Jay Ambrose: The outstanding Paul Ryan departs
House Speaker Paul Ryan is retiring, and some say good riddance to bad rubbish while others of us say the rubbish resides in the critics. He is one of the best things to happen to Washington in years, this Wisconsin Republican who has been pragmatic, principled, prudent, caring, honest, knowledgeable, calm, compromising and innovative.
The trouble is that being the best thing can also make you a bad fit. How many others, for instance, would be so audacious as to try to fix Medicare in order to sustain it and deal with a killer debt? Doing something so responsible is to have demagogues lynch you or, seeing as how that could get them in trouble, come up with a televised video showing you push an old lady off a cliff in her wheelchair.
This is precisely the kind of vile tactic the left has consistently employed to win votes and devastate the public. The fact is that Medicare and Social Security constitute a mammoth part of the unified budget, that baby boomer retirements are causing a cost explosion and that the only way to fix things without economic mayhem is adjustments to the programs. That does not mean people are suddenly going to be cheated left and right, but that is what the left pretends by way of cheating the people left and right.
So Ryan came up with a voucher program that would still serve beneficiaries while reasonably tamping down the dangers, and that’s just not the way Washington works. Along the same lines, he then came up with a welfare reform package that would mightily serve the poor, believe it or not.
The program would be workoriented, and here was its genius: It would have third parties regularly evaluate whether different parts were working so that it could be revised as needed and actually accomplish its objective. Fellow conservatives did not leap aboard. Nor did very many rush to embrace his concerns about mass incarceration, a significant problem in my estimation.
His fellow office holders did recognize his leadership qualities, however. Even President Barack Obama voiced appreciation for his willingness to buy into reasonable compromise. The congressman has had his share of important accomplishments and he has provided able leadership that has helped keep the worst from happening no matter how hard so many worked to get there.
Some say the latest budget was close to the worst, and it was definitely not good in its trilliondollar deficit ambitions. Was something better possible given our confused, tweet- fixated president’s weaving- and- waving strategies and the impossibilities of anything of merit ever passing through either the Senate or the House? “Polarization” is the word of the moment, “ideological idiocy” is a competing phrase and “politics as usual” has come to mean chaos.
There are so, so many destabilizing factors in Washington today. Lacking 10 volumes in which to list them, let’s just note a special counsel probe as determined as a falling rock to land on something, a dissolution of congressional powers, an administration deserted by some while firing others and policy overstatements that are either the art of the deal or the deals of the artless.
Actually, there was a major matter that did get through the Senate and House under Ryan, and that was a tax reform measure helping to revamp the economy even as we speak. Here is something that will do so much for so many that it is hard to overstate its value. We are talking about American revitalization if doing something about the debt is not forgotten.
Ryan could just maybe help in all of this, but especially with the possibility of Democrats taking Congress in the midterm elections, futility could also become his middle name. He says he wants to spend time with his children.
That’s important, too. This from the UK... Amid soaring crime in London, England, which this week surpassed that of New York City for the first time in modern history, the halls of Parliment echoed with calls for stricter knife control.
Indeed, Londoners are on the march, demanding an outright and total ban on all knives. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner deployed hundreds of extra ‘bobbies’ throughout London this week, armed with whistles and short sticks, and looking dapper indeed in their helmets.
Geoffrey Pinkney Stringfellow, Labour MP for Rottingstumpshire, announced the introduction of legislation banning all edged instruments whatsoever, to include: butter knives, putty knives, Swiss Army knives, Boy Scout knives, hatchets, samurai swords, chain saws, cocktail forks, shovels, scissors, hand saws, spatulas, nail files, barbed wire and broken glass.
Wooden tongue depressors from the National Health Service would be issued to everyone to spread jam and/ or butter.
The Queen’s personal bodyguard, the Household Cavalry and Coldstream Guards, would see their sabers replaced by “defensive purpose umbrellas,” and large hairbrushes in place of bayonets.
“One can really aggravate one’s opponent with a well placed brush stroke to the eye area,” said Regimental Sergeant Major Angus McDangle.
The Beefeaters guarding the Tower of London would trade their traditional halberd battle-axes for hockey sticks. Craftsmen, carpenters and other tradespeople would all be re-trained, at government expense, in the use of verbal techniques in separating materials.
Seamus O’ Really, president of the Greater Liverpool Pipefitters and Joiners Union, suggested consulting either a Jedi Knight or local wizard Harry Potter for advice of how to develop new “hands free” methods of dividing raw construction materials.
“That Potter bloke could probably show us a thing or two about how to build a ship with a just a wand,” said O’ Really.
A shepherd from the Scottish Highlands was interviewed about alternatives to shearing sheep’s wool, but no one could understand anything he said.
The Right Honourable Lord Chauncey SmythStrappinghamfordshire, speaking on behalf of the House of Lords, said, “Our constituents, we believe, are prepared to sacrifice convenience for safety. One really shouldn’t ‘cut’ anything, except perhaps ties with the EU, it’s such an offensive word, eh what? We Britons are prepared to use sporks to eat a steady diet of soft fish and vegetables boiled to mush, in the name of a civilized society.”
Even the Royal Family will take drastic steps to guard against the infliction of wounds from sharp objects. The points of all crowns will now be covered by little rubber balls when in public, and the Queen’s scepter will be wrapped in several layers of duct tape when Parliment is in session.
Charles, Prince of Wales, acknowledged for his lack of sharp wit and cutting remarks, will address the public in an official statement from Buckingham Palace in the near future...