OPINION:
From the horrors of terrorism in Orlando to the wave of trash talk it invited, outrage each day in the waning months of the Obama era exceeds the outrage of the previous day. In answer, House Speaker Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues have drawn up several ideas about how to reform the form and function of government. Some are promising, and all of them are better than joining Hillary and the Democrats to beat up the prospective Republican nominee for president.
Titled “A Better Way,” the Ryan proposal outlines reforms focused on poverty, national security, the economy, and the Constitution. It promises future ideas for dealing with health care and tax reform. While President Obama has attempted to mollify Americans for the damage he has caused to their economic futures by showering them with entitlements, the Ryan plan harkens to the effective reform of 1996 that made welfare conditional on work: “We need to attack poverty right at its roots. Instead of starting with welfare, we start with work.”
The work component would apply to both cash assistance to needy families and food stamps. Children with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) would have access to special education and mental or physical therapies. Children who now receive SSI stay in a state of federal dependency for an average of 26.7 years. Providing the indigent with a check without encouraging him to stand on his own feet is the sure way to crush his self-confidence.
Top priority for upgrading national security to defeat terrorism must be to take the fight to the enemy. That’s a goal easy to claim but hard to accomplish. Mr. Obama has not done it, as CIA Director John Brennan made clear in his sobering testimony on Capitol Hill: “Unfortunately, despite all our progress against [ISIS] on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.”
Common sense dictates that with terrorists streaming out of the Middle East, the security of the nation’s borders is Job One. Closing security gaps in transportation and immigration systems to prevent Islamist militants from reaching America is fundamental to making Americans safe in their homes.
The Ryan economic revitalization plan begins with reining the regulatory beast, which last year took a $1.89 trillion bite out of American productivity. Mr. Ryan endorses the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, which would enable Congress to regulate the regulators by overturning foolish and costly rules. The House has passed the legislation but the Senate has yet to vote.
The Obama administration has treated the Constitution as “a mere parchment barrier,” the governing philosophy that James Madison warned against. “A Better Way” urges a recommitment to constitutional government: “Instead of trying to find every which way to bypass the will of the people, it abides by the consent of the governed.”
Good governance starts with good ideas, and Mr. Ryan’s blueprint for a new conservative agenda for the post-Obama era is a worthy beginning. If the speaker can fill in the details and put a realistic price tag on them, America may once more catch the vision of what a nation can accomplish when every citizen puts an oar in the water and pulls together.
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