I liked this part of  Rep. Paul Ryan’s speech at Heritage earlier this week:

[The president has] also failed to work with us on another area where one would think we could find common ground: ending the lavish subsidies and government benefits that go to those who are already successful.

The House-passed budget was full of proposals to get rid of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.

• Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically-connected solar energy firms?
• Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?
• Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?

Rather than raising taxes and making it more difficult for Americans to become wealthy, let’s lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.

The President likes to use Warren Buffett and his secretary as an example of why we should raise taxes on the rich.

Well, Warren Buffett gets the same health and retirement benefits from the government as his secretary.

But our proposals to modestly income-adjust Social Security and Medicare benefits have been met with sheer demagoguery by leading members of the President’s party.

The politics of division have always struck me as odd: the eagerness to take more, combined with the refusal to subsidize less.

I wonder if Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Paul Ryan would have enough common ground in the next Congress to work together for reform along these lines?

UPDATE: In that steady way he has — the steadiness of an expert sniper drawing a bead on a target — Daniel Larison takes out Paul Ryan’s speech. Pow. Then, pow.