Paul Ryan's Unrealized Conservative Vision
The House speaker rose through Congress with a goal of remaking—and slimming down—the American social safety net. All he got was tax cuts.
Paul Ryan’s dream for much if not all of his time in Congress was to leave a deeply conservative imprint on American social and fiscal policy—to reshape and slim down the safety-net programs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security so as to control the ballooning national debt.
After 20 years, all he got was some tax cuts.
Ryan having achieved more in politics than he ever publicly claimed to want—first serving as the Republican nominee for vice president in 2012 and then as speaker three years later. But his ascent to higher elected office sidetracked, and ultimately left behind, his most ambitious policy goals.
