good on him to want to talk about fighting poverty and upward mobility. However, his ideas for fighting poverty are exactly the wrong prescription-basically he thinks that by cutting government this will raise Americans' wages. He wants to block grant Medicare and do huge supply side tax cuts for the rich while at the same time balancing the budget.
"Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senator Tim Scott are hosting a poverty forum tomorrow for some of the R presidential candidates. In advance, they wrote a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how they’d fight poverty, and how the damn liberals keep getting it wrong (“A Republican Cure for Liberal Policy Failures on Poverty”). Jeb Bush also spoke on these issues at a recent town hall."
"Poverty’s a serious problem in America, and I of course welcome their interest. But because their diagnosis is fundamentally flawed, their prescriptions often risk increasing poverty and inequality, while restricting opportunities for millions of American children.
Ryan’s theory of the case is that anti-poverty policy as crafted by liberals gives a person a fish, as it were, instead of teaching them to fish for themselves. He writes (with Scott) that, while safety net programs “prevent extreme deprivation,” they’re “not only putting a floor under people’s feet; [they’re] gluing their feet to it.” Bush says, similarly, that “transfer payments to try to provide for people in poverty [are] actually putting limits on people’s possibilities.”
"The solution is…wait for it…less government (Ryan/Scott):"
“By limiting itself, government can actually expand opportunity when it gets out of the way and paves the road to collaboration—whether it’s between students and teachers, job seekers and employers, or people in need and people who can help. It is through that free, personal exchange that people learn the skills they need to succeed.”
"This is merely a gussied up version of “if your only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” The idea, and Ryan’s budgets very much underscore this point, is that we can help the poor more by doing less for them."
"The evidence points strongly in the opposite direction. As CBPP’s Arloc Sherman noted yesterday (and Ben Spielberg and I have explained in detail), a large and growing body of high-quality research, like that described in the graph below, shows that the impact of income support and safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid do not just occur upon receipt and immediately fade away. They have important, positive long-term benefits for children."
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/you-cant-fix-poverty-by-breaking-the-safety-net/
You can't help but notice that Paul Ryan offers from the view point of the base the worst of both worlds. He's for amnesty and he's also totally supply side and libertarian in his approach.
This is why the worry that the GOP is headed for a schism is a real one. The base is not libertarian or supply side. What they actually are in truth are Dixiecrats a la George Wallace and Donald Trump.
Rubio might suggest that what's really important is "eternity" so poverty in "this life" really doesn't matter much. Maybe the poor could be useful as cheap "smart bomb" guidance systems to be used against ISIS? It's a win-win because they achieve eternity quicker, plus we can afford to get really tough with ISIS. I'm sure Jesus would approve.
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