• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Galen Institute

A not-for-profit health and tax policy research organization.

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Mission and History
    • Officers and Trustees
    • Scholars and Staff
    • Who was Galen?
  • Activities
    • Core Activities
    • State Leaders Calls
    • Commentary and Oped Tutorial
    • Our Book
    • Galen Guides
  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • Major Papers
  • Broadcast Interviews

Ramesh Ponnuru in National Review Online: Reform Conservatism

POSTED BY Galen Institute on July 9, 2014.

Adapted from the February 24, 2014, issue of National Review 

It was an important step forward for Republicans. They could have continued to deploy their anti-spending fervor against the discretionary side of the budget rather than taking on the larger, faster-growing, and politically trickier entitlements. They could, that is, have adopted a posture rather than a policy. Medicare reform was a sign the party was interested in governing again. Control of entitlements is after all a fiscal precondition for reform conservatism, or any other serious agenda.

Yet no larger agenda followed the Medicare initiative. Republicans’ advocacy of Medicare reform did not sink them, as Democrats had hoped, but neither did it supply an answer to voters’ concerns about the status of the American dream. And even as Ryan’s boldness got him a spot on the Republican ticket, it seems to have exhausted the appetite for innovation on the part of his colleagues. The Republicans were still narrowly focused on cutting spending.

Continue Reading…

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

NEW – OF INTEREST

Health Care Choices 20/20:

A Vision for the Future


See the latest interview of Grace-Marie Turner on C-SPAN

SEARCH

LATEST NEWSLETTER ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE

Social Media

Like Us On Facebook

Twitter: @galeninstitute

 

Copyright Galen Institute, Inc © 2021; · Log in