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For the last several weeks the House Republican caucus was in turmoil over who would succeed Speaker of the House John Boehner. Boehner’s second-in-command, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, was pegged as his successor, but McCarthy’s gaffe about the Benghazi Committee’s intentions and his inability to win over House conservatives forced him to withdraw. McCarthy’s decision left House Republicans without a moderate alternative to conservative interests championed by the House Freedom Caucus so they went to the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Paul Ryan, to gauge his interest in running. Ryan had initially said that he had little desire to become speaker, arguing that he preferred policymaking instead of leading and controlling Republican votes in the chamber. However, after a plea from Boehner and other Republican leaders, and after receiving endorsements from conservative Republicans, Ryan agreed to take the job, thereby becoming the youngest Speaker of the House since the 1860s. Considering that Ryan has a lot of policy experience and has a reputation for compromise, observers are hoping that relations between the White House and the House of Representatives can be improved, and some Republicans hope that Ryan can craft some much needed policy alternatives.
This topic brief will provide some biographical information about Ryan, analyze his legislative priorities, and explain how his leadership could be a boon for Republicans in the 2016 elections and beyond.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Who is Paul Ryan?
Experienced extempers should already be familiar with Ryan since he was Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012. That selection was made in large part due to Ryan’s notoriety as a budget wonk in 2011. Forbes writes on October 29 that Ryan’s budget called for Medicare to be moved to a defined contribution plan administered by the government and reliant on private insurers. This took the template of Social Security privatization that Republicans pushed for in the 1990s and early 2000s and applied it to Medicare. Ryan circulated some of these ideas before the 2010 midterms and Democrats believed that the terms of his plan could be a boon for them. As The Huffington Post reveals on November 1, one Democratic advertisement during that election cycle showed Ryan pushing a grandmother off of a cliff. However, Democrats lost the 2010 midterms and while this did not constitute an endorsement of Ryan’s policy ideas, the press coverage that he enjoyed over his fiscal proposals and the power that he gained in the House as Chairman of the House Budget Committee bolstered his profile. Romney’s loss in the 2012 election sent Ryan back to the House, where he became chairman of the Ways and Means Committee this year. The Ways and Means Committee is responsible for taxation, tariff, and entitlement program policy and is considered the most powerful committee in the House. Ryan assumed the position after David Camp of Michigan opted not to seek re-election last year.
Ryan’s entry into politics began when he served as an aide to Senator Bob Kasten of Wisconsin in the early 1990s. Roll Call reports on October 30 that after this Ryan worked for the conservative Empower America think tank before working for Sam Brownback of Kansas in the House and the Senate. Ryan used the connections that he gained as an aide and staffer to launch a political career, winning a House election in Wisconsin’s first congressional district in 1999. According to The New York Times on October 29, Ryan has made overhauling the tax code, reducing federal spending, and reforming entitlement programs a major focal point during his time in the House. He is deemed as one of the greatest policy minds in the Republican caucus, with Fortune writing on October 31 that Ryan’s policy acumen and his ability to rise through the ranks as a result of that is in stark contrast to other members, such as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, that owe their positions to their fundraising ability.
One of Ryan’s perceived advantages – albeit a disadvantage if one is a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus – is that he is deemed as a compromiser. Forbes explains that Ryan has been willing to talk about making deals on major issues such as immigration reform in the past. It is still notable, though, that Ryan does entrench himself on issues that he cares about such as fiscal matters. Nevertheless, The Huffington Post article cited earlier reveals that New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who is destined to take over as Senate Minority Leader after the 2016 elections, thinks that deals can be struck with Ryan. Although Democrats have blasted Ryan’s fiscal ideas as reminiscent of conservative positions during the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, they do have a grudging respect for Ryan in the sense that he brings original ideas to the table. The Christian Science Monitor points out on October 31 that the White House thinks they can work out long-term deals with Ryan because he has more policy knowledge than other Republicans and does not peddle talking points. However, Ryan’s willingness to compromise in the past have already caused dissent among the Republican Party’s grassroots and this could create significant headaches for him later.
Legislative Priorities
With regards to conservative Republicans, it is notable that Ryan secured endorsements from the diverse elements of the Republican caucus before he decided to take the job. Extempers should remember that a recent budget deal that outgoing Speaker John Boehner negotiated with the White House will give Ryan some flexibility over the next year. This deal lifts caps on sequestration – the automatic spending cuts put in place during the debt ceiling negotiations of 2011 – and increases defense spending. More importantly, the deal raises the debt ceiling until 2017, thereby allowing Ryan to focus on other legislative issues instead of being held hostage by more conservative Republicans over fiscal issues. While Boehner crafted the deal to help Ryan, Politico explains on October 29 that Ryan publicly expressed frustration over it, saying that it was largely done without going through the proper channels in the Republican hierarchy. Still, he did vote for the bill when it cleared the House last week.
With regards to legislation, Ryan is more likely to focus on economic issues. Forbes writes that it is unusual for a chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to become speaker but this provides a unique opportunity for Ryan to channel the House’s energy toward legislation that can consolidate tax rates, reduce the nation’s corporate tax rate, repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), and maintain low capital gains taxes. The White House has said that it is willing to find a compromise over fiscal issues with congressional Republicans, but the problem has been that the White House and the GOP disagree over how tax rates should be adjusted toward the rich. Whereas Republicans are seeking greater tax cuts for businesses in addition to the middle class, President Obama prefers tax policy that raises rates on the wealthy, while reducing them for the middle class. Democrats argue that this is a more revenue neutral policy and that Ryan’s tax initiatives would end up costing the nation billions of dollars, thereby increasing the size of the national debt. USA Today argues on October 29 that the White House and Ryan may find common ground on other economic-related issues such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and an upcoming highway bill.
Ryan has signaled that he will try to pacify conservative lawmakers by changing some of the ways that legislation is moved through the House. USA Today reports that Ryan has promised to only move legislation to the floor after hearings are held on by the appropriate committees. This includes the committee voting to recommend a bill to the full House. USA Today notes that one of the complaints of the Freedom Caucus was that too much legislation was being rushed to the floor without adequate time for committees to review it. However, Ryan has refused to give into other conservative demands such as pursuing an immediate defunding of Planned Parenthood. Ryan has signaled that such an issue should not be pursued until after December, which The Boston Globe explains on November 1 is a time where the House will need to pass a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown. This removes some of the leverage of conservative lawmakers that wish to tackle the two issues simultaneously, but Democrats have pledged to block and President Obama has pledged to veto any funding bill that strips Planned Parenthood of federal dollars. The Washington Post adds on November 1 that Ryan has also declined to support using the Hastert rule for all legislation. This means that legislation should only come to the House floor if it commands majority support among Republicans in the House. This blocked the 2013 immigration bill as that lacked support among Republicans, but it could have passed the full House if it made it to the floor. Ryan says that while he will seek GOP support for most bills, he thinks there might be situations where the Hastert rule should be avoided.
There are some issues where compromise does not appear likely between a Ryan-led House and the White House, though. The first is immigration. Although Ryan has appeared sympathetic to immigration reform, something that has earned him the ire of elements of the Republican base, The Los Angeles Times reports on November 1 that Ryan has said that a new bill will have to be worked out under a new president. The reason for this is that Ryan says Republicans cannot trust that President Obama will enforce all elements of a compromise bill. Republicans point out that after a Senate bill covering immigration reform was blocked in the House in 2013 that President Obama issued two executive orders that suspended deportations of immigrants that had lived in the United States for several years and issued work permits to these individuals. A federal court is currently looking into the constitutionality of this action, but it does not appear that Ryan is going to work with the White House on a substantial bill to fix America’s illegal immigration problem. Furthermore, The Huffington Post writes on November 1 that Ryan is not going to entertain family leave legislation that the Democratic Party is championing. The White House and congressional Democrats would like to pass legislation guaranteeing paid maternity leave. The United States is just one of three countries in the world that does not have guaranteed maternity leave, but Ryan says that Republicans are not interested in creating another entitlement program. This could become an issue in the 2016 presidential election, especially because one of the conditions for Ryan taking the speaker position is that he could spend weekends with his family in Wisconsin instead of fundraising for the GOP. Democrats have already attacked him on this issue and will probably look to do so in future election cycles.
Ryan’s Potential to Help the Republican Brand
One of the major problems of the Republican Party during the Obama presidency is that they have not done a good job articulating an alternative vision. Opposition parties usually face this problem because it is much easier to attack an incumbent than to come up with constructive solutions, but this is an issue that the GOP must confront if it wishes to retake the White House next year. For example, in the 2012 presidential election former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney challenged the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but did a poor job articulating what would replace it. A similar problem has confronted Republican gubernatorial candidates in states such as Kentucky in the 2015 election cycle. Politico writes on November 1 that Ryan is aiming to help the Republican Party achieve unity within the House and then better articulate the party’s core principles to voters. The Washington Post article previously cited reveals that one of Ryan’s complains about the Republican Party at the moment is that it has been “too timid on policy” and “too timid on vision.” As a policy wonk, Ryan just might create the alternative policy options that the GOP needs in order to show voters that they are more than a “party of no.”
Ryan may also do a much better job handling the media than Boehner, mostly because he is largely comfortable in that environment. Forbes explains that one of Boehner’s weaknesses as speaker is that he was more of an institutionalist and preferred to work behind the scenes rather than articulate a powerful case for Republican ideas to the general public. Ryan is not shy about facing the media, making a tour of all of the networks last weekend for interviews. Furthermore, he has shown that he is more media savvy when selling his budget ideas and in his time as a vice-presidential nominee. This can give the GOP a powerful weapon to counteract the statements of the White House, something that they lacked during Boehner’s time at the helm. The White House always enjoys an advantage over Congress in the sense that the President always gets more media coverage whereas Congress is a divided institution, but if Ryan can unite the House GOP behind him then he might be able to articulate a defense of Republican policies in legislative spats with the Oval Office.
Finally, Ryan might be able to help refocus some of the Republican Party’s attention toward poverty, which the party has gotten away from in recent decades. The New York Times reports that Ryan’s political philosophy resembles that of Republican moderate Jack Kemp, a former professional football player, vice-presidential candidate, and congressman from New York. Kemp championed market-based approaches to solve the nation’s poverty problem and Ryan now appears to be picking up this mantle, attempting to preserve elements of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society by melding it with a libertarian economic philosophy. Since losing the presidential election with Romney, Ryan has made poverty a focal point of his political efforts, noting that anti-poverty programs cost the U.S. nearly $800 billion per year with little return. The Huffington Post reveals that Ryan spent 2013 going on a “poverty tour” of the U.S. and he has reached out to the White House to support President Obama’s “brother’s keeper” initiative to help minority youth, especially young minority men. If Ryan uses his media talents correctly, he may spark a greater internal debate within the Republican Party over creating alternative solutions to poverty in America and this may help broaden the Republican Party’s outreach to racial minorities and urban voters.
It is likely that the Republicans will retain their House majority after the 2016 elections, so the next President of the United States will have to work with Ryan on a myriad of issues, many of which will probably be economic in nature. There are some outlets of cooperation between Obama and Ryan, but extempers should not expect a grand deal to be struck between both men, especially since Obama has less than two years left in his term. Ryan appears to be playing a long game of assembling support and evidence for tax and entitlement reform, but his chances of securing a deal will depend on finding an ally in the White House after 2016.