THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
PHOTO BY ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
Bush’s ill-fated attempt to introduce private accounts into Social
Security in 2005. That initiative
went down in flames.
But Ryan and others have argued that times are different now.
The 2008 fiscal crisis brought
home to many Americans that
the government, like any regular household, can’t continually spend money it doesn’t have
without repercussions. Medicare
reform is the clearest signal the
U.S. government can send to the
world that it is serious about getting its fiscal house in order, the
argument goes. So reform may
not be the political liability it has
been in the past.
“Some argue that we should
downplay bold agendas and simply wage a campaign focused
solely on the president and his
party. I firmly disagree,” Ryan
said at CPAC. “Boldness and clarity offer the greatest opportunity
to create a winning coalition. We
will not only win the next election— we have a unique opportunity to sweep and remake the
political landscape.”
“We want this debate, we need
this debate and we are going to win
this debate on Medicare,” he said
during a campaign stop on Monday.
Still, even some of the strongest
Republican proponents of spending discipline and Medicare reform think Romney might suffer
g &VB