Ryan Streeter
Yuval Levin's post at NRO today, which responds to Ramesh Ponnuru's NYT op-ed on entitlement reform and the GOP, is a must-read for anyone who worries about the deficit.
Ponnuru writes that the GOP should hold off until after 2012 to push a reform agenda for Social Security and Medicare, since the political costs are too high and could be self-defeating as Republicans seek to capture the White House in 2012. These are compelling reasons, and many will agree with him.
Levin writes that House Republicans should use the budget resolution in the spring to push for meaningful reforms to the nation's entitlement programs, without which we can't possibly fix the nation's deficit. Rather than avoid the risks inherent in this approach, Republicans:
should take risks for legislation that will define the Republican policy agenda, define the negotiations that must take place between Republicans and Democrats in the course of this congress, define the most important policy debates of the day, and define the party in the minds of voters in the years to come. Moreover, they should take risks to pass legislation that will define the Republican presidential primary race in 2012.
He continues:
Without such reform, there is simply no way to address the government’s fiscal problems. It is impossible to cut discretionary spending enough to balance the budget in the long term (and as the Democrats will find, it is also impossible to raise taxes enough to do so). The basic structure of our welfare state, and especially our Great Society health-care entitlements, is going to have to be changed...Entitlement reform must happen soon, and Republicans need to make it clear to voters that they have a set of well-developed, smart, achievable ideas for making it happen—that they have a vision of limited and effective government that will allow for economic growth, social mobility, and a safety net.
I count both of these writers among my favorites, and on this issue, I think Levin is exactly right. Holding off in hopes that 2013 will bring a Republican White House itself carries too many risks. He says that there is hardly a better time given the portion of the public that wants government to stop the spending madness.
I think he's right about that, but I also think that the risks are significant and will therefore require an expenditure of political energy and capital that not too many Republicans seem willing to take. I wrote just today at the Enterprise blog about how conservative voters - by massive margins - think cutting spending rather than entitlement reform is the key to tackling the deficit.
Paul Ryan is going to need some allies. But even if there are only a few, using the budget resolution and the debate that will ensue as a teaching moment for America strikes me as a risk very much worth taking.
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