Paul Ryan’s Kemp-Inspired Crusade Against Poverty

By Steve Parkhurst

While I admit to being one of those people that thinks Washington D.C. is incapable of controlling and patrolling itself, and that something like The Liberty Amendments proposed by Mark Levin are in order for us to rein government back in, there is something to be said for the efforts of Congressman Paul Ryan.

This is an interesting story in the Washington Post, or as I prefer to call it, Pravda on the Potomac. Still, this article is pretty well done:

Paul Ryan is ready to move beyond last year’s failed presidential campaign and the budget committee chairmanship that has defined him to embark on an ambitious new project: Steering Republicans away from the angry, nativist inclinations of the tea party movement and toward the more inclusive vision of his mentor, the late Jack Kemp.

Since February, Ryan (R-Wis.) has been quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods with another old Kemp ally, Bob Woodson, the 76-year-old civil rights activist and anti-poverty crusader, to talk to ex-convicts and recovering addicts about the means of their salvation.

Ryan’s staff, meanwhile, has been trolling center-right think tanks and intellectuals for ideas to replace the “bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs” that Ryan blames for “wrecking families and communities” since Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964.

Next year, for the 50th anniversary of that crusade, Ryan hopes to roll out an anti-poverty plan to rival his budgetary Roadmap for America’s Future in scope and ambition. He is also writing a book about what’s next for the GOP, recalling the 1979 tome that detailed Kemp’s vision under the subtitle, “The Brilliant Young Congressman’s Plan for a Return to Prosperity.”

Of course, that “1979 tome” was Jack Kemp’s An American Renaissance. But I digress.

Ryan’s new emphasis on social ills doesn’t imply that he’s willing to compromise with Democrats on spending more government money. His idea of a war on poverty so far relies heavily on promoting volunteerism and encouraging work through existing federal programs, including the tax code. That’s a skewed version of Kempism, which recognizes that “millions of Americans look to government as a lifeline,” said Bruce Bartlett, a historian who worked for Kemp and has become an acerbic critic of the modern GOP.

“They want to care,” Bartlett said of Ryan and modern Republicans. “But they’re so imprisoned by their ideology that they can’t offer anything meaningful.” Ryan has explained the difference by noting that the national debt has grown enormously since Kemp ran for president in 1988, nearly doubling as a percentage of the economy.

Kempism. Stay tuned in future months for more on that.

In the mid-1990s, crime and poverty were hot national issues. Kemp was a font of innovative ideas for reviving inner-city commerce, rebuilding public housing and overhauling the welfare system. He was pro-immigration, pro-equal opportunity and, above all, pro-tax cuts, which he viewed as government’s primary tool for promoting growth.

Unlike other Republicans, Kemp also frequently visited black and Hispanic voters and asked them directly for their votes.

Two days after Ryan was introduced as Romney’s running mate, he pushed to do the same. Advisers recall Ryan in workout clothes in a Des Moines Marriott, telling campaign officials in Boston that he had two requests: First, to meet the staff in person. And second, to travel to urban areas and speak about poverty.

No one said no. But with Romney focused relentlessly on Obama’s failure to improve the economy for middle-class Americans, the idea always seemed off-message. “We struggled to find the right timing to dovetail it into our messaging schedule,” Romney strategist Ed Gillespie said via e-mail.

Ryan adviser Dan Senor said Ryan argued that “47 million people on food stamps is an economic failure.” But Ryan did not get clearance to deliver a speech on poverty, his sole policy address, until two weeks before the election.

Great point: “47 million people on food stamps is an economic failure.”

Ryan had sought Woodson’s help with his poverty speech. The two reconnected after the election and began traveling together in February — once a month, no reporters — to inner-city programs supported by Woodson’s Center for Neighborhood Enterprise. In Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Denver, Woodson said, Ryan asked questions about “the agents of transformation and how this differs from the professional approach” of government social workers.

Like Woodson, the programs share a disdain for handouts and a focus on helping people address their own problems. In Southeast Washington, Ryan met Bishop Shirley Holloway, who gave up a comfortable career in the U.S. Postal Service to minister to drug addicts, ex-offenders, the homeless — people for whom government benefits can serve only to hasten their downfall, Holloway said.

At City of Hope, they are given an apartment and taught life skills and encouraged to confront their psychological wounds. They can stay as long as they’re sober and working, often in a job Holloway has somehow created.

“Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps.”

Trips to Newark and Texas are slated for later this month. Woodson said Ryan has also asked him to gather community leaders for an event next year, and to help him compare the results of their work with the 78 means-tested programs that have cost the federal government $15 trillion since 1964.

The takeaway for Ryan, a Catholic, has been explicitly religious. “You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul,” he said last week at the Heritage forum. “Spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people.”

How to translate spiritual redemption into public policy?

If you don’t have goosebumps at this point, what’s wrong with you?

“There’s definitely a feeling that conservatives need to get in this arena,” Winship said. Otherwise, “the voices on the left are going to have the entire conversation to themselves.”

A point Newt Gingrich has been making for many years now, and something we fight against here at GPH. To paraphrase Gingrich, you can’t get real solutions offered if you have two Leftists debating on stage, and Republicans standing off to the side yelling “no!” Conservatives and Republicans have to get into the less comfortable debates and have real discussions with people; start connecting with the community. As Jack Kemp used to say, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Also worth noting before closing, the swipe at the “angry, nativist inclinations of the tea party movement” is both senseless and pointless. It tells me that the Left is worried that Paul Ryan and those few like him may be on to something here. If they aren’t worried, then this was just another swipe at the tea party. You decide.

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Steve Parkhurst Reviews Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments

This review was first published at Big Jolly Politics:

Mark Levin’s newest book, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, is a different sort of attempt at a national dialogue than any we have seen in recent history.

As national dialogues go, in 2011 President Obama disgraced himself in his attempt at a “dialogue,” which escalated into demagoguery, after the horrific shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. As you will recall, the president spoke that month in Arizona at a mini-DNC rally disguised as a memorial service, where he quickly resorted to typical left-wing tactics, attacking the Second Amendment and calling for tighter gun laws, restrictions and bans. The Presidents attempt at a “national dialogue” was short lived, poorly planned and altogether un-serious.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has attempted to initiate a few dialogues, including one in 2010 where he spoke to the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan and suggested ways for Michiganders to save Detroit. Gingrich was attacked, as usual, and earlier this year, well, we all know what happened to Detroit.

Congressman Paul Ryan authored the Roadmap to Prosperity, a plan to reform some aspects of government and start to reverse negative trends while providing the chance for individuals to choose an alternative to the failing social security system. As usual, the Left went on the attack, lying their way into history as defenders of the failing status quo. You may recall the commercial where a faux Paul Ryan pushes a senior citizen in a wheelchair over a cliff. Yes, that was “Leftist Dialogue for Dummies” if there ever was such a title.

Fast forward to 2013 and Mark Levin has authored a very important book that since its release two weeks ago has taken me some time to read, comprehend, appreciate, embrace and now fully advocate. This attempt at a national dialogue is more serious and substantive than anything attempted by the permanent campaigner. Levin begins his premise from the United States Constitution, where he takes Article V (not to be confused with the Fifth Amendment) and shines a new light on it. (the underlined portion is the aspect that The Liberty Amendments focuses on).

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

This look at federalism is refreshing and modern, and Levin is a great writer with a pristine intellect, as he demonstrates here:

Clearly there is much political, social, and economic diversity among the states. Some states respect the individual more than others. Some are downright oppressive in their imposition of regulatory and tax schemes. But people can move from state to state, and often do, to escape one state’s burdens for another state’s opportunities. Federalism is not about any single state or small faction of states imposing their will on the nation. It is about states serving, in the aggregate, as an essential buffer between the central government and the people, safeguarding the citizen from authoritarianism’s consolidated rule, thereby preserving and promoting self-government. After all, self-government is a fundamental feature of a constitutional republic. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

We can all agree to disagree on the specifics of Levin’s actual proposals (not that I personally disagree with any of these). Things like term limits for members of Congress and the Senate. Term limits for members of the Supreme Court. Having state legislatures, those officials most responsible to the people, go back to selecting the United States Senators. Significantly reducing out of control and unregulated bureaucracy. Calling for a 30 day period between the time a bill is completely written and the time it is voted on. Strengthening voter ID laws. Reforming the tax system.

The bigger issue is this idea, an idea as old as the Constitution itself, that the people can take back power from the federal government and return it to the states when they have had enough of the oppressive, heavy hand.

The founders did not intend that politicians would make a career out of “serving the people.” They reasonably figured someone would be elected from their community, would serve a short time, and would then return back home to their community, and their career. The idea of the career legislator, the professional politician, serving 20, 30 or 40 years, would have been a foreign concept to those great men. As Levin points out though:

“History demonstrates that republics collapse when demagogues present themselves as their guardians to entice the people and cloak their true intentions.”

What Levin is advocating for will not happen overnight. It will not happen in the next election cycle, or the election cycle after that. This will be a long, time-consuming effort. The effort will be frustrating. Is this endeavor worth the effort? Levin offers this thought in Chapter 1, for those not willing to undertake the challenge or even consider doing so:

“Still more may be resigned to a grim future, preferring lamentation to the hard work of purposeful action.”

Let that sink in.

The Liberty Amendments is chock full of notes and references, including much high praise for founders like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. The book is well researched, the writing is very good, it is not hard to understand or comprehend but on the contrary, it is very informative.

Pick up a copy of The Liberty Amendments. Give it a chance. If you agree with the underlying idea, that Article V provides a way out, get involved locally. Take “purposeful action.” Have meetings with small groups. Share ideas and get people thinking and talking. When you meet legislators or candidates, educate them and demand they consider these ideas. Those who refuse to listen, there is always another election cycle. Mark Levin is on to something here, and those ready to take part now have a guide.

As a note on modern politics, campaigns will have to go on as usual. Politics will still exist. We will still debate, argue and converse. This new concept that Levin is promoting will not take hold after 2014, or after 2016. But the slow work, the longer task, is to build up a grassroots army of individuals and legislators willing to take this next step. So, while you are preparing for 2014 and 2016, find a way to also advocate for Article V and a return to federalism. For in the end, it may be the last best hope at controlling Leviathan.

I will end this review with the words Levin used to close out his book, for he can say it much better than I ever will:

In the end, the people, upon reflection, will decide their own fate once their attention is drawn. As President Reagan stated, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope for man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us that we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

Let us do all that can be done. Let us be inspired by the example of our forefathers and their courage, strength, and wisdom. Let us be inspired by the genius of the Constitution and its preservation of the individual and the civil society. Let us unleash an American renaissance in which liberty is celebrated and self-government is cherished. Let us, together – we, the people – restore the splendor of the American Republic.

Time is of the essence. Let us get started today!

Paul Ryan Talks With Bill Bennett

By Steve Parkhurst

Congressman Paul Ryan talked with Bill Bennett on Wednesday morning. I think this interview was actually pretty thorough and Paul Ryan was definitely on top of his game. Listen to them discuss the Senate immigration bill, energy policy and upcoming budget issues.

NRO: Paul Ryan to Write Book

We love to hear news like this. According to Robert Costa over at National Review Online, Congressman Paul Ryan is working on a book. And, the book appears to be hitting on the themes that we advocate here: renewal, renaissance, the “American idea,” and of course, Ryan’s time spent working with the great Jack Kemp:

So far, Ryan has been doing the writing by himself. The early theme of the draft is a broad discussion of American renewal, with an emphasis on the Republican future and the party’s need to articulate what he calls the “American idea.”

Behind the scenes, Ryan is worried that the GOP is losing its connection with working Americans, and he has been writing about how the party needs to speak more to those in poverty about empowerment and economic freedom. His recent speeches at the American Enterprise Institute’s Kristol dinner and at Benedictine College have touched on this issue, and Ryan is eager to broaden the argument into chapter form.

On a personal level, the book will highlight his childhood in Janesville, Wis., his time as an aide to Jack Kemp, and his rise through the congressional ranks. Kemp, especially, will have a special place in the book, and in many ways, Ryan’s effort will likely echo Kemp’s book, An American Renaissance: A Strategy for the 1980s.

All of a sudden, next year can not get here fast enough.

Why We Can’t Give Up

By Joe Gruters

Yes. November was disheartening for Republicans, conservatives, traditionalists and all those who want to see a free and prosperous country for generations to come.

But disheartening can’t mean giving up.

We can’t continue in the current direction. Republicans know that.

We don’t need to.

In the fifth year of the Obama presidency, we have a barely sputtering economic recovery nationally, always on the brink of slipping back into a recession. We have a record number of people on food stamps and other welfare programs. Democrats will continue to say things would be worse without their interventions. But that embarrassingly weak defense can be defeated, and must be.

We’ve printed, borrowed and spent trillions more than we collected, all in the name of compassion and stimulating the economy. The economy stinks and we have record numbers of people not working, slogging along at the bottom of the economy with declining hope. The March employments numbers were dismal, well below even modest expectations. That is failure, but not just politics. It’s awful for the future of the country.

By the end of Obama’s second term, if Congress remains status quo, Democrats will have added $10 trillion to the national debt, on top of George W. Bush’s $4 trillion, which was bad enough. We don’t just need Republicans, we need actual, honest-go-gosh, principled conservative Republicans.

They must overturn the worst elements of Obamacare. Once it is fully implemented next year, it will be revealed for the bait-and-switch con we all suspected it was but were never sure because nobody actually knew what was in the bill. The opposite of what was promised will come to be in several areas: health-care premiums will go up, not down; health care will begin to be rationed, not expanded; doctors will be harder to find, not more plentiful; and jobs will be axed in the industry. We may never overturn Obamacare by name, but we can gut it, cutting out much of the government-takeover elements that will ruin our health care system.

Social Security and Medicare are headed for the shoals. The demographics against them are too strong without changes in the programs. Romney made the case, but he faced too many other problems. It’s a steep climb, but it must be done. People like Paul Ryan, who lives in a Democrat district in Wisconsin, has taken it on repeatedly. That’s what we need more of.

The reality is that these things can be done because we are right. But it will take a lot of work and devotion on our part. We’ve already had victories when the raw facts became overwhelming. For instance, most conservatives were skeptical of the man-made climate-warming hysteria and political control agenda behind it.

Carbon emissions have been continuing to increase since 2000, but the planet has not heated up since then. Some politicized scientists, many in the media and hysterical fringes like Al Gore may still keep yelling that the sky is falling. But they are already being marginalized by the plain facts. There is no real movement anymore to make the ridiculous changes that Kyoto and other insanities once proposed. Green energy won’t go away, but as long as it’s subsidies are kept under control or, dare we hope, eliminated, it’s a net positive. If the market will sustain it, great. Otherwise, chuck it.

The good news is that Republicans continue winning at the state level and conservative ideas are rising triumphant whenever tried. Florida is a perfect example, as our economy, which was worse when Gov. Scott took office, has roared past the national recovery — such as that is. If it were not for Republican-run states such as Florida, Texas, South Carolina, North Dakota and so, the nation would probably be in a recession.

Conservative economic policies work — when they are tried.

We must make sure they are tried again. Too much rests on it.

The direction has been to institutionalize massive government programs and intervention in the economy while steadily sapping the American people of the very qualities that made the country great: love of freedom, risk-taking, hard work, personal responsibility, faith.

We must change this direction. We fight for change, from top to bottom. Because Greece, Spain, Cyprus are our future if we don’t.

It starts next year, to maintain and expand our control of the House in Congress and try to pick up seats in the Senate — with conservative Republicans.

Thanks for being informed and engaged.

Poll Finds America Is Conservative

By Joe Gruters

A recent poll by The Hill has given us some extraordinarily revealing insights into the electorate that Republicans keep losing nationally.

There is a strong conservative majority in America. They just don’t know it, because of labeling and branding problems.

On four questions, voters were asked which solution they preferred to handle a known problem, without party affiliation identifying the solution. On the question dealing with the budget and deficit, they overwhelming went conservative — choosing the equivalent of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget over Sen. Patty Murray’s budget nearly 2-1. Even regarding Obamacare, they were clearly conservative — an 8 percentage point difference favoring full repeal over full enactment.

I know you are thinking that this must be a Republican tilted poll. But here is the real kicker and revelation. When the pollsters asked respondents which party they trusted more on budgetary issues — the issues just covered in the poll’s preceding question — respondents flipped: Democrats won 35% to 30% over Republicans with 34% saying they trust neither party. The poll itself even has a five percentage-point sampling advantage for registered Democrats.

It’s a good poll. And that means that there are a lot of conservative-minded voters out there who are automatically pulling the lever for Democrats. Sure, the disconnect is media-induced to a degree. That is a big hurdle to get over. But it is also just the facts. Can’t fight gravity. Can’t fight media bias. Have to deal with the realities.

The most obvious reality is that Republicans are not losing because Americans do not like their policies. We are losing despite the fact that Americans do like our policies. It would be a grave mistake to change policies, compromising on principles, as some in the media and the Republican D.C. establishment recommend.

The Hill Poll did not ask about social issues, but other polls have uniformly shown that on the seminal cultural divide, abortion, the country has been trending dramatically more pro-life for 25 years. Facts will do that for some people, and the facts about the humanity of an early-term fetus are now undeniable.  People are informed, and now they are rejecting the pro-choice stance. That can happen on other issues with the right message — which is definitively not “moderating.”

Moderating — becoming more liberal on issues — would be a political disaster. It would depress the base, give impetus to third parties for frustrated conservatives, and still not win any votes because Americans agree with Republicans on the issues!

The Hill Poll

Do you prefer budget Plan 1 with $1 Trillion in Tax Hikes and 100 billion in cuts that does not balance budget, or Plan 2 that does not raise taxes, cuts $5 trillion and balances budget?

Plan 1  28%

Plan 2  55%

Neither  17%

 

Should U.S. budget deficits be reduced mostly by cutting spending or raising taxes?

Cutting spending  65%

Raising taxes  24%

Don’t know  11%

 

Should the healthcare reform law known as Obamacare be fully implemented, fully repealed or neither?

Fully implemented  37%

Fully repealed  45%

Neither  14%

 

Budget constraints were recently cited as the reason for cancelling tours of the White House. Should those tours be resumed?

Yes  54%

No  28%

Not sure  18%

 

Which party do you trust more on budgetary issues?

Democrats  35%

Republicans  30%

Neither  34%

Source: www.thehill.com

 

Thanks for being informed and engaged.

Paul Ryan: A Balanced Budget By 2023

Congressman Paul Ryan has taken to the pages of the Wall Street Journal today to explain the new Republican balanced budget proposal. There are many great things to like in this balanced budget, and you can view the entire budget here, view many useful charts and tools here, but today’s op-ed below is a good place to start.

 

By Paul Ryan

America’s national debt is over $16 trillion. Yet Washington can’t figure out how to cut $85 billion—or just 2% of the federal budget—without resorting to arbitrary, across-the-board cuts. Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation’s debt—or simply to write a budget—Washington lurches from crisis to crisis.

House Republicans have a plan to change course. On Tuesday, we’re introducing a budget that balances in 10 years—without raising taxes. How do we do it? We stop spending money the government doesn’t have. Historically, Americans have paid a little less than one-fifth of their income in taxes to the federal government each year. But the government has spent more.

So our budget matches spending with income. Under our proposal, the government spends no more than it collects in revenue—or 19.1% of gross domestic product each year. As a result, we’ll spend $4.6 trillion less over the next decade.

Our opponents will shout austerity, but let’s put this in perspective. On the current path, we’ll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we’ll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5% each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4%. Because the U.S. economy will grow faster than spending, the budget will balance by 2023, and debt held by the public will drop to just over half the size of the economy.

Yet the most important question isn’t how we balance the budget. It’s why. A budget is a means to an end, and the end isn’t a neat and tidy spreadsheet. It’s the well-being of all Americans. By giving families stability and protecting them from tax hikes, our budget will promote a healthier economy and help create jobs. Most important, our budget will reignite the American Dream, the idea that anyone can make it in this country.

The truth is, the nation’s debt is a sign of overreach. Government is trying to do too much, and when government does too much, it doesn’t do anything well. So a balanced budget is a reasonable goal, because it returns government to its proper limits and focus. By curbing government’s overreach, our budget will give families the space they need to thrive.

The other side will warn of a relapse into recession—just as they predicted economic disaster when the budget sequester hit. But a balanced budget will help the economy. Smaller deficits will keep interest rates low, which will help small businesses to expand and hire. It’s no surprise, then, that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office believes that legislation reducing the deficit as much as our budget does would boost gross national product by 1.7% in 2023.

We must take action now. Our budget will expand opportunity in major areas like energy. It will protect and strengthen key priorities like Medicare. It will encourage social mobility by retooling welfare. It will fix the broken tax code to create jobs and increase wages.

First, energy. America has the world’s largest natural-gas, oil and coal reserves—enough natural gas to meet the country’s needs for 90 years. Yet the administration is buying up land to prevent further development. Our budget opens these lands to development, so families will have affordable energy. It approves the Keystone XL pipeline, which will create 20,000 direct jobs—and 118,000 indirect jobs. Our budget puts the country on the path to North American energy independence.

Second, health care. Our budget repeals the president’s health-care law and replaces it with patient-centered reforms. It also protects and strengthens Medicare. I want Medicare to be there for my kids—just as it’s there for my mom today. But Medicare is going broke. Under our proposal, those in or near retirement will see no changes, and future beneficiaries will inherit a program they can count on. Starting in 2024, we’ll offer eligible seniors a range of insurance plans from which they can choose—including traditional Medicare—and help them pay the premiums.

The other side will demagogue this issue. But remember: Anyone who attacks our Medicare proposal without offering a credible alternative is complicit in the program’s demise.

Third, welfare reform. After the welfare reforms of 1996, child poverty fell by double digits. This budget extends those reforms to other federal aid programs. It gives states flexibility so they can tailor programs like Medicaid and food stamps to their people’s needs. It encourages states to get people off the welfare rolls and onto payrolls. We shouldn’t measure success by how much we spend. We should measure it by how many people we help. Those who protect the status quo must answer to the 46 million Americans living in poverty.

Fourth, tax reform. The current tax code is a Rubik’s cube that Americans spend six billion hours—and $160 billion—each year trying to solve. The U.S. corporate tax is the highest in the industrialized world. So our budget paves the way for comprehensive tax reform. It calls for Congress to simplify the code by closing loopholes and consolidating tax rates. Our goal is to have just two brackets: 10% and 25%. House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp has committed to pass a specific bill this year.

If we take these steps, the United States will once again become a haven of opportunity. The economy will grow, and the country will regain its strength. All we need is leadership. Washington owes the American people a balanced budget. It isn’t fair to take more from families so government can spend more.

A balanced budget isn’t unprecedented. President Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congress to get it done. House Republicans’ last two budgets balanced, too—albeit at a later date. But a balanced budget is still a noteworthy achievement, considering the competition.

The recent debt-ceiling agreement forced Senate Democrats to write a budget this year, and we expect to see it this week. I hate to break the suspense, but their budget won’t balance—ever. Instead, it will raise taxes to pay for more spending. The president, meanwhile, is standing on the sidelines. He is expected to submit his budget in April—two months past his deadline.

We House Republicans have done our part. We’re offering a credible plan for all the country to see. We’re outlining how to solve the greatest problems facing America today. Now we invite the president and Senate Democrats to join in the effort.

— Mr. Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s first congressional district and is chairman of the House Budget Committee.

– –

A version of this article appeared March 12, 2013, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The GOP Plan to Balance the Budget by 2023.

Kondracke: “Kempism” Beginning To Emerge

Morton Kondracke spoke last week in Los Angeles at Occidental College at the first Kemp Scholar lecture, a new program created at the college from which Jack Kemp graduated. We have posted the thoughts of Mr. Kondracke previously, as he has become a bit of an expert on Jack Kemp in his writing a much overdue biography.

Last week’s Kondracke visit is reported here. The best part of the report comes when Kondracke got into specifics about Jack Kemp Conservatism, which he dubbed “Kempism”:

“Jack was the first and chief advocate for a new idea called supply-side economics,” Kondracke said. “He’s the one who sold Reagan on what became Reaganomics.” His new biography will argue that Reagan and Kemp, acting in concert on both domestic and international policy, won the Cold War. The book’s working title, he said, is Jack Kemp: the Quarterback Who Changed the World.

While Kemp was a principled conservative, “he also was an idealist, passionately dedicated to the well-being of all Americans, regardless of race or gender or income,” Kondracke said. “He thought that ideas could change the world, and he fought his battles on that level, even though that cost him during his political campaigns.”

Were he alive today, Kemp would not write off 47 percent of the electorate, as Mitt Romney did during last year’s presidential election, he said. Kemp opposed Proposition 187, the 1994 California initiative aimed at undocumented workers, and believed supply-side incentives could have a powerful positive effect on communities of color.

“As Newt Gingrich once said, Jack has showered with more African-Americans than most Republicans have ever met,” Kondracke said. “Jack honestly believed that the GOP could once again be the party of Lincoln, that if the economy provided jobs that extended into the ghetto, African-Americans would vote Republican.”

In the wake of Romney’s defeat, Kondracke added, “We have seen the beginnings of the emergence of ‘Kempism’” from such figures as Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (who counted Kemp as a mentor), Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. “What the Republican Party needs is what Jack provided—a conservative message that would appeal to average, ordinary citizens.”

It’s clear that Jack Kemp Conservatism is the definitive remedy for what ails the Republican party today; a solid message that appeals to and benefits every American.

Stay tuned to our efforts, whether here on the blog, via Twitter or via our Jack Kemp project email newsletter. We have some very interesting things in the works and the best way to hear about them will be via one of those three methods. We have made recent additions to the GPH Consulting team and together there will be new things you have not seen from a political consulting firm before.

America Missed

By Steve Parkhurst

As the new year is now underway, the personal shock of the 2012 election has still not set in for me. In my mind I keep re-playing this brief speech excerpt from Paul Ryan just before the November election:

PAUL RYAN: “Our commitment is really clear. We’re saying here are the solutions; here are the principles we’re going to use; here’s our proven bipartisan track record of actually delivering results and getting things done; here’s what we’re going to do. And I’ve got to tell you, 2013 could be a renaissance in America, in the world and in America. 2013 can be the year we get our economy growing, we start creating 12 million new jobs, we put these pro-growth policies in place and we reaffirm the American idea by electing Mitt Romney the next President of the United States.” – Full kudos to Breitbart for the video and transcript.

Time will tell, but as of now, I feel like America missed as great opportunity with a Romney Presidency. Not only would Barack Obama not be a President with nothing to fear as he will never again appear on a ballot, but we still do not have a credible business, a CEO-type in the Oval Office. We have an excuse maker with no track record of accomplishments and no history of being held accountable for failure. Mitt Romney may not have turned out to be the next Ronald Reagan or Calvin Coolidge, but he would have been a tremendous improvement over the current President.

Now, we’ll never know. This video keeps reminding me of the great opportunity we had in 2012 and beyond.

America missed.

Jack Kemp, Poverty and the Road Ahead for the GOP

The Sacramento Bee has a column today about the Republican party and its need to show it “cares about people”. There are any number of analyses since the November election about how the party can reform itself. At this point, I have not seen the exact right “silver bullet” theory that in my mind would turn the GOP ship around. In this column today, I was struck by the reference to Jack Kemp, at which point I think the author made some of his strongest points:

When Jack Kemp was on the national stage he addressed the real issues of poverty in our country, and once again, it is time for this debate. The real issues of poverty are the focus of resources on the people who actually need them, communities so lacking in resources that the ladder of opportunity is not stable, and crimes or unethical business practices that happen only because the people being disadvantaged are not in a position to negotiate or draw political attention.

While many of Kemp’s proposals proved to be too costly, he forced Republicans to critically think about an issue that affects millions of Americans.

Any debated policy that impacts the lives of millions of Americans is most likely good politics. A serious discussion and policy proposals aimed at reducing poverty will give Republicans the opportunity to break the stereotype that they are only for the rich. This is a path based on principle that also allows the Republican Party and its leaders to move into demographic areas it needs to win elections.

Read the rest of the column here.

There are some real opportunities here for this effort to show the Republican party “cares about people”. The Republican party has always had the right position on welfare reform. The idea is to reform the system so that those who are able and willing can return to work. Instead, the system cripples those with initiative or desire. The welfare system needs to be looked at as an investment in a future, an investment in American workers. There should be skill training or jobs training that goes along with a check from the government.

Anyway, show me a democrat thinking along these same lines, and then we’re onto something. Until then, Jack Kemp and his proteges like Congressman Paul Ryan are the only ones with real answers and real solutions.

What are your thoughts? Share them with us here on the blog, or tweet us @GPHconsulting.