Mr Ryan started nervously on his big night – he is not a barnstorming speaker in the Sarah Palin mould – but what he lacks in delivery, he compensates for with a mild, bookish manner that is nonetheless tinged with menace.
He disdained the “stirring speeches” of Barack Obama; dismissed the President as a cheap thrill, a man who had offered something new but was now “adrift, surviving on slogans … like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind”.
Mr Ryan might be a lifelong policy wonk who became a Congressman at 28 after serving as a Congressional aide, but he understands the cold financial realities that confront his own “Gen X” now that Mr Romney and his legion of fellow baby-boomers are starting to retire.
“Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation’s economic problems. And I’m going to level with you: We don’t have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and we lead, we can do this.….”
The Wisconsin congressman spared the floor the “math” – orders apparently from Mr Romney who appears determined to run his campaign in a policy-vacuum – even as he promised to create jobs and restore the work ethic to “a country where everything is free but us”.
Mr Ryan’s swipe at the entitlement culture was tough, but the maths is giddy-making: today 56 million people claim US social security benefits; by 2035 that number is projected to grow to 91 million. By that time, Social Security will only raise enough taxes to fund 75 per cent of its obligations.
Everyone knows the numbers will very soon stop adding up, and that we’ve been in denial for several years now, but Mr Ryan from accounts is promising to make tough decisions where previous bosses have dithered and delayed.
He is correct that time is running out. And even if you don’t agree with his chosen path, there is no point in denying “something must be done”, and the longer we wait the tougher the remedies will be.
To illustrate: data from the Social Security Administration shows that if the US had decided to raise the retirement age to 70 by 2063 two years ago, it would have eliminated half of the projected shortfall in Social Security. Today that same fix would heal just 37 per cent of a $30 trillion black hole.
America may not be ready to swallow Mr Ryan’s bitter fiscal medicine, or indeed his plans to privatise the cherished Medicare entitlement, but unlike his tepid, pragmatic, ‘leader’, there is no doubting that he does have a vision to restore America.
Mr Ryan wants to revive the party of Reagan, to re-embrace free-market orthodoxies, and champion the virtues of self-reliance and a belief in American exceptionalism. Mitt Romney often says something similar. The difference is that when Paul Ryan says it, you believe him.
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