Paul Ryan. I’ve actually met this guy and been in his office. When I met him, at a White House function, he said that my dad was doing “the lord’s work”. (Yep. That’s how we do it in this family.)
Anyways, he voted yes to the bailout plan, the only Republican in Wisconsin to do so despite the protests of his constituents. He’s not been very popular for it, but this is completely unfair. The fact is that something needs to happen or the market will collapse. Ryan was the leader of an alternative bailout plan that got shot down and after that happened tried to make the current one better. He didn’t like what eventually came out, but said that it “wasn’t enough to be a laissez-faire conservative and let Rome burn . . . This bill is not perfect, but doing nothing is far worse than passing this bill.” The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed up about him.
Mr. Ryan, perhaps the free market’s truest friend in Congress, earlier this week voted to help rescue that free market. He hated the Paulson plan, but hated more the economic crash he is convinced will follow inaction. And in casting his “yes” vote on Monday, he knew what was coming: “The easiest thing would be to vote no and go hide in my office and watch the markets collapse. I will suffer politically for this, but I will sleep at night.”
This is hurting Paul Ryan here in Wisconsin and maybe it should, but he has the best interests of our state, the taxpayers and the country in mind. We can’t affford a crisis and he knows that. That’s why he still has my vote.
