Could Rep. Paul Ryan's detailed Roadmap

[THE MATRIX]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234362

Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin is an energetic, wonky conservative who, at 40, has made it his mission to "fix the country's fiscal problem." And he's put forward a way to do so—a way that, at least in theory, could actually work. Ryan comes from a family of industrial earth-movers—the business, now run by his cousins, was started by his grandfather, and he helped out as a kid. They clear away obstructions so new foundations can be laid. And that's Ryan's goal, not just for the GOP, but eventually, he hopes, for the rest of America.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which produces Congress's official projections about the long-term fiscal effects of legislation, Ryan's Roadmap for America’s Future would zero out the deficit, balance the budget by 2063, and reduce Medicare's expected share of the economy in 2080 from a projected 14.3 percent of GDP to a mere 4 percent. The Roadmap also calls for a substantial simplification of the tax code and a replacement of the corporate income tax with an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. CBO's projections are inherently uncertain—even the most competent economic forecasters can only guess at how the world will change over 50-plus years. But the result is, at the very least, a compelling conservative vision of the country's fiscal future.

In other words, it's a thoroughly radical idea. But talk to Ryan about the plan, and he'll insist that, despite all evidence to the contrary, drastic as it sounds, the American people are ready for it. "They know the fiscal situation's bad," he tells NEWSWEEK. "They know this debt is wrong. They know we've got a problem." Yet despite its concerns about the deficit, the public is also deeply attached to Social Security and Medicare.

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So Ryan's proposal is instructive not only because it clarifies the difference between liberal and conservative policy, which is that serious reductions in government mean serious reductions in popular entitlements; it's also instructive about the road ahead for the GOP.