Judd Gregg: Let the Speaker speak

This is a time of marginal-to-no leadership in Washington. 

President Obama has disappeared into a never-never land of political correctness and personal agendas. He projects no persona of leadership here or abroad.

The Congress has been wallowing — and continues to wallow — in a self-generated swamp of confusion, with most members focused on the minutiae of their reelection and fundraising efforts rather than on any initiatives that would address the serious issues that confront us.

{mosads}It is a time of considerable opportunity for someone to break out of the box of ineffectiveness in which Washington has been contained. 

It is time for the Speaker.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is unquestionably one of the best and most original thinkers in government today. He now has the opportunity to use his considerable talents, invest his political capital and set out for the nation an agenda that is truly different, creative and bold.

This should be done through a series of energizing directives. It could include some of the following:

He should tell the Ways and Means Committee — the entire committee, Democrats and Republicans — to take the first week of January, go somewhere quiet and work together to outline a true, bipartisan tax reform package. This would be something akin to the Reagan-Rostenkowski proposal of 1986 or the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which first met in 2010.    

Rostenkowski got the ball rolling on tax reform with this kind of approach. It does not involve writing the bill in all its specifics right away. It involves creating an atmosphere of civility and constructiveness so that general outlines can be discerned and general agreements can be arrived at.

Ryan should direct a total rethink and evaluation of our intelligence and military efforts regarding the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He should set up a special working committee, which he would chair but which would have House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.) as vice-chairwoman. 

That committee should be populated with the best people on the issue from both sides of the aisle in the House, as well as a few outside folks who really understand the problems confronting the intelligence community and the Defense department.  

It would need to meet with enthusiasm, and come up with a comprehensive and bipartisan plan to give the people charged with fighting this real and present danger to our country the structure they need to do it. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue on which we need leadership.

Ryan should set up legislation to restructure at least one major component of our grossly over-lapping and mismanaged web of federal government agencies. The opportunities are almost endless in this arena but he might consider starting by scything down the maze of regulations that confront and stifle small businesses.

He should direct a complete rethink of the student loan programs in order to avoid the chaos that is looming in that area.  

He should call for a ten percent reduction in the number of federal employees in non-defense areas and do it through attrition over three years.

He should restructure the budget process, ending its myopic focus on discretionary spending by extending the cap approach he and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) worked out and redirecting its focus to entitlement reform.    

Reconciliation can continue as a partisan vehicle. But we need a new structure that will force a thorough review of the three major entitlement areas — Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid — that are going to bankrupt our children’s future due to the demographic shifts that are occurring. 

Ryan could call this, simply, Revitalization. It would involve taking the Simpson-Bowles approach and creating a similar bipartisan commission to work on these issues alone. 

His office should become the primary originator of ideas for how to address in an out-of-the-box way (and with bipartisan participation, if possible) the problems that truly vex the American people. The list is long, the opportunities endless.  

Paul Ryan has a chance to make a real difference and fill a vacuum of leadership.  

He should think big, think creatively and act on behalf of the nation.

Judd Gregg (R) is a former governor and three-term senator from New Hampshire who served as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee.