Don't do it, Paul Ryan! It's a trap!

Why running for speaker would be horrible for Paul Ryan's policy priorities

It's understandable that so many Republicans are all but begging Paul Ryan to step up as a consensus choice for speaker of the House. It's even more understandable that Ryan wants to demur. And despite the mess his GOP colleagues find themselves in, the Wisconsin congressman should follow his first instinct. Because if Ryan enters the speaker's race, he'll either fail as populist conservatives trash his less-than-perfect voting record, or he'll succeed and spend the next several years herding cats instead of advocating big and important entitlement reforms.

For all Republicans' talk of balanced budgets, the national debt, and reducing government spending, Republicans don't have a very good record when it comes to actually reforming two huge spending programs that are big drivers of America's long-term debt: Social Security and Medicare. Ronald Reagan basically caved to the Democrats on both programs. When George W. Bush wanted to reform Social Security, he found that the enthusiasm among the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress just wasn't there.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.