Peggy Noonan on Paul Ryan

Opinion Writer Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the problems we face and someone she thinks is facing up to them, Congressman Paul Ryan:

Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan.  Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized.  He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies.  He reads.  Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true.  He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them. Conservatives naturally like him—they agree with him—but liberals and journalists inclined to disagree with him take him seriously and treat him with respect.

This week he spoke on "The American Idea" at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.  He scored the president as too small for the moment, as "petty" in his arguments and avoidant of the decisions entailed in leadership.  At times like this, he said, "the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns."  Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.

The president, he said, has made a shift in his appeal to the electorate.  "Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment."

But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business.  They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis.  Here Mr. Ryan slammed "corporate welfare and crony capitalism."

"Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"

Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should "lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive." The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless." The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."

If more Republicans thought—and spoke—like this, the party would flourish.  People would be less fearful for the future.  And Mr. Obama wouldn't be seeing his numbers go up.

I am all for the idea that "we should 'lower the amount of government sending the wealthy now receive'".

I don't like the concept of too big to fail.  An organization too big to fail should be too big to continue without being broken up.  The New York Times OpEd writer, Thomas Freidman, today talked about this.  He laid down four rules we should be following:

We need to focus on four reforms that don’t require new bureaucracies to implement.

1. If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can’t risk another trillion-dollar bailout.
2. If your bank’s deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can’t do any proprietary trading with those deposits — period.
3. Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk.
4. Finally, an idea from the blogosphere:  U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from.  The public needs to know.

I especially like the "don’t require new bureaucracies to implement".  As I have expressed here before, if the government gets into an escalation of rule making with Wall Street (and Main Street) it will always be behind the smart thinkers out there in Capitalism or it will choke capitalism to death.

That still leaves us trying to understand how to cope with high tech automation.  How do we generate the jobs that will allow the working men and women of the US (and of the world) to buy the things that are being producing so well and so cheaply?

Regards  —  Cliff