2013-06-04

Cato: Paul Ryan: A Big-Government Conservative

Mitt Romney’s selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate has been well received by the Republican faithful. Movement conservatives in particular have been energized with the pick given that, unlike Romney, Ryan is actually one of them.
The enthusiasm from the Republican right is hardly surprising — these days a GOP candidate need only oppose a Democrat’s expansion of government-provided health care, promise to protect the military-industrial complex, and talk a good game about free markets to win their support. For libertarians and those in the tea party movement who yearn for a federal government that adheres to the limits prescribed in the Constitution, Ryan offers temptation but not much else.
Having suffered through four years of a Democratic administration reeking of collectivism and disdain for private initiative, Ryan might seem like a breath of fresh air to the smaller-government crowd. Unlike the average member of Congress, Ryan actually puts some thought into his policy prescriptions. And Ryan recognizes that unsustainable entitlement spending is driving our long-term fiscal problems and has actually attempted to do something about it. While those are positive qualities, policymakers have set the bar so low that it’s possible to make more of these attributes than is warranted.
So what if Paul Ryan was delving into the federal budget when he was still in high school? I didn’t peek at a federal budget until I was out of college. Yet there is no way I would have cast the votes in Congress that Ryan has through the years. Ryan voted for TARP, the auto bailouts, No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Bush stimulus, the Patriot Act, and military adventurism abroad. No policymaker is perfect, but no one with a libertarian bone in their body could have supported these policies.
In fact, for all the talk about Ryan the policy wonk, he’s still a politician through and through. Ryan might not have supported Obama’s stimulus package, but that didn’t stop him from sending letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu asking for taxpayer handouts to organizations back in his district. Apologists will argue that he was just taking care of his constituents, which is his job. If you’re going to accept that excuse then don’t complain about the inability of Congress to get spending under control.

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