Paul Ryan, the man who, according the President Obama and his campaign, wants to do unspeakable things to Medicare, went to talk to the American Association of Retired Persons on Friday. This is from an editorial in The Wall Street Journal today*:
“The headlines this weekend were all about the boos Paul Ryan elicited on Friday when he addressed the AARP ….
Mr. Ryan deserves credit merely for showing up ….
AARP CEO Barry Rand used his opening remarks to defend President Obama's health-care bill …. He then turned the event over to President Obama, who via satellite attacked Mitt Romney and Mr. Ryan for wanting to deny medical care to seniors.
Mr. Ryan … didn't soften his message that Medicare is on a path to bankruptcy if it isn't reformed. …
Largely unreported … was the applause Mr. Ryan received. That came in response to his criticism of ObamaCare's Independent Payment Advisory Board, the 15 ‘unaccountable bureaucrats’ empowered under the Affordable Care Act to make cuts to Medicare that Mr. Ryan rightly said will ‘jeopardize access to care.’ The payment board is largely shielded from Congressional review precisely so it can ration care with little democratic oversight. This is how Mr. Obama will rein in Medicare costs—whether seniors like it or not.
The Wisconsin Congressman was also cheered for his promise that his Medicare premium-support reform would ‘force insurance companies to compete against each other to better serve seniors, with more help for the poor and the sick—and less help for the wealthy.’
Perhaps most striking, Mr. Ryan even earned some applause when he discussed Social Security reform, including ‘slightly raising the retirement age over time and slowing the growth of benefits for those with higher incomes.’ …
The press corps likes to whine that politicians duck the ‘hard choices,’ but when a politician doesn't duck they quickly call it politically foolish and a lost cause. …
Everyone knows that Medicare spending can't continue on its current course, and one difference in this campaign is that Mr. Ryan is willing to say so ….”
In 2003 Don Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, famously said that “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” The same is true about political campaigns. You campaign for the candidates you have.
Mitt Romney is better than Barack Obama. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are so much better than Barack Obama and Joe Biden that the choice is easy.
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* “Ryan at the AARP,” The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2012. You may be able to find it online here.
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