Rep. Paul Ryan has a road map to U. S. solvency; who knew?

For Republicans, the road map authored by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the most important proposal in domestic policy since Ronald Reagan embraced supply-side economics in the 1980 presidential campaign. It's not only the freshest, boldest, and most comprehensive Republican thinking, it's also the most relevant. If Republicans adopt the road map as their basic ideological blueprint, it offers them the prospect of a landslide in the midterm election this year, followed by victory in the presidential election in 2012.

(snip)

For now, the road map has a relatively small but growing cheering section. A dozen House members have endorsed it. Sen. Jim DeMint praised it in his book "Saving Freedom." Jeb Bush likes it. On CNN last week, economic historian Niall Ferguson called Ryan "a serious thinker on the Republican right who's prepared to grapple with these issues of fiscal sustainability and come up with a plan."

The plan would give everyone a refundable tax credit to buy health insurance, allow individual investment accounts to be carved out of Social Security, reduce the six income tax rates to two (10 and 25 percent), and replace the corporate tax (35 percent) with a business consumption tax (8.5 percent). And that's not the half of it.

As ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Ryan was able to get the Congressional Budget Office to run the numbers in his plan. CBO concluded the plan would "make the Social Security and Medicare programs permanently solvent [and] lift the growing debt burden on future generations, and hold federal taxes to no higher than 19 percent of GDP." Pretty impressive results, I'd say.

The road map does one more thing. It would give Republicans an agenda if they gain control of the House or Senate in the midterm election -- or a mandate if they win both. "What's the point of winning an election if you don't have a mandate?" Ryan asks.

He doesn't expect a mandate in 2010. "I need to make sure these ideas survive this election," he says, and set the stage for "the most ideological, sea-changing election in our lifetime" in 2012. Merely survive in 2010? The road map can do better than that. How about thrive?