Peggy Noonan, in her new Wall Street Journal column, praises Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s speech last week at The Heritage Foundation. While liberals slammed Ryan’s tone as that of a snotty rich kid, Noonan looks deeper and finds that the thoughtful Wisconsin representative offers a way of turning class warfare on its head.
Ryan is right to criticize Obama for replacing hope and change with fear and resentment, Noonan said. He’s also right, she added, to put some pressure on the GOP to take a new approach.
Here’s a portion of her column:
“… Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn’t be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend — they should actively oppose — the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the (nation’s economic) crisis. Here, Ryan slammed ‘corporate welfare and crony capitalism.’
“’Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended? Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?, Ryan asked in his speech.
“Rather than raise taxes on individuals, he said, we should ‘lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.’ The ‘true sources of inequity in this country,’ he continued, are ‘corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.’ The real class warfare that threatens us is ‘a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.’
“If more Republicans thought — and spoke — like this,” Noonan concluded, “the party would flourish. People would be less fearful for the future. And Obama wouldn’t be seeing his numbers go up.
Parts II, III and IV are in the list of previous posts.
