Here is the base story (link with excerpt below) which we use to reflect on former Speaker Paul Ryan and his recently announced formation of a foundation to “promote conservative policies”. We use an actual tenet of conservatism – the voice of experience with him on several key matters to evaluate. From the Washington Examiner:
Our first question of course is: WHY DIDN’T THIS PHONY PROMOTE “CONSERVATIVE POLICIES” WHEN HE WAS SPEAKER ?
Wonkish Ex-Speaker Paul Ryan Launches Non-Profit To Promote Conservative Policies
Paul Ryan is tapping his Rolodex of wealthy Republican donors to fund a new political nonprofit organization committed to promoting the conservative policies that drove the former House speaker’s legislative agenda over two decades in Congress.
The American Idea Foundation, with headquarters located in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, is the Republican’s answer to the question of how to influence American public policy while in his political retirement. The organization plans to partner with academics, think tanks, and other groups to address poverty, drug addiction, education, upward mobility, and other reforms Ryan worked on in Washington. Ryan is the foundation’s president, with two longtime aides running it day to day.
“I cannot wait to get started on this endeavor,” Ryan said in a statement.
Ryan, 49, retired from Congress last year after 20 years representing a House district situated in southeast Wisconsin. He rose from being a young, obscure lawmaker to the Republican Party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee. His career, marked by support for reforming political third-rail entitlement programs Medicare and Social Security, included stints as chairman of the Budget Committee and Ways and Means Committee in the House and, eventually, as speaker.
Ryan is a policy wonk and was much happier writing legislation than socializing with colleagues or raising money. But he understood that making policy required winning a majority in Congress — and that required raising money. Always a prodigious fundraiser, Ryan enlisted the GOP donors he cultivated during his vice presidential run and turned into a rainmaker for House Republicans.
In our judgement “the wonk” must have been more happy writing legislation than passing it. Perhaps most harmful to his legacy – Ryan failed on health care reform, the ending of Obamacare. The Senate the House and the Presidency were in Republican hands. If he thought foot dragging or failure to produce on reform would prevent a Republican loss in 2018 – well how did that work out? Conservatives were anxious knowing that political majorities are not permanent and dependence on big-government programs only makes reform more difficult. The legacy of big-government control continues.
Besides failing to stop further dependence on Obamacare we saw Planned Parenthood funding continue, the border continued to be a sieve with nothing seriously done about the enticements attracting illegal immigration. And real budget reform – forget about it. Then when he announced his retirement in April of 2018 rather than resign the speakership and allow for someone to take the helm ASAP, he clung to it, and rather than produce anything in the lame-duck period he essentially let things ride.
The guy in practice was a rather pathetic establishment Republican. Nothing revolutionary about him, only preservation of the status quo. Are we too harsh? Well we set forth this link to at least admit of people who think he should not be blamed. However much conservative judgement seems to at least be disappointment because more could have been done.
Rather than his foundation’s chosen title the American Idea Foundation, which seems a bit of a rip-off of Jack Kemp’s foundation’s slogan,* might we suggest perhaps more apt names for Ryan’s. Off the top of our head how about: The Conservative Consternation Corps featuring its ongoing seminar How to Claim Conservatism and Not Really Try; or simply Failure to Launch. As regards the description of Ryan’s new foundation as a “think tank” – a slogan might appropriately be : “Why seize the day when you can think about it?” Or, “Why knock heads when you can throw up your hands?”
There is another news article about the foundation roll-out that we would like to reflect on a bit. From The Wassau Wisconsin Pilot and Review October 29th: (Bold our emphasis)
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan launches new organization
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Former House Speaker Paul Ryan has launched a new nonprofit organization he says will be focused on fighting poverty, increasing economic opportunities and advancing evidence-based public policies.
Ryan announced the launch of the American Idea Foundation on Monday. He moved more than $7 million from his congressional account into the nonprofit when he announced its formation earlier this year.
The foundation will be based in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville. Ryan moved his family from Janesville to Maryland earlier this year.
Ryan decided against seeking re-election last year, ending his 20-year career in the House. The Republican from Janesville has kept a mostly low profile since then. Since leaving Congress he joined the board of directors of Fox Corporation and the faculty of the University of Notre Dame.
We were aware and blurbed the fact that he was now on the Fox Corporation board of directors and Notre Dame faculty. We basically responded we did not anticipate anything for the good as a result. But we found it interesting that Ryan had moved to Maryland some time ago, really not long after leaving the Speakership. We thought he was supposed to be just Mister Aw-Shucks-Small-Town Midwest-Family-Man anxious to get back to the real world. Now a year or two after being away he is basically back inside the Beltway. He must have missed it so.
The article above also contained a tidbit that made us a little suspicious, given our jaundiced view of most congressmen. The millions from his political coffers should have gone to political action (the purpose for which it was presumably given) on behalf of him or his designees in 2018. That he held it back and is now converting it to his foundation (PACs can give to charities) allows him to profit from it if he receives a salary from a foundation he heads which is now instantly well-fixed with seed-money and fund-raising staff. That is an IF as it has not been announced that he will receive a salary. But even if there will be no salary directly to him, it seems unseemly especially if donors kept giving after his announced retirement or even if some gave with the anticipation that it could go to a sinecure of sorts for whatever Ryan wanted to do. If true it should be disallowed.
V’PAC
*Ryan was a Kemp fan, maybe there is some association. We were Kemp fans in 1988, over GHW Bush, but we hope Kemp now would have understood that a devotion to “free trade” vis a vi China and multi-lateral agreements in general are the devil’s playground in practice. There was nothing even-keeled about such agreements, they were as Trump insisted — very bad deals, imposing tariffs on Americans in the form of lost intellectual property, undercutting manufacturing and other jobs here, lessening national security and demonstrably not creating liberal democracies in dictatorships like China.
Further, we hope that Kemp’s positive attitude toward immigration would not have countenanced today’s level of illegal immigration, with the inducements that have been built in, and its effects on American blue-collar enterprise opportunities. As Milton Friedman famously remarked, ~ you can’t have open borders and the welfare state. We would also hope that Kemp and his legacy foundation would understand that you cannot have a wide-open back-door allowing illegal immigration and have much of a front door for legal immigration.
We see the term “beacon for democracy” often used to impart some sort of nostalgic glow by Ryan and others to both immigration and foreign policy but it is not a great formulation respecting our system of government if it is meant to excuse or be soft on illegal immigration or imply an obligation on our part to continuously engage in wars of liberation.
First of all we are a light to the world because we are a constitutional republic that respects law and order and provides for a bill of rights for its citizens not subject to democracies of the moment. Our republican form of government is a concept deserving of emphasis as originally memorialized by France with its gift of the Statue of Liberty to us. The statue was never about being a beacon for immigration and certainly not to draw people in illegally even if it does happen to be near a disembarkation point (Ellis Island) for the processing of legal immigrants. Rather it is a torch light that serves to enlighten, to indicate that here is an example of what all people should aspire to for their countries, a republican form of government. The purpose has been hijacked by malcontents and those confused by a latter day poem that had nothing to do with the purpose of the statue.
A flame dies out if it is not properly sustained. Too much fuel at once douses a flame. Fuel therefor has to be regulated in terms of preparation and orderly delivery, which the process of legal immigration helps do. Our country serves freedom worldwide by being an example, by being a sustained constitutional republic, an example of how other countries ought to be, of how to do it, and not by the implications of being an all come and stay beacon. No home could survive that. And we should be very selective about where we send our sons and daughters to fight, emphasizing protection of our homeland not nation building.
