Last month, House Speaker Paul Ryan gave what was billed as a big policy speech, attempting to show that Republicans can too be serious. The speech was, strangely, in front of an audience of House interns, which kind of dampened the heft of the thing at the time. But that's all explained now. That audience of bright shiny young people was just a bunch of props for this video, which seems essentially to be the launch of Paul Ryan 2020.
The nominal purpose, however, of that video is to launch this: #ConfidentAmerica, which boldly lays out five random things Paul Ryan thinks Republicans need to demonstrate that they are confident about. This should be fun. Watch the video and see their totally awesome plans to have mission statements and figure out the rest later below the fold.
-
National Security: Oooooh, mission statement ("To protect the American people by developing an overarching vision for national security based on a Republican blueprint for a strong America that can decisively confront the foreign and domestic threats of the 21st century") and policy goals (Defeat the terrorists! Protect the homeland! Defend freedom and advance America's interests abroad! Renew our national security tools!) Boy, they're really going out on a limb with that one. Most of this one is "we'll figure that out later."
- Jobs and Economic Growth: you know that the number one thing here is tax reform, with another mission statement ("Create jobs, grow the economy, and raise wages by reducing rates, removing special interest carve-outs, and making our broken tax code simpler and fairer.") That one's simple. Tax cuts for the rich, and fewer pages in the tax code. They hate when there's too many pages in things. There's also "reducing regulatory burdens", or, you know, taking away safe food, safe cars, other consumer protections, clean water and air. That stuff.
-
Health Care: Yup, he actually goes there. After 63 failed votes on repealing Obamacare, after seven years of failing to come up with a replacement plan for the law, he's making it a part of #ConfidentAmerica. Yep, you got it. "We'll figure that one out later." Enough said? Enough said.
-
Poverty and Opportunity: Look out poor people this is where he's coming to get you, all in the name of "strengthening the safety net." Only if it can be called stronger because it's holding a lot fewer people, since so many will fall through. But they've got plans, none of which are actually spelled out in specifics—like privatizing Medicare or slashing Medicaid to the bone—because every time Ryan puts out the specifics, he becomes more unpopular.
-
Constitutional Authority: This one is extra special. Remember how Ryan hijacked the House last month to take the extraordinary step of making the body vote on filing a brief with the Supreme Court on President Obama's immigration executive actions? Despite the fact that the Democrats voted against it, and the House is not united in that? Yeah. That. Dressed up: "Restoring Constitutional Authority Taskforce shall seek to prevent abuse of power by the executive branch, promote limited government and protect states’ powers, and ensure government transparency and accountability."
And he has the gall to call his 2020 campaign leadership video "Politics these days," with the tag line, "Imagine if politics was about actually about uniting Americans, not dividing us." To say nothing of the fact that he's trying to project #ConfidentAmerica when he's not even capable of uniting his Republican caucus to do the one and only thing he promised to get done this spring—write and pass a budget.
But hey, magical asterisks and fairy dust have worked for him so far. Maybe he thinks we'll all fall for it this time, and it will protect him from being eaten alive by his own House Republicans.