Be magnets, wisconsin congressmen and paul ryan talking with former governor president ial candidate, mitt romney about the Republican Party and conservatism. This is of the union league in chicago. Its about 45 minutes. [applause] thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. Thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. Its great to be here. Its not where we wish we were, but its great to be here and its wonderful to be with paul again. We had quite an experience that i know a lot of you think it must be just awful running for president because you got to go every night to a different host tom and you get debate after debate in the primaries among the general as well and you had you during press always at your heels. And yet the truth is, it is a magnificent experience because you get to see the country person by person, statebystate. The people who make the news or by a march doing something strange or unusual are typically not good. The people we get to see day in and day out are wonderful people and we learned about their life stories and it was very touching and it made me more optimistic about our future. So if you get the chance to run for president , do it. Its a great thing. [laughter] third times a charm. [laughter] [applause] ive made a couple of good decisions in my life. One was who i married and the other was to i chose to be my running mate. There is no better than to be Vice President of the United States ben paul ryan. And if youre going to take a shot at me, you wouldnt be a bad president yourself. So we have an interesting [applause] yeah. But we have some questions about it look to you a written this year, paul. I would note that ive read it and i hope some of you have as well so your questions and reflect that. Also, i know paul pretty well and as i read it i recognize he actually wrote it. [laughter] most of the books you read that are written by politicians were not asked about by politicians. Theyre written for politicians by professional writers. Paul wrote this book i can tell because it is his voice. It is written like he speaks and that makes it even more touching and personal. I want to begin by just asking, the american idea, the subtitle for the main title of the book is the american idea. Brood down for us what does it mean to you, the american idea. A way of life and its a way of life that has been brought to life by some critical ideas and principles founded this country. In a nutshell, its the idea that the condition of your birth was not determined the outcome of your life in this country, no matter who you are or where you came from or how you got started, you can make it in this country. Is the land of opportunities and its a country built on the idea were right errors naturally our government is designed to protect those rights that we can live in freedom can find opportunity and prosperity. No other system is quite like this one. No other country was created on an idea like this one and the reason for writing the book in a nutshell is because a lot of people dont see it. They dont think it is there for them. They are worried its not going to be there for their kids or grandkids. So if you dont like a correction direction the country is going, which we dont, or the policies in place, which we think is crowding out, displacing neck, as leaders we should offer, thats why we decided to do that because the whole point of this is the american idea of maintaining the legacy of each generation secure enough for the next generation like her parents did for us. [applause] ahmad is without question something we subscribe to. At the same time, there are a lot of people who say that american idea has not worked for them or for their life. Theres a lot of people in this country who are poor. A lot of people the middle class and its harder and harder to make ends meet and they look around them and they watch tv and they see the rich and famous doing extraordinary things they can afford and they ask about why is it some people do so much better and im not doing as well as they could. How do you deal with this growing income equality, wealth inequality in the issue of poverty . He spent time looking at poverty in a novel way in your book describes that. Give us your thoughts on the income gap, the wealth gap in the extent of poverty in this country. Isnt something i talk a great deal about in the book. My friend bob woodson is sitting here tonight because for the last couple of years weve been touring around america, meeting with people who are triumphing over these difficult circumstances for fighting poverty, either live, persontoperson and doing it successfully. Theres incredible stories i tell him that spoke about that. To your bigger question, theres a couple of ways of looking out this. You can look at the status quo and a lot of people dont think the opportunity is there for them. They are trapped in generational poverty were situational poverty or they are middle income person, you know, running hard on the hamster wheel and just not getting ahead. So what kind of an end and what kind of principles do you need to reunite this opportunity of upward mobility and a healthy economy and i go through all that, but it ended the day, with respect to poverty in particular , we are at the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty. We spend trillions on with the highest poverty rate. Deep poverty is the highest since we been reporting. You could easily argue success in this one poverty has been measured based on input, how much money are we spending . How many programs are recreating . Not on results. Nonoutcomes. How many people are getting out of poverty . How many people are getting from where they are to where they want to be a to be in life . That requires a systematic review an overhaul of our approach to fighting poverty enemies government needs to be respectful of Civil Society, our communities, those doing a good job of fighting poverty in the federal government needs to play a more significant role in Mining Supply lines at the front lines in so many ways the federal government displays as those things that are happening in our communities that can bring people together, stop isolating people and get them out of poverty. In so many ways, being a burden casualty as it is told to the common american taxpayer, this is governments job. Pay her taxes. Well take care of it. Thats not true. It doesnt work like that. Everybody needs to get involved. People with faith, people without money, time, with money, with love, whatever, reintegrate and bring people back into society. Theres a whole series of reforms that i call for. Im not one of the seibu things i have it all figured out. This is a very humbling thing to do to look into an research this. But i want to get the conversation started because of how we do is measure inputs and talk about this quote, we will never have the conversation and reforms to break the cycle of poverty in the set of miniature, solve it. It also means a Strong Healthy growing economy and the policies in place today based upon the philosophy of governing that is triumphing today is Holding People back. It looks at the Economic Life of some fixed static thing in that its a government job to redistribute when our goal for everybody as to remove the barriers that people can blossom in moorish and really have a strong growing economy. [applause] so i wont go through the whole book tonight, but basically what i try to do is articulate Core Principles and policies that flow from that to reignite this american idea because i feel its under duress. I feel like we are going on the wrong path, but the good news in the news in a news in the story and i tell the stories of these amazing, heroic americans from all parts of the country that has done incredible things, the seeds are there. The combat is fair. We can have this comeback in this country. We have to get a few basic things right. I have every bit of confidence we can turn things around and get our sovereign country on the right track. [applause] all, for those of you who have read the book may recognize paul paul contrasts two cities, detroit and janesville. I would expect detroit and chicago to be a more natural comparison. I grew up in detroit and been a big red wings a couple of detroiters here. A big red wings fan. Youre a blackhawks fan. Big rivalry. Great fun. Those are terrific times. And they were competitive and summers, detroit and chicago. Im talking in the 1950s and the 1960s and you chicago, look what it has become. Look at the city and the hub that it is the back dignity and industry, innovation and technology in detroit has suffered. You describe in some detail what happened to detroit. Janesville, where you grew up, which also went through tough times and continues to go through tough times. You compare them. What happened to detroit . Why has it gone through what it has gone through and how does that contrast with janesville or chicago or other places in america that went through tough times but found a way out . So its a complicated story and one that the comparisons arent easy, but i think the story of detroit is a cautionary tale for the country because if you go back and look into a physical autopsy on detroit and see the failures that have occurred, it is because of poor leadership and bad government. Its because of taxing and borrowing pending in passing the buck on to the point where they ended up a crowd. They could afford the police, Fire Department for the kids in the schools get the worst scores in the country. With a cautionary tale of what i call a philosophy of governing that if they played out throughout our country and federal government will have a similar ending. The other side of the destroyed areas to come back we hope is coming in the seeds planting of the cornerstone school, what am dilbert is doing their, with citizens and Civil Society are taking matters into their own hands to regenerate their community and the reforms they are having. It is a tale of what america could become if we go the wrong direction on what detroit can be if we apply the right ideas and principles. In janesville we live on the same block or grew up on. I come from a big extend a catholic family. Is always a riot in the room wherever you are. These are the only three on by ryan claim related to. [laughter] [applause] i wish i was related to pat ryan. The dont we all, right . Janesville was one of those communities where john and i grew up that is fair for people when they fall down. The lions club, the optimist, catholic churches, the lutherans , all the social in the Civil Society. We had a pretty hard knock in our family and my mom and grandma and i went through difficult and challenging times but for janesville, our community, not just turns and relatives, the people we didnt even know the Team Together and made a difference in getting involved in seeing what it does to support people. When we lost her general smuckers platteville general smuckers plant will militarize the loop. When we lost our General Motors plant it was a huge punch to the stomach and hundreds of months of dollars of payroll into a town of 60,000 to a ton of 60,000 people. A lot of my buddies from high school, a lot of the people john graduated with worked better on my public appearance at the same career for their life which made a good living, gone. To see the economic havoc in our town and the city come together and hold people up and we have a ways to go, but to see the Civil Society and see how people help each other gives me a perfect story of the middle space between ourselves and our government which is where we live our lives. What we commonly call Civil Society, which is what the lexington toqueville rousseau brilliantly about, and scraping fabric of American Life that we need to sustain them revitalize if we are going to get this country back on its tracks. People ask me why you believe what i believe in who i am. Its because of where i come from, my family and my community. You call that social capital as i recall. What does it take to regenerate the kind of social capital that tocqueville thought was so unique about this country . That is where i do discuss the downside of liberal progressivism, which i believe is a print bowl of governing with no limit. What it does is seek every problem with a large centralized solution, which ends up displays in a crowded out the Civil Society. I quote people who have been reading and tracking social capital for a long time. Bowling alone is a fantastic book, a harvard economist whos written about social capital. We are not spending our lives together anymore. We are not ignorant h r communities. We are bowling alone and this is something that has to be revitalize with Economic Growth. Has to be revitalize it not enough Economic Growth that provides jobs and growth everywhere, but also with a new attitude towards our culture and community where people understand they themselves have to get involved. Government has to respect the limits of that can mature and decorah not to me is how you revitalize social capital. So given the way, encourage it, dont crowded out, dont discourage it, dont our power or overwhelm people. In power. That is the secret sauce of the American Life committee affair can idea that has to be revitalize aging everyone of us in our communities and the government has to respect his limits and focus on what is supposed to do and do well to increase our social capital. [applause] when they turn to a topic that i know its not one we spent a lot of time thinking about and that is the National Balance sheet and income statement. [laughter] a lot of people looked at old and thin and the work done by this commission as they laid out a plan and you are part of that effort. They laid out a plan to try and rein in the excess in washington. I dont know if anyone agreed 100 with what came out of the commission. You agree with parts and not others and of course he didnt do it entitlement, which is the part that should have been part of the discussion. Nonetheless, in the vicinity of a lot of people wonderful starting point for the president to say this is a bipartisan commission. Its taking apart the federal budget for foreign forecast what will have been given demographic trends and Financial Trends in this country and that laid out a pathway so we dont have to worry about a future where we might not be able to, Social Security and we might not count on medicare and medicaid. We might not count on the military that was second to none in the world. The president didnt pick it up, didnt touch it. You were there. What happened . Why did nothing, from the extraordinary effort, which got so much fanfare and d. C. Have some as it was begun and as it was released and then just nothing. What happened . So as we put it together, alice rivlin and i teamed up to have an amendment to Medicare Medicaid reform of the biggest driver of her dad. Alice rivlin is a democrat and we put this rivlin ryan plan together as an amendment, which had that occurred, i wouldve thought this is a pretty complete package. It was rejected by the elected democrats in the commission. I was also worried about the deep cuts in defense that was in it. The way i looked at Bowles Simpson is theres a lot of good work here. Im going to take the good work and add a sickly rivlin ryan. What i would do differently on defense and taxes and introduce data and pass it through the house of representatives and the next year and i did it for years in a row. We have past four years in the realm a budget plan to pay down the debt. [applause] before you go along, i just want to underscore something that paul just sad and mad is that the house passes important legislation. Republicans are not the party of no. The houses than passing legislation. Your roadmap has been passed in a joseph entitlement reforms and getting our country on a stable fiscal footing and yet it doesnt get picked up by the senate and of course not by the white house. So the idea that ours is the party of noah simply wrong. Ours is a party passing legislation, putting the lid is nation tour to the senate. Very we doesnt take it out. If people want action in this country and dealing with education to health care to immigration, to our fiscal needs, tax reform, if people want to see those things happen, they will vote for republican senators and republican president as well. [cheers and applause] the mac so i have enormous respect for bulls fans since then. They are great guys. The thinking at the time as you are the numerical benchmarks you have to pass a budget plan. I didnt like some part of what they did and i thought it was missing a lot comes with are run together and passed it and exceeded those benchmarks. We had assumed the president would do the same that if he didnt like Bowles Simpson he would put his own plan out there meeting these benchmarks to stabilize the fiscal situation and he chose not to do that either. Bowles simpson was set up by his executive order, so we really did expect that once we decided not to support it, the House Republicans, and do our thing, we thought he wouldve triangulated, like bill clinton did, for the sake of 2012 and surrounded and supported. Instead he jettisoned it, demagogues what we were doing it did not offer a credible fiscal alternative to net anywhere close to the benchmarks ive Bowles Simpson and meanwhile we have the Fiscal Program looming over us. Why is that . You have to ask him, but my personal theory is ideology. I read about this in the book at the particular moment where was clear the decision being made and i just think it was more of an ideological interest in the front and center of his mind versus something that was more moderate or moderate seeming. I believe at that moment when he decided not to do you Bowles Simpson, to demagogue and not offer an alternative that i was really what the administration was about. Thats when i concluded we are going to need a new president to fix this mess. [applause] he might describe i agree. You might des