Customer Reviews

Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders

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The latest entry in the season of political books took three authors to craft and begins with a foreword by yet a fourth. Yet Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, by Republican Congressmen Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy, for the most part manages to avoid the perils of group authorship and to succeed in concisely conveying a sense of what these three men are up to.

The foreword by the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes calls Mr. Ryan "the most influential Republican thinker in Congress." Mr. Barnes predicts that Mr. Cantor "will be speaker or majority leader the next time Republicans control the House," while Mr. Ryan "will be in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee."

The book proceeds to a "roundtable discussion" among the three authors, with Mr. Ryan charging that the Democrats have a "hardcore-left agenda," of wanting "to transform this country into a cradle-to-grave European social welfare state and change the idea of America forever."

The authors, who, after the initial roundtable, handle the rest of the book in three separate chunks each attributed to a single author, are not afraid to criticize their fellow Republicans. "We've seen Republicans who claim to believe in limited government spend the taxpayers' money like teenagers with their parents' credit card," Mr. Cantor writes. Republicans, he writes, "became what they had campaigned against: arrogant and out of touch."

At times, though, they blame Democrats when the fault belongs to both parties. Mr. Cantor writes, "Then the Democrats got into the auto business. Instead of allowing its union cronies and corporate CEOs to be held accountable for their poor decisions, they made the taxpayers accountable by buying Chrysler and General Motors." He leaves out that the CEOs of both Chrysler and General Motors lost their jobs, and that the government got into the auto business by putting $4 billion into Chrysler on January 2, 2009, $1.5 billion into Chrysler's financing arm on January 16, 2009, $13.4 billion into GM on December 31, 2008, and $5 billion into GMAC on December 29, 2008. All of that was during the Bush administration, before President Obama took office.

Mr. Cantor also writes movingly about the death of his cousin, Daniel, in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in 2006. In a terrific section, Mr. Cantor faults the Obama administration for what he calls a "shocking double standard" in the administration's reprimanding Israel for approving construction in Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Biden but ignoring the fact that during the same visit by Mr. Biden, "Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party held a ceremony dedicating a public square in Ramallah to Dalal Mughrabi" a terrorist who had led an attack on a bus full of Israeli civilians, killing 38, including 13 children.

For the most part, though, the book leaves foreign policy and social issues aside and focuses on the case for turning back the growth of government. Core principles? Mr. Cantor writes: "Government doesn't create jobs and build wealth; entrepreneurs, risk takers, and private businesses do."

On the detailed policy proposals, there's room to quibble. The authors tout their alternative to the Democratic stimulus plan. The alternative included "allowing small business to reduce its tax liability by 20 percent" and "a home-buyers credit of $7,500 for those buyers who can make a minimum down payment of 5 percent." Mr. Cantor explains it as an effort to be "realistic" and "work with the administration," and says they would have "much preferred" a bill that "lowered all tax rates."

Mr. Ryan's "Roadmap" budget plan would alter Medicare for future seniors to provide "more support for those with low incomes." He writes that under his Roadmap, "For both Social Security and Medicare...the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases." He doesn't really get into the question of why the Republicans would want to join the Obama-led effort to balance the budget on the backs of the "wealthy."

Other proposals seem sensible, such as Mr. McCarthy's recommendation that the text of spending bills "be posted on the Internet at least a week before the vote."

Somewhat surprising is that these politicians come off at times as such delicate flowers.

Mr. Ryan complains that Democrats responded to his "Roadmap" by circulating "a so-called 'fact sheet' peppered liberally with fighting words like 'privatize.'" Mr. Ryan may choose to complain when Democrats accuse him of privatizing, but other politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Stephen Goldsmith have been successful by communicating and demonstrating to the public the benefits of privatization rather than by shrinking from the term as if it were some kind of slur.

This is a political book more than a policy book. These guys are, after all, politicians, a fact that occasionally shines through. Mr. McCarthy was elected to Congress in 2006 after the retirement of his "mentor and friend," Bill Thomas, for whom Mr. McCarthy had worked for 15 years starting at age 22. Mr. Thomas had served 28 years in Congress, which makes the complaint elsewhere in the book, directed at Democratic House committee chairs, that "the people who are making the nation's energy and tax policy for America's small business haven't been in the private sector for over three decades," ring a bit hollow.

The list of "members of the House Republican Young Guns" at the end of the book includes Lamar Smith, a congressman from Texas who is 62 years old and has been in Congress since 1987, and Buck McKeon, who is 72 and has been in Congress since 1993. If readers are left with the sense that the definition of "young guns" is a bit, well, liberally expansive, they will nevertheless come away from this book with a deeper understanding of three men who are already significant players in Washington and are likely to become even more so if their party retakes control of the House in November's election.

"Young Guns," by Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy is a well written, enjoyable, encouraging book by three representatives to Congress who have the ideals of the men who revolted against British tyranny in 1776. There are fighting for those same principles of limited government, states and individual rights, and wise financial policies. They are working toward reformation of the Social Security System, wise and way less expensive health care reform, tax reform and much more. Like our nation's founders they want a return to the moral principles set forth in the Constitution that this country was founded upon. We need these three authors and the other young guns in Congress they write about to support a truly conservative agenda that upholds the values of the majority of the American people. Americans, through such avenues as the town hall meetings and Tea Parties have been making their dissatisfaction with Washington's policies clear and unlike the socialist liberal Democrats the young gun Republicans are listening and responsive to the people's desires. They are in Congress to serve the American people and not the other way around. I highly recommend this excellent book.

This book provides commonsense solutions to tough problems facing our country. Perhaps those who submitted negative reviews should have actually read the book.

The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the Ryan "Roadmap" and concluded that it does everything it promises: balances the budget and saves Social Security and Medicare.

Krugman is a partisan hack and a fool, who has been discredited long ago. Only readers of the New York Times editorial page take him seriously. Worse, he is a Keynesian, whose economic nostrums have failed everywhere and every time they've been tried, including, especially, here and now.

I was excited to get my copy of Young Guns downloaded to my Kindle Tuesday morning at 12 am but now after reading it I realize that I need to get this in hard cover to keep.

If I was not represented by Congressman Ryan and I had read this book I might be willing to say that these guys are simply idealists. But I am represented by Congressman Ryan and I have come to realize that what he acts on what he believes because his constituents expect him to.

Congressman Cantor, Ryan & McCarthy are truly leaders. You can see it in their writings, they know not only what needs to get done and how to get it done but they are acting on it. They are willing to be mentors for new congressmen and hold each other accountable for doing what it right for the country and their constituents first and themselves last.

These men have a great future not only in the GOP but in history...they are bringing the government back to the people.

Please read this book...it is worth the time and will motivate you to reach out to your representative at all levels of government and remind them that they are in their position to serve the people not for the people to serve them.

ANY high public official in this country who puts the welfare of another country ahead of his own is a dangerous man and not to be trusted--Cantor fits this bill exactly!

The book is an easy read, and I especially liked Eric Cantor's section. The 'but" part of my review is that I was hoping that they would get away from some of the name calling and paranoia about the "evil democrats" and Nancy Pelosi, and just lay out some solid conservative principles to move the country forward

I could not agree with the other reviewer who said you should read the book before reviewing it...as a conservative book publisher, we face this daily...liberal activists who trash our books when it is obvious that they have not read the book.

Kevin McCarthy is my representative in the CA 22nd district. He's brilliant. So are Paul Ryan (WI) and Eric Cantor (VA). We recently took a cruise with the Weekly Standard editors from Boston to Canada. Ryan won the straw poll to be the next Presidential nominee of the Republican party. Who knows. But these three young guns are terrific. And so will the incoming new class. Watch out Dems, your days are over. Obama has put race relations back 50 years by his anti-white and pro-Muslim rhetoric, and he has destroyed the Democrat party for at least 20 years.

Eric

McKenna Publishing Group

Publisher of "Liberty Rising" by Robert Allen Bonelli

very well written - with people like this in our government we still have a chance to change things and become a great nation again.

Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy are three bright lights among the conservative congressmen who are assuming important positions in the coming 2011-2012 legislative year and beyond. This book is a concise manifesto of what our young conservative political leaders in Congress can and should do to correct and re-direct the course of government. Every citizen concerned about the direction of our nation should read this book. I hope the opinion makers in our national mainstream media and academia give these guys an honest, serious chance, especially since our nation stands on the brink of disaster with regards to bloated federal spending and huge un-funded programs such as Social Security and Medicare ready to detonate like a nuclear bomb affecting every American's future. I highly recommend this book to everyone, young and old.