Is he thinking about it?
by digby
I remember back in 1996 when the GOP thought they had a good chance to turn Clinton into a one termer, the field was very weak and when it looked like they really were going to go with the old Warrior Bob Dole, Newtie famously said, “am I going to have to get into this thing?”
When I read this, I had to wonder …
House Budget chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) will lay out his vision for America’s foreign policy in an address to the Alexander Hamilton Society tonight in Washington. Crediting Charles Krauthammer’s 2009 essay in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, “Decline Is a Choice,” Ryan will insist the United States maintain its leading role in the world by addressing the growing debt and entitlement spending crises.
Below are a few selected excerpts from the speech:
Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power….
If we continue down our current path, then a debt-fueled economic crisis is not a probability. It is a mathematical certainty. Some hear these facts and conclude that the sun is setting on America… that our problems are bigger than we are… that our competitors will soon outrun us… and that the choice we face is over how, not whether, to manage our nation’s decline. It’s inevitable, they seem to say, so let’s just get on with it… Our fiscal problems are real, and the need to address them is urgent. But I’m here to tell you that decline is not a certainty for America. Rather, as Charles Krauthammer put it, “decline is a choice.”…
A world without U.S. leadership will be a more chaotic place, a place where we have less influence, and a place where our citizens face more dangers and fewer opportunities. Choosing decline would have consequences that I doubt many Americans would be comfortable with. So we must lead. …a central element of maintaining American leadership is the promotion of our moral principles – consistently and energetically – without being unrealistic about what is possible for us to achieve….
He’d be a fool to do it in this go-round, but if the people are calling … could he refuse? After all, yesterday he faced down the President in the White House and the Republicans gave him a standing ovation. He’s their leader.
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