The Pulse: Paul Ryan's book lays out compassionate conservatism

Paul Ryan's introduction to entitlement programs was born of tragedy. In the summer of 1986, having just concluded his sophomore year in high school, Ryan worked the grill at his local McDonald's. One night, he stayed late cleaning and closing the restaurant, then went home, intending to sleep in the following morning and mow the lawn. His plans were interrupted by a ringing telephone that brought news of his father's absence from his law office. That's when the 15-year-old discovered his 55-year-old father in his bedroom, dead of a heart attack brought on by a battle with alcoholism. That's when Paul Ryan discovered the safety net.

"Those years of adversity taught me a lot about the importance of family," Ryan writes in his new book, The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea. "They also introduced me to Social Security. When my dad died, my Social Security survivor benefits gave me a financial backstop. I can still remember how it felt to open a bank account and put my benefits in a college fund. That money helped me pay for school."

Ryan's family also received assistance from his grandmother's Social Security, allowing the family to hire a "very kind woman who provided home care on weekdays while my mom and I were at school. Social Security helped us get the care that my grandmother needed, just as it's there for my mom today."

A little more than a decade later, newly elected Congressman Paul Ryan received advice from a veteran lawmaker from the opposite side of the aisle. Barney Frank told Ryan, "Do not be a generalist." The Massachusetts Democrat told the young Wisconsin Republican that he should concentrate on a handful of issues, which Ryan did with regard to budgetary matters and entitlement programs. Given his life experience after his father's passing, perhaps that was no coincidence.

"We learned what a safety net was like, and thank heavens it was there for us," Ryan told me last week. Ryan said his opponents like to caricature his party as being against all government via straw-man arguments. "My argument is, as a limited government conservative, that doesn't mean I'm against all government. It means I want the government to do what it's supposed to do and do it well," he said.

I asked the 2012 vice presidential candidate what he'd learned from the tragedy of his father's passing.

"That you need a safety net, that it's important, and that these are earned benefits; people pay into them. My dad paid his payroll taxes, and then, when he passed away unexpectedly, that safety net was there for us, and it kicked in. And guess what? With baby boomers retiring, with $17 trillion in debt, it's in question. It's going bankrupt."

Ryan told me that the instability of federal entitlements - "these programs are structured in a way and designed in a way in the 20th century that makes them unsustainable as they're currently designed in the 21st century," he said - is what caused him to dedicate the bulk of his career in Congress to trying to save them. For his effort, he argues, he is often cast as an agitator.

"The problem that you experience today is the political demagoguery of when you try to tackle these problems and solve them before they get out of control," he said. "You are caricatured in a way to stick to the status quo. If the status quo were great, I wouldn't be trying to reform it. But it's not great, it's not solvent, and therefore we need to reform it, and we can't be intimidated by these political tactics that seek to dissuade us from taking it on."

In addition to concentrating on entitlements, Ryan has recently sought to put forth an antipoverty plan, inserting himself into a policy area where few Republicans have sought to enter. That's not surprising, given that Ryan regards another onetime Republican vice presidential nominee - Jack Kemp - as his mentor. Ryan worked for Kemp at Empower America, a pro-growth economic think tank, but their first meeting was a far cry from the close, policy-driven relationship they would establish.

When Ryan first worked as a Capitol Hill staffer, he made extra cash waiting tables at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant called the Tortilla Grill. He had read and been impressed with Kemp's book An American Renaissance, so when his political hero came to dinner one night, Ryan couldn't bring himself to employ his usual tactic of trying to up-sell a customer on a tablespoon of shrimp queso that increased the bill and, consequently, his tip.

"He's basically the mentor that inspired me to take up public service as a vocation," Ryan told me. "I shouldn't even mention myself in the same sentence as Jack, but I'm trying to do my part to try and revitalize that side of conservatism, that happy-warrior conservatism, to bring it to people who are not familiar with it. Because that, to me, is morally the right thing to do. But, strategically, if we're going to win the Electoral College, give the country the choice they deserve, and have the kinds of elections we need to have and win, this is critical in my opinion."

Ryan's book is one part anecdotal biography and one part policy tome. That he's promoting it this weekend by visiting nine Florida bookstores would suggest it's also one part campaign manifesto.