The 2011 Human Events Conservative of the Year: Paul Ryan
Lawrence Kudlow
Human Events
12/22/2011
The editors of HUMAN EVENTS are proud to name Rep. Paul Ryan as “Conservative of the Year” for 2011. The Wisconsin Republican was a favorite from the very beginning of the nomination process, not only with our editorial board but with our readers as well, for his relentless commitment to proposing bold, free-market reforms to rein in an out-of-control, ever-expanding government that is destroying the American economy. Despite the left’s vicious and unfounded attacks, Paul Ryan has pursued an agenda of limiting Washington’s control over our private property and the decisions we make, while eloquently arguing that true way out of poverty is through the benevolence of capitalist pursuits, not through the confiscatory paws of government bureaucrats. And who better to profile Ryan’s indefatigable journey than eminent financial columnist and popular television host Lawrence Kudlow. Congratulations, Paul Ryan.
When you think of Republican congressman Paul Ryan, terms like earnest, serious and important come to mind. So does the term old-fashioned. Ryan comes from an old-fashioned place, the blue-collar town of Janesville, Wisconsin. He cherishes the old-fashioned values of a faithful family man. He even looks old-fashioned, with his white shirts and striped ties. And he uses old-fashioned argument skills, persuasively weaving big-picture themes with the numbers that back them up.
And Ryan has old-fashioned goals, too, like saving America from fiscal bankruptcy, economic stagnation and a European-style entitlement state.
“Just look at what happened across the Atlantic,” Ryan told me in a year-end interview. “We have to avoid that. We must reclaim our founding principles of economic freedom and free markets. We must preserve the American Idea.”
With this vision, and with a pro-growth budget framework called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” Ryan’s serious ideas have seriously gotten under President Obama’s skin…
…Rep. Paul Ryan is offering a completely different vision from the one Obama outlined in his Osawatomie, Kan., campaign speech in early December. Ryan wants “the right to rise,” not a third wave of liberal progressivism. He wants to stop Obama’s attempt to add to the New Deal/Great Society with the statist universal-healthcare program called Obamacare and an effective nationalization of the energy and financial sectors. And he completely rejects Obama’s divisive, big-government, punish-wealth, tax-the-rich leftist populism…
The complete article is at Human Events.
