Representative Paul Ryan

There are a lot of rising stars in the Republican Party- true conservatives who grew up in the Reagan years of freedom and liberty and got a taste of it in their mouths and want more of it. One of these rising stars is Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin. From the Wall Street Journal:

The 39-year-old from Wisconsin, who is the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, cruised to re-election last year in a district that voted for Barack Obama for president. The 6-foot-2, blue-eyed lawmaker was recently named one of the "50 most beautiful people on Capitol Hill" by the Hill newspaper, and his shock of black hair stands out in Congress's sea of gray.

But Mr. Ryan also personifies the GOP's difficulty in finding a broadly appealing message. Colleagues praise him as an articulate spokesman for a conservative economic philosophy, but some of his ideas -- like injecting more competition and market forces into Social Security and Medicare -- have shown limited appeal in polls. And as Mr. Obama's robust agenda has thrown Republicans on the defensive, even conservatives acknowledge the public seems open to strong government action.

In a budget he recently released as an alternative to Mr. Obama's, Mr. Ryan proposes freezing all basic spending for five years except for defense and veterans' health care. He would allow Medicare participants, starting in 2021, to choose a private insurance plan with a federal payment going to that plan. He would cut the corporate-income-tax rate to 25%.

As Republicans search for a path to power, Mr. Ryan says the GOP must re-establish itself as the party of economic common sense, rather than a group seen as overly focused on rewarding its supporters and contributors.

"We had a lot of old bulls who were more machine-minded politicians," Mr. Ryan said in an interview in his office, adorned with a large Green Bay Packers helmet and a duck he bagged on a hunting trip. "We need the reformers to take over the party."

Mr. Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future," introduced in May 2008 as a plan for addressing the swelling budget deficit, proposed changing the tax system so people could file either under current law or a highly simplified code. He also wants to shake up entitlement programs, suggesting, for example, that Social Security beneficiaries be allowed to establish personal retirement accounts.

"We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock," Mr. Ryan said. "We don't want to turn the safety net into a system that ultimately drains people of their potential, that ultimately lulls people into lives of complacency and dependency on the federal government for their well-being."

As a Republican, I'm glad to see that people like Paul Ryan in the party, fighting for liberty, the rule of law, and conservative economic principles.