Will Republicans ever learn their lesson? Apparently not former Republican Speaker of The House Paul Ryan, who told Real Clear Politics that although “we think our country is pretty ugly and divided now, politically speaking,” these tensions “will pale in comparison to what it will look like if we don’t get ahead of our fiscal problems.”
Ryan dismissed concerns that talks on entitlement reform would help Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security.
“I don’t think that entitlement reform is as toxic as it used to be,” he said.
“I’m not too worried about the politics of entitlement reform,” asserted Ryan. “What people should be worried about is the politics of ducking entitlement reform… and then precipitating a debt crisis, where you have ugly austerity economics on top of those entitlements.”
Ryan told RCP about his plans to compromise with Democrats in order to achieve his economic desires. This included a so-called “grand bargain” of enacting policies such as “a pro-growth tax code” in exchange for a “tax on carbon.”
Ryan, who lost to Obama in 2012 running to be the vice president of Mitt Romney, took shots at Trump, blaming the former president for the GOP’s dismal performance in the midterm elections.
“We all know we lose with Trump. We did on Tuesday, we did in 2020, and we did in 2018,” he said.
“We would have already had our Senate majority if the non-Trump Republican made it through the primary,” he added. “The Trump Republicans in those states cost us those elections.”
“We know we win with someone not named Trump, and there’s a lot of great people who fall into that category,” continued Ryan, “who are more than capable of raising the standard of our elections, the tone of our debates, and getting on to solve the country’s problems.”
It was earlier this month when Ryan emphatically called on the Republican Party to not nominate former President Trump in 2024, saying he is “a drag on our ticket.”
Popular conservative social media account The Columbia Bugle reacted to the news, posting an edited video of Ryan invoking Ronald Reagan repeatedly during a speech with the comment, “Shut Up Paul Ryan.”
Shut Up Paul Ryan pic.twitter.com/0KGMz1KyhQ https://t.co/RlxuDl963T
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) November 10, 2022
