{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394023", "Paul Ryan inspires", "2014-09-18", "2014", "2014-09", "Republican", "House", "WI", "Paul Ryan", "R000570", "paulryan.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "\u200b\u200bBy Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post\r\nOn Wednesday night, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) delivered a talk at the American Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) Torch of Learning Award dinner. AFHU is a charitable, non-political organization, and the remarks were distinctly nonpartisan. Leaving the world of partisan politics, however, allowed Ryan to aim for something higher, and he succeeded, giving by far the most interesting and inspirational speech of his public career. The address is worth reading in full\u00a0to appreciate the speechcraft and savor some of the poetic language. For example:\r\nIn both the Christian and the Jewish traditions, there\u2019s a common thread running through them. And that\u2019s the belief in human dignity. It\u2019s the recognition that people aren\u2019t just another factor of production\u2014they aren\u2019t just another means to an end. They are the end. They and their happiness are the center, the focus, the very purpose of our lives. And everything we do\u2014every law we pass, every transaction we make\u2014should enhance human dignity.\r\nAnd the dignity of the individual rests in large part on the dignity of work. It goes all the way back to creation. The Torah says God made man \u201cand settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.\u201d Even before the fall\u2014even before God had told us, \u201cBy the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread\u201d\u2014God wanted us to work. Paradise is something more than a beachfront resort. And we are something more than spectators. We are, in the rabbinic teaching, \u201cpartners with God in the work of creation.\u201d\r\nRyan\u2019s message was simple \u2014 but not simplistic: \u201cFar too often we look at public policy as an eternal tug of war between government and the market. But laws and markets are tools. We use them for our own purposes. They don\u2019t have to pull in the opposite direction. In fact, they can pull in the same direction. Our job, then, is to make government and the market work together to enhance human dignity.\u201d\r\nThe bulk of Ryan\u2019s speech was geared toward explaining how individual dignity, hope and opportunity are best fostered in the relationships between mentors and troubled youths, reformed gang members and students at risk, and the thousands of other settings in which Americans can help Americans avoid or emerge from a life of crime, poverty and isolation. (\u201cAnd there\u2019s something more at work here \u2014 something less obvious, but no less important. These young men and women aren\u2019t just providing a \u2018service.\u2019 They\u2019re setting an example. They\u2019re showing their community \u2014 and their country \u2014 that anyone can be redeemed.\u201d)\r\nMoreover, Ryan is making a point too often ignored or denigrated by conservatives: There\u00a0is\u00a0a role for government. The role, however, needs to be supportive, not disruptive of the programs and relationships that do the best work in helping fellow Americans. At the federal level it needs to be to support, coordinate and hold accountable those who are doing the hard day-to-day work, be it local or state government, faith-based organizations, secular charities or private foundations.\r\nI was reminded of\u00a0Bill Gates, who in a recent appearance explained:\r\nCharity is small. I mean, the private sector\u2019s like 90 percent, and government\u2019s like 9 percent, and philanthropy is less than 1 percent. There are things in terms of trying out social programs in innovative ways that government is \u2013 just because of the way the job incentives work \u2013 they\u2019re not going to try out new designs like philanthropy can and they\u2019re not going to have volunteer hours coming in to leverage the resources like philanthropy can.\u00a0So philanthropy plays a unique role. It is not a substitute for government at all.\u00a0When you want to give every child in America a good education or make sure they\u2019re not starving, that\u2019s got to be government because philanthropy isn\u2019t there day in and day out serving the entire population. It\u2019s just not of the scale or the design to do that. It\u2019s there to try out things, including funding disease research or, you know, academic studies to see if something is more effective.\r\nIn Gates\u2019s view, there is a \u201cmarket failure\u201d in funding of basic research, a gap government must often fill. Government operates on a scale and has resources that the private sector simply does not have. (In the greatest outpouring of charitable giving, private groups raised about\u00a0$3.2 billion\u00a0for Katrina rebuilding. Public assistance as of 2010 was\u00a0$142 billion.) That said, when it comes to innovation, experimentation and implementation, mammoth government bureaucracy comes up short (\u201cmost innovation is driven by private enterprise \u2013 the magic of the chip, the optic fiber, software, the magic of new drugs, new vaccines, all of that stuff \u2013 how you come up with it, how you make it safe, that\u2019s happening in private enterprise\u201d).\r\nThe message from Ryan and Gates is profoundly true and also politically constructive:\u00a0Conservatives should not obsess over cutting federal monies to the poor. (This is a sliver of our budgetary problems.)\u00a0Liberals should not defend the status quo and government programs that don\u2019t work. Then we can get down to the business of figuring out what the private sector, the charitable sector and the government each do best. Then each can gravitate to its highest, best use. That was the essence of the Ryan anti-poverty program he rolled out over the summer and the reason it was so widely praised.\r\nA final word about Ryan and his address. His remarks exemplify conservatism at its best \u2014 aware of the inherent limits and dangers posed by government overreach, but protective of civil society and committed to furtherance of human dignity. It is entirely at odds with the strain of anti-government libertarianism that views government (not terrorists or poverty or social decay) as the greatest threat to civilization as we know it. Both the implications of their philosophy (you\u2019re on your own!) and the tone of those imbued with a zeal for dismantling government (going back to a\u00a01792-sized model, for example) come off as mean-spirited. Perhaps that is why so few Americans subscribe to it.\r\nAmericans are a good and just people \u2014 but we sometimes have to be reminded of it and be inspired to rise above the fray to be our own, best selves. If that was the goal of his remarks, Ryan hit the bull\u2019s-eye. And, yes, in doing so he revealed himself to not just be an important thinker but a insightful, kind and faithful person.\r\n\u00a0\r\nhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/09/18/paul-ryan-inspires/", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394023"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3800468295812607, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}