Did Republicans just take ownership of Ryan's Roadmap?

I doubt Paul Ryan will suffer much from being tapped to give the GOP's response to the State of the Union: He's an easy, affable speaker, and even if the format leaves him looking a little wooden, his control of the House budget process and odd role as the only House Republican who seems comfortable with numbers will give him plenty of opportunities to redeem himself going forward. The downside risk of giving a mediocre speech is overstated, at least in his case, while the upside risk of giving a good speech is pretty significant: He cements his position as the bright young thing of Washington's Republican establishment.

But I think the GOP might end up suffering quite a lot: The more they elevate Ryan, the more they elevate Ryan's Roadmap. And that document is a timebomb for them: It doesn't just privatize Medicare, but it holds costs down by giving seniors checks that won't keep up with the price of health care. It privatizes much of Social Security. It cuts taxes on the rich while raising them on many in the middle class.

The Republican Party, of course, hasn't shrunk back from the Roadmap. They've left it mostly alone, while embracing its author. But if this is the fondest hope of the GOP's smartest policy mind, they're eventually going to have to answer for it. Particularly if they don't come up with some policy ideas of their own that can take its place.

And so far, that effort isn't going so well either. The leaders of the House GOP wanted to wait on making big cuts to the budget until next year (and one wonders if they might've waited another year after that), but the massive Republican Study Group, which includes two-thirds of House Republicans, cut their knees out from under them and released a plan that privatizes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (wait till you see what the market does if it ever thinks that might pass), executes Amtrak and PBS, and names a bunch of other cuts that're going to lead to a lot of other unhappy.

The GOP ran a campaign that was gleefully vague. Since winning the House, they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act without saying what they'd replace it with. When asked to name programs they'd cut, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan all refused to name a single one. They have, in other words, worked hard to avoid getting specific about anything. But they can't dodge forever. Putting Ryan up as the face of the party suggests they know how important it is to seem like they have a plan. Without one, however, they're going to end up answering for his.

Photo credit: Jay Mallin/Bloomberg.

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