I’m cautiously suspicious myself and want to see definitive steps on behalf of the new GOP leadership that they can govern conservatively and not just campaign on conservative slogans.  What say you??

Patrick

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By ROSS DOUTHAT

When a political party suffers two consecutive thrashings at the polls, its supporters can usually look forward to a long period of exile — a time to lick wounds, settle scores, feud over policy and gradually map out a road back to relevance.

Not so the Obama-era Republicans. They were thumped in 2006 and left for dead after 2008, but all it took was a 9.6 unemployment rate and an unpopular liberal majority to bring them roaring back. The wilderness era lasted all of 22 months: conservatives had barely started arguing about what went wrong during the Bush era before the American public handed them the House of Representatives again.

To his credit, John Boehner, the presumptive speaker of the House, seems aware of how little the Republicans have done to earn their summons back to power. His rhetoric since last Tuesday’s sweep has been self-effacing, and his promises have been limited and largely procedural. Newt Gingrich took power in 1994 claiming a mandate and brandishing a list of legislative priorities, but Boehner has kept his cards closer to the vest. “It is the president who sets the agenda for our government,” he told supporters on Tuesday night — not the kind of statement, to put it mildly, that leading Republicans issued in ’94.

The modest Mr. Boehner leads a party with much to be modest about. Gingrich could brandish an agenda because he had an agenda — a raft of conservative policy proposals, on welfare and crime and taxes, that couldn’t get any traction in a Democratic-controlled Congress. Today’s Republicans, by contrast, know what they’re against (the health care bill, tax increases, cap and trade) but have a world of trouble saying what they might actually be for.

Instead, they tend to fall back on the reassuring story they’ve been spinning for the last two years, in which they lost to the Democrats only because they failed to hold the line on spending. It’s a narrative that flatters conservative self-regard, while absolving Republicans of the obligation to think too deeply about policy. All they need to do is say “no” to bigger government, and the rest will take care of itself.

This strategy has worked for them in opposition, thanks to the Democratic Party’s haste and hubris. But it isn’t a blueprint for governance, and it ducks the real reasons that the Republicans lost their majority. While the Bush administration overspent, it wasn’t spending and deficits that turned the country against conservative domestic policy between 2004 and 2008. It was the fact that the Republican majority seemed to have no answers to Middle America’s economic struggles, and no appetite for the structural reforms required to keep the United States competitive.

This is even more true today. The United States is facing three overlapping crises — the short-term challenge of a jobless recovery, the long-term crisis of entitlement spending and, in the medium term, an economy that wasn’t delivering for the middle class even before the financial crisis struck. The Democratic Party may have the wrong answers to these problems. But the Republican Party as an institution often seems to have no answers whatsoever.

Some individual Republicans make a better showing. Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, has a proposal for payroll tax relief that might help jump-start economic growth. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman, has his famous “roadmap” to a sustainable entitlement system. Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator from New Hampshire, was collaborating with Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, on tax reform that could attract bipartisan support. And during the health care and financial reform debates, the pages of conservative magazines bristled with plausible alternatives to the Democratic bills.

Yet the party hasn’t united around any of these ideas. And what consensus does exist is insufficient to the nation’s challenges. The country needs fundamental tax reform rather than the permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts. It needs a health care overhaul that doesn’t merely return the system to the pre-Obamacare status quo. It needs a plan to slow the growth of Social Security and Medicare, not just a discretionary spending freeze.

On many of these fronts, Congressional Republicans will protest that there’s nothing to be done so long as Barack Obama occupies the White House. Hence Boehner’s calculated attempt to lower expectations; hence Mitch McConnell’s insistence that the most important thing Republicans can do is work toward the president’s defeat in 2012.

But even if they’re right, that’s all the more reason to spend the next two years getting serious about policy. It will profit neither conservatism nor the country if Republicans take the White House two Novembers hence, and find themselves as unprepared to govern as they are today.

Interesting read… Part of the GOP’s problem has been its too cozy support of “crony capitalism” rather than true free market enforcement of competitive measures at every level. I think the only thing Big Business has to fear from the Tea Party is their equal disdain for both political and business corruption through the levers of the Federal Gov’t. What say you??

Transparency, Authenticity and Relevance Key When Marketing to These Quiet Agents of Change

By Thomas Pardee

Published: October 11, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — They entered the consumer market during the stormiest economic climate since the Great Depression. And like the generation that was forever altered by the harsh sacrifices of World War II, millennials are likely to be permanently affected by the Great Recession and its long-term ripples. But these characteristics won’t change about the demographic: They are vocal, demanding and discerning.

TWITTER JOCKEY: Gabi Gregg (l.) won the new MTV ‘TJ’ position.

Members of Generation Y — the demographic loosely defined as those born between 1980 on the early end and 2000 on the high end — are truly the product of the turbulent times in which they were reared, and present a challenge for marketers who dare target this shrewd and, yes, narcissistic generation.

Today, many millennials are unemployed; according to a Pew Research study released in February, a staggering 37% of 18 to 29-year-olds don’t have jobs, the highest share in three decades. Those who can afford to attend college are going to less-expensive state schools or community colleges and many are moving back home after graduation. More than a third depend on family members for regular financial assistance.

They’re tightening their belts and re-evaluating what makes them happy — and they’re spending money accordingly.

“We may not have lost jobs now, but we never had them in the first place,” said Gabi Gregg, a 24-year-old graduate of Mount Holyoke College who was recently chosen as MTV’s first “Twitter Jockey” in a nationwide competition. Ms. Gregg was awarded the coveted $100,000-a-year position — her first stable job — in which she’s charged with engaging millennials like herself in the topics that matter most to them. “Almost everyone I know is living paycheck to paycheck, just trying to survive. It’s easier to interact online than to go out and pay for dinner, or go to a movie.”

Paul Taylor, exec VP of the Pew Research Center, said finding footing on the first rung of the career ladder can be the hardest step for Gen Y.

“Young adults who start out in bad economic times suffer long-term consequences,” he said. “If you don’t find a job right out of college, it may affect you for as long as 10 to 15 years down the road.”

Aside from the economic wrench, millennials bear key characteristics that distinguish them: they live and die by social media and peer validation; they were raised in “peer-renting” households that placed them at the center of their families’ attention; they’re endlessly optimistic about their futures despite current hardships; and they care about social causes — at least enough to serve up a mean Facebook campaign.

But whether millennials can tangibly unite behind a cause is a key tension point between experts and millennials themselves. Nick Shore, head of research for MTV who’s currently conducting a study on the behavior patterns of Gen Y, suggests most millennials are willing to click the “like” button on Facebook to indicate support of a cause, but won’t venture too much further beyond the gesture.

This isn’t to mean that millennials don’t care, though. Experts agree that given their collective upbringing, for Gen Y, negotiation is the new rebellion. “They don’t see themselves as revolutionaries or reformers, they see themselves as quiet [agents of] change,” said Carol Phillips, founder of the market research firm Brand Amplitude, which specializes in millennial studies. “It’s about working within the system. They’ve never had to reject anything; they’ve just had to build on it. And their numbers suggest that they can be successful at it.”

This is a defining characteristic of the generation, according to author and economist Neil Howe, who coined the term “millennial” in the early ’90s in his first of several books on Gen Y. And like most millennial-related issues, technology plays a part. “If you ask a bunch of Gen Xers [born in the '60s and '70s] what they would do if they didn’t like where they worked, most would say ‘leave.’ But if you ask millennials that question, their attitude is, ‘Someone will fix it,’” Mr. Howe said. “They’ll start IM-ing each other, a few will get Mom and Dad on their cellphones, someone will call the local media, another will alert the congressman. Millennials trust in their institutions more than baby boomers or Gen Xers.”

Ms. Gregg cites the massive response to gay rights advocate Dan Savage’s recent “It Gets Better” YouTube project as a prime example of millennial might. In just a few weeks, hundreds of videos of LBGT adults and allies, including many millennials, had submitted videos with anti-bullying messages and support for gay youth. (The channel has since been viewed more than a million times.) Gen Y isn’t physically storming the castle walls, but Ms. Gregg said that doesn’t mean it’s not making its voice heard.

Millennials are also perhaps the most analytical and media-savvy consumers ever. Mr. Shore said that, while some characterize millennials as suspicious or cynical of old-school linear marketing ploys, they’re just better at seeing through them. “We shoot a beam of content to the audience, and they take it apart like light through a prism. … Millennials are super-deconstructive of any kind of media messaging.”

Mr. Shore said for this reason and others, transparency and authenticity are key in marketing to Gen Y, and he’s not alone — Ms. Phillips said Gen Y has a love/hate relationship with marketing. “They love brands, and they talk about them more than anything else, but they hate the interruptive model of advertising,” said Ms. Phillips. “[Millennials] like to see ads tailored to them. It’s not that they don’t want to see ads, they just don’t want to see ads for Cialis.”

Ms. Phillips says millennials are now tinged with a sense of frugality that will likely remain for the rest of their lives. Her research suggests they’re big into redistribution of materials, into sharing smaller houses and taking public transit or walking. They’ve dropped their cable and never used landline phones; they’re not eating out as much, and they’re paying down their debt. Though they will splurge on necessities (which now include smartphones) and rationalize that occasional Coach bag as a career investment, “they’ll go online and ask their friends for recs. They’re very careful shoppers.”

Ms. Phillips says millennials’ focus on experience helps explain why social currency is the new gold standard for smart marketers and advertisers. “If I can add value, they’ll tell my story for me,” she said. “It puts pressure on marketers to go back to their roots — it’s about engaging consumers with your message.”

Mr. Shore, who conducts focus groups for new programming with millennials from the earliest stages of a show’s creation, said an essential element in making this new concept of social currency work is actually not so new at all — linear programming, like the MTV Video Music Awards, around which millennials can engage on digital platforms like Twitter. After all, “smart and funny is the new rock and roll,” Mr. Shore said.

Mr. Howe said it’s no accident that millennials voted for President Obama by a 66% margin: Mr. Obama, who was Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year in 2008, relentlessly peddled the most millennial ideas possible — positivity and inclusiveness. Mr. Howe said these are values that millennials respond to most.

“Gen X slogans were ‘No rules, just right’ and ‘Grab life by the horns,’ all very in-your-face,” said Mr. Howe. “For millennials, it’s ‘Yes, we can,’ ‘Wii would like to play’ and ‘We’re all in this together’ from ‘High School Musical.’ It’s a different attitude. It has to be inclusive, and it has to look for a better day.”

While experts note millennials are also known for their arrogance, self-centeredness and reliance on technology, Ms. Phillips said marketers and older generations in general would do well to not pander, over-simplify or write them off too quickly. “They get it. They deeply get it,” she said. “And where they go, everyone else is going to follow.”

5 tips for marketing to millennials

Be fast
For millennials, there’s nothing worth saying that can’t be said in 140 characters or less. It’s not that they can’t handle long-form pitches, they just know you can do better. So do better.

Be clever
As Nick Shore, head of research for MTV, said, “Smart and funny is the new rock ‘n’ roll.” Millennials are set to be the most-educated generation on record, with the largest social-media platform (Facebook) having been famously born on a college campus. “With their roots in college culture, it’s no wonder eloquence and timing are more prized than ever for this generation. Err on the side of overestimating the millennial — as the Old Spice campaign shows — and sometimes they’ll surprise you.

Be transparent
Millennials may be arrogant and entitled, but they’re not stupid, and they know media exists to sell them things. So rather than pretending your branded beverage isn’t conspicuously placed in a TV character’s hand to entice them, look for new ways to make it funny. It will ring true with them, and they’ll appreciate the honesty. (Need a cue? Look no further than the deliciously self-referential “30 Rock.”)

Don’t “technologize” everything
By their own definition, millennials are in part defined by their use of and reliance on technology. But marketers should resist the urge to attempt to “speak their language” — Gen Yers can smell those ploys a mile away. Remember, millennials are digital natives — they don’t use technology; they live it, and they do so subconsciously.

Give them a reason to talk about you
Millennials don’t like ads, but they don’t mind marketing that’s non-invasive, non-interruptive and that adds something to their experience, either online or off. Whether it’s a fun and timely iPhone app, a targeted high-profile event or a personalized viral-video campaign, if you want your message to resonate with millennials, give them something to talk about. And if we know the first thing about millennials, talk they will.

Style
Social Media Is Fashion’s Newest Muse
Leah Bourne, 09.07.10, 6:00 PM ET

Last month Marc Jacobs CEO Robert Duffy was so impressed with the amount of Twitter feedback from customers who wanted plus sizes that he tweeted, “We gotta do larger sizes,” to the company’s more than 26,000 followers. “I’m with you. As soon as I get back to NY I’m on it,” he wrote.

It was great news to Marc Jacobs’ fans who wear larger sizes. It also was evidence that, in this era of the social Web, fashion designers and retailers are no longer operating in an ivory tower or for solely the red carpet. Because of the close relationships they now have with customers on social networking sites, many have adopted an “ask and ye shall receive” policy.

Want your favorite designer to make ruby red handbags, re-issue a dress from last season or roll out plus sizes? You may only need to tweet or post a Facebook comment to get a response. While this strategy is hardly new for big corporations such as PepsiCo and JetBlue, many fashion companies are taking social media to new levels. Those that have are seeing the upside in terms of revenue and customer appreciation.

Want To Talk To Marc Jacobs? Click Here

Ann Taylor, which has struggled to boost sales in recent years, saw a 16% rise in same-store sales for the second quarter of 2010–and many analysts are pointing to the company’s aggressive use of social media for helping to lure new customers. Earlier this summer LOFT, which is owned by Ann Taylor, posted photos on its Facebook page of a new pair of pants worn by a skinny model. Many commenters complained, one writing: “Sure, they look great, if you’re 5’10″ and a stick like the model in the photo.”

The retailer responded the next day. “You asked and we listened,” it wrote, posting several new photos of employees wearing the same pants in sizes ranging from 2 to 12. The response garnered almost 100 comments, most applauding LOFT’s effort. One woman wrote, “This is fab idea. Kudos to you for listening to your shoppers.” The campaign has since been copied by retailers such as Banana Republic.

Ann Taylor CEO Kay Krill says, “Online and social media are playing an increasing role and complementing our direct mail outreach, advertising and PR efforts. We’ve a learned a lot by dialoguing with our customer this way.”

The company has also benefited financially, she says. In the second quarter, ending June 30, LOFT posted a 55% increase in its e-commerce sales, while the Ann Taylor brand had a 29% jump in online sales.

Besides using real women on Facebook to model its latest styles, the company has expanded its petite offerings and its shoe collection, both based on customer feedback, most of which is now coming from social media channels.

It isn’t just major retail chains that are listening to the views of their customers online. Israel-based Daria Shualy, a former fashion editor, launched the website Sense of Fashion this year with the intention of helping indie designers sell their wares and better communicate with customers. Designers sell their merchandise directly from the site and are also able to poll potential customers about favorite colors and styles.

This helps boost the bottom line. “We’ve seen an exact correlation on the back end for designers,” she says. “The more they are interacting with their customers, the more they are selling.”

One Sense of Fashion merchant, Francesca Audelo, who started a line of vintage- inspired hair accessories called FancyThat in Los Angeles, regularly polls her customers on everything from feather colors to favorite styles. “The comments from my customers have shaped the way I design my headbands, and even the way I’ve set prices,” she says. “I have lowered and raised my prices based on customer feedback.”

Audelo, who attests to spending most of her day online using various forms of social media, is among a new breed of entrepreneurs who have become online friends with her customers. “I keep in touch with customers,” she says. “I know who they are and what they like.”

New York-based handbag designer Dareen Hakim, who sells to Henri Bendel and specialty retailer Intermix, has developed a similarly close relationship with her customers. Some offer color suggestions, while others have requested a clutch in a certain material via e-mail or on her Facebook fan page. “Trends are moving so quickly and fashion companies have to be nimble and react quickly to their customers,” she says.

By the end of the year Hakim, whose handbags are already customizable, hopes to offer customers the opportunity to make color and leather suggestions right on her website; she says she will then produce the suggested designs if there is enough interest.

But Hakim and other fashion designers also must learn to balance responding to digital customer feedback while maintaining a consistent brand identity. “It’s an enormous challenge,” Hakim says. “A brand today has to be both a reflection of a designer while remaining open to the suggestions of customers.”

Shauna Mei, who is launching online specialty retailer AHALife this month, aims for her site to be a two-way conversation. “I want to create a dialogue between my site, brands and shoppers, but it isn’t a democracy,” she says. “We need to filter our customers’ suggestions.”

Similar to Daily Candy‘s newsletter, one new product will be introduced on AHALife daily, handpicked by curators like Diane von Furstenberg and Tim Gunn. Shopper will also be able to suggest items for the site. Stumble across a hand-blown glass candy dish in Italy or a basket maker in rural Ohio? Make the suggestion and it might just be sold on the site. “We are relying on our customers,” Mei says, “and we will be listening.”

Lululemon offers a form on its website and in its stores for customer suggestions. Comments on the Lululemon Facebook page and via Twitter almost always get a response. With more than 183,000 Facebook fans and nearly 40,000 Twitter followers, that is no small task.

The company has adjusted everything from where pockets sit on pants to the placement of waistbands on running shorts, and even learned that it needed to stock more small sizes, based on online customer feedback. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Customers regularly tweet about the great service, then get a thank you in response from the Lululemon social media team.

Social Media
Spending A Lot On Facebook
Adam Ostrow, 08.31.10, 11:00 AM ET

In the social media world a number of trends are dictating how, why and where money gets spent–trends that will push the industry past the $2 billion mark in 2011, according to eMarketer’s projections.

Not surprisingly, the biggest beneficiary of the current euphoria around social is Facebook, with several estimates now pegging the company’s 2010 revenue at better than $1 billion. That growth is being fueled in part by what some advertisers see as competition to scoring prime advertising space on the site.

“Most of our clients see a real need to spend a lot on Facebook ads,” says Andrea Wolinetz, a partner at MEC Global, which represents the likes of Ikea, AT&T and Citi. “There’s so much noise and clutter on Facebook now, that spending a good deal has become important in order to be heard.”

There’s also a growing sense that social media advertising can deliver a return on investment. Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media UK says, “We’ve found advertising on social networks to be very effective, but mainly as a part of a larger piece of activity that involved more ‘traditional’ social media techniques … ads on social media work best when they drive interaction and engagement. Interaction and engagement can then drive purchase.”

Kleiner, whose firm does work for brands ranging from McDonald’s to Warner Bros., adds that Facebook advertising has become a “default for most brands as a part of their media spend.”

Twitter’s Experimental Phase
After years of fielding questions about how it plans to make money, Twitter has launched numerous experimental business models over the past several months. At the forefront is Promoted Tweets, a program that inserts a brand-sponsored topic into Twitter’s “trending topics” list and presents a tweet from that sponsor to users, in hopes of generating retweets, replies and other forms of engagement.

Early testers of the program include Virgin America and Coca-Cola, the latter of which reported 86 million impressions and an “engagement rate” of 6% back when it used the program in June during the World Cup. More recently, the online brokerage firm Zecco reported that engagement on its promoted tweets was 50% higher than its regular tweets, with “200 to 300% increases in some cases.”

Case studies are still limited, though. “Promoted Tweets have not seen that much traction [with my clients],” Kleiner says, though he sees an opportunity to “add real value to a long tail of advertisers.” For the moment though, that long tail is mostly left out of Promoted Tweets, as the program remains in limited beta.

As the program sees public rollout later this year, the results could be significant for Twitter and advertisers. In its report, eMarketer said it expects “spending on the microblogging service [to] be low in 2010,” but adds that, “the potential for 2011 and beyond could be dramatic if it proves that its ‘resonance’ model of measuring advertising effectiveness works.”

The field collectively referred to as “location” has marketers from Starbucks to Best Buy excited about the possibilities of increasing foot traffic through programs that reward customers for “checking in” and sharing their location and brand affinity with their friends.

That said, such programs are largely experimental, and many of the startups in the space lack the critical mass to significantly move the needle for big brands. “Foursquare is the buzz word on a lot of people’s lips, but it has such a comparatively small audience that are niche to the point of incestuous,” Kleiner says. “It’s mainly used by people that work in marketing, not ‘normal’ people.”

Still, getting started in the location realm requires less of an investment than competing for space on Facebook. Says Wolinetz: “We spend a lot of our time testing and focusing interest in location-based services and Twitter, as our clients are eager to ‘master’ these emerging platforms, and [they] generally require less of a paid media investment than Facebook does.”

Kleiner concedes that he’s bullish on the potential of Facebook getting into location with the recent launch of Places, though the tools aren’t yet there for advertisers. “We will have some real mass to play with when Facebook allows advertisers to buy against location,” he says.

Social No Longer Sits at the Kids’ Table
While the market sorts out the winners and losers from a platform perspective, one thing that’s becoming clear is that social–which eMarketer estimates will account for 6.7% of total online ad spend this year–is being thought of in a much broader light than even the increasingly optimistic projections show.

“Social campaigns used to be more siloed from the rest of the communications and marketing strategies,” says Wolinetz. “Now we’re seeing social as either an extension of an overall activation idea that occurs throughout other media outlets, or conversely, the marketing/communication strategy is at its heart and inception social, and we’re using other media outlets to drive awareness and scale.”

And while that might mean social’s share of ad dollars is still relatively small, its importance within organizations is as high as it has ever been. “The biggest shift for us is that we are now seeing brands move away from pure campaign planning altogether and are allowing social media to be the bedrock for a 24-7, 365 days a year chance to engage their customers,” says Kleiner.

Adam Ostrow is editor in chief at Mashable, a widely read blog that covers the latest technologies, trends and people that are driving the current evolution of the Web.

OutFront
Is It Time to Listen to Rep. Paul Ryan’s Economic Prescription?
Brian Wingfield, 09.13.10, 12:00 AM ET

Paul Ryan, a professional policy wonk from Wisconsin, sees trouble ahead if the country stays on its present course. The cost of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security is racing ahead, at the same time that the federal government is ladling out dollars to fight the recession and collecting less in tax revenue because of the recession. Meanwhile, he argues, we are contending with chronically high unemployment, insurmountable debt payments and a crushing tax burden that could kill U.S. competitiveness. Maybe, just maybe, those entitlements have to be redesigned. He’s not quite saying, “Stop Social Security!,” but he is getting dangerously close to the thought.

Who is this guy? It would be no surprise if he turned out to be a wealthy financier who had taken up budget policy as a retirement hobby (like Peter G. Peterson) or a professional forecaster whose views on consumer spending are bearish (like Gary Shilling). The surprise is that Ryan is an elected official. He’s running for election to a seventh term in Congress, representing a district with a razor-thin Republican edge south of Milwaukee.

Mess with Social Security? Are voters ready for this? Maybe they are. Those trillion-dollar deficits can’t go on much longer.

“We have to give the country a very clear choice,” Ryan, 40, says as he’s campaigning in his home state on a mid-August afternoon. “Do you want the American idea, which is an opportunity society with a sturdy safety net, or do you want to have the cradle-to-grave, Western European-style social welfare state?”

Ryan’s choice is clear, and it’s not something many Americans of either party will easily swallow. His “Roadmap for America’s Future,” both a policy paper and a proposed bill, calls for reducing the federal deficit and debt in decades to come by partly privatizing and trimming Social Security and Medicare, freezing most government programs and instituting a simplified, optional two-tier tax system that would cut taxes for the rich.

Skeptics say his roadmap will run the country into a ditch. They say that, despite eviscerating Medicare, the plan won’t control spiraling health care costs. They say that it won’t cut the deficit drastically and could raise taxes on some people.

Yet Americans will need to take some version of this medicine, and Ryan has, as some detractors concede, at least started the conversation. President Obama called the roadmap (97 pages in the short version) “a serious proposal.” Ryan is seen as the GOP’s answer to its reputation as the “party of no” and as such has embarrassed Democrats for their lack of a comparable deficit-cutting plan. This backbencher from Janesville (pop. 63,000) and Ayn Rand admirer could be the future economic idea man for the Republican Party.

“People see that this debt crisis is real and right in front of us,” says Ryan. They are paying attention to him, he adds, “because, unfortunately, I’m the only person who’s put a plan out there.”

Ryan worked as a staffer for Senator Bob Kasten (R–Wis.) while attending Miami U. in Ohio and just after college. He hopscotched among political jobs in the mid-1990s, writing speeches for the late representative Jack Kemp (R–N.Y.) and directing legislation for Senator Sam Brownback (R–Kans.). He was elected to Congress at 28 in 1998. His private-sector experience includes a brief stint as a marketing consultant for Ryan Inc. Central (a site construction business owned by his cousins’ family) and part-time jobs waiting tables and occasionally driving the Wienermobile during a summer gig at Oscar Mayer.

Sidebar:
How The Roadmap Would Work

To keep that from happening, Ryan proposes to freeze nondefense discretionary spending–15% of the budget–for ten years and essentially move to more means-tested programs to cover retirees and sick people. His tax plan would eliminate itemized deductions and set rates at 10% for the first $50,000 of income on an individual return and 25% for income above that. He would replace the corporate income tax with an 8.5% business consumption tax.

Paul Van de Water of the nonpartisan Center on Budget & Policy Priorities points out that, by one analysis, the plan will slash by 50% the income tax liability of the richest 1% in 2014 while 75% of all Americans will see their tax burdens rise, partly due to the consumption tax being passed on to consumers.

Ryan counters that his tax system is progressive, even though it lowers tax rates on the rich, because it cuts out itemized deductions and loopholes frequently enjoyed by wealthy earners. Moreover, the idea behind lowering taxes isn’t to redistribute income, he says; it’s to encourage investment in the U.S. The business consumption tax would be levied on value added and inevitably would be passed along in the prices of goods and services.

Ryan admits his plan for Social Security could lead to lower benefits for people now under 55. “We don’t have a choice,” he says. These younger workers would have the option to put their Social Security money in an investment account managed by Uncle Sam but subject to market fluctuations.

He would wipe out ObamaCare and replace it with a voucher-based system in which adults get a $2,300 refundable tax credit to pay for health care. Similarly, Medicare recipients under 55 today would, on retirement, get vouchers to buy private insurance. He would raise the eligibility age for both Social Security and Medicare to 69 and 70, respectively, by the end of this century. How does this tame health care costs? By creating competition among doctors, price transparency and more “skin in the game” for consumers. “This requires some faith in the marketplace,” he says.

It also requires faith in which numbers to believe. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the Ryan roadmap would decrease revenue by $4 trillion over the next ten years, compared to an extension of current spending and revenue policies. “Our numbers could be right, they could be right,” says Ryan.

Only 14 other GOP members in all of Congress have endorsed the plan. In other words, it has no chance of becoming law in its present form. “My goal was to get other plans launched, to ignite and start a debate,” Ryan says. The congressman blames the inability to put his ideas in motion on “the crowd that runs Washington now.” But even if Republicans win convincingly in November’s congressional elections, he’ll still have to face opposition from the other side of the aisle and the President. Ryan’s strategy, then, is to win over moderate Democrats and, if the GOP takes control of the House, to force change.

“I see dozens of reinforcements coming in the fall to help us take this fiscal situation seriously so we can get this thing fixed,” he says.

Sidebar:
How The Roadmap Would Work

But Ryan is still the only member of Congress with a plan. According to Ryan, that’s because other lawmakers are too interested in self-preservation. “We have more ‘be-ers’ up here than ‘doers,’” says Ryan of Washington. “People want to be a congressman rather than actually do something.”

Laurence Kotlikoff
Boston University
Kotlikoff has already declared the U.S. bankrupt, and he says the U.S. must take swift action to prevent a run on its debt. Solution: Replace income tax with a progressive consumption tax and overhaul entitlement programs.

Peter G. Peterson
Peter G. Peterson Foundation
Blackstone Group cofounder has been preaching fiscal restraint for years. In 2008 gave foundation $1 billion to educate the public on the need for a simpler tax code, greater savings rate, entitlement reform and debt reduction.

Gary Shilling
A. Gary Shilling & Co.
Bearish FORBES columnist predicts slow growth and deflation as both governments and consumers tighten their belts. Commodity prices will slump. Investment advice: Sell cyclical stocks, buy long-term Treasuries and seek refuge in the U.S. dollar.

Sidebar:
How The Roadmap Would Work

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN