Giving health care and retirement decisions back to individuals is both a racial and conservative idea.

The whole debate over health care bills in Congress is really a microcosm of the broader debate over the appropriate role for government in American society. Obama, who certainly has a more collectivist vision for the role of government, has run up against resistance from the American people who are concerned about expanding government control of health care and the cost. And the massively growing government debt and economic problems are also likely to act as a brake on other efforts to expand government control and involvment in other areas as well.

What's the alternative to this collectivist, nanny state vision? It's a return to individual responsibility and a more limited government. One person who's raising the standard for an alternative vision of government is Congressman Paul Ryan.

He wants to return control and responsibility for health care - Medicare and Medicaid - and retirement - Social Security- to individuals rather than letting the government continue to run the costs through the roof and lead these programs to the cliff of bankruptcy.

As Michael Gerson wrote in a column printed in today's Star Tribune:

The new era of Democratic bipartisanship, like cut flowers in a vase, wilted in less than a week. During his question time at the recent House Republican retreat, President Obama elevated Congressman and budget expert Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as a "sincere guy" whose budget blueprint -- which, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget -- has "some ideas in there that I would agree with." Days later, Democratic legislators held a conference call to lambaste Ryan's plan as a vicious, voucherizing, privatizing assault on Social Security, Medicare and every nonmillionaire American. Progressive advocacy groups and liberal bloggers joined the jeering.

From a political perspective, Democratic leaders are right to single out Ryan for unkind attention. He is among their greatest, long-term threats. He possesses the appeal of a young Jack Kemp (for whom both Ryan and I once worked). Like Kemp, Ryan is aggressively likable, crackling with ideas and shockingly sincere.

But unlike Kemp -- who didn't give a rip for deficits, being focused exclusively on economic growth -- Ryan is the cheerful prophet of deficit doom. In a few weeks, he expects the CBO to report that, in the 10th year of Obama's budget, the federal government will "spend nearly a trillion dollars a year, just on interest! This traps us as a country. Inflation will wipe out savings and hurt people on fixed incomes. A plunging dollar will make goods more expensive. High tax rates will undermine economic growth. It is the path of national decline."

But unlike other deficit hawks, Ryan courageously -- some would say foolhardily -- presents his own alternative. His budget road map offers many proposals, but one big vision. Over time, Ryan concentrates government spending on the poor through means-tested programs, patching holes in the safety net while making entitlements more sustainable. He saves money by providing the middle class with defined-contribution benefits -- private retirement accounts and health vouchers -- that are more portable but less generous in the long run. And he expects a growing economy, liberated from debt and inflation, to provide more real gains for middle-class citizens than they lose from lower government benefits.

Ryanism is not only a technical solution to endless deficits; it represents an alternative political philosophy. Democrats have attempted to build a political constituency for the welfare state by expanding its provisions to larger and larger portions of the middle class. Ryan proposes a federal system that focuses on helping the poor, while encouraging the middle class to take more personal responsibility in a dynamic economy. It is the appeal of security vs. the appeal of independence and enterprise.

Both sides of this debate make serious arguments, rooted in differing visions of justice and freedom. But the advocates of security, including Obama, have a serious problem: They are currently on a path to economic ruin.

I think this is ultimately the way to go. Restore responsibility to individuals and view government as the last line of help for those in need rather than the first. For those who say people are unable or unwilling to take responsibility, one has to ask, has the government been successful in addressing these needs? I think not. Health care and retirement programs are seeing rising costs and approaching bankruptcy unless there are major changes.

What's interesting is this conservative plan is really the radical one. As Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein writes:

Paul Ryan's budget is a radical document that rolls a live grenade under current policy. Social Security? Ryan adds private accounts. Medicaid? Ryan privatizes it. Medicare? Same thing. Health care? Ryan repeals the subsidy for employer-provided insurance, replacing it with a tax credit. The boyish Ryan is a conservative darling, but there's nothing conservative about his document. It does not respect, much less preserve, the status quo. But then, that's a point in Ryan's favor. The status quo will bankrupt our country. On that, Ryan's radicalism is welcome, and all too rare.

In this respect, the conservative solution is the radical one while President Obama's approach is simply more of the status quo. Ryan's "roadmap" proposals can be found here.

Former Speechwriter and Washington Post Columnist has interesting review of Obama-McCain performance at Warren's Saddleback Church

Michael Gerson, columnist and presidential speechwriter, had some interesting comments on the McCain and Obama appearance at Rick Warren's presidential forum.

He said Obama came off cerebral and academic, ala Adlai Stevenson, less appealing the more people get to know him, and revealed his liberal positions. All of the above will make Obama less appealing to the targeted audience for the affair -- evangelicals.

It is now clear why Barack Obama has refused John McCain's offer of joint town hall appearances during the fall campaign. McCain is obviously better at them.

Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency -- two hours on Saturday night evenly divided between the relaxed, tieless candidates -- was expected to be a sideshow. McCain and Obama would make their specialized appeals to evangelicals as if they were an interest group such as organized labor or the National Rifle Association. Evangelicals would demonstrate, in turn, that they are not rubes and know-nothings. And Americans would turn en masse to watch the Olympics.

What took place instead under Warren's precise and revealing questioning was the most important event so far of the 2008 campaign -- a performance every voter should seek out on the Internet and watch.

First, the forum previewed the stylistic battle lines of the contest ahead, and it should give Democrats pause. Obama was fluent, cool and cerebral -- the qualities that made Adlai Stevenson interesting but did not make him president. Obama took care to point out that he had once been a professor at the University of Chicago, but that bit of biography was unnecessary. His whole manner smacks of chalkboards and campus ivy. Issues from stem cell research to the nature of evil are weighed, analyzed and explained instead of confronted.

This approach has a genuine appeal to some voters, especially of a more liberal bent, who believe there is a nuance shortage in American life. But on Saturday night it did not compare well with McCain, who was decisive, passionate and surprisingly personal. The candidate who once seemed incapable of the confessional style of politics talked at length of Vietnam experiences and his adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Asked by Warren about his greatest moral failure, McCain's response -- "the failure of my first marriage" -- had an abrupt and disarming authenticity. The account of his hardest decision -- refusing release from captivity during the Vietnam War ahead of others who had been imprisoned longer -- remains shocking in its valor. And McCain's habit of understatement -- he described the excruciating rope torture he experienced in Vietnam as "very uncomfortable" -- makes his stories even more effective.

Second, the Warren forum demonstrated how difficult it will be for Obama to appeal to religious and conservative voters as the campaign proceeds. His outreach to evangelical voters is obviously sincere, but he doesn't actually agree with them on much. In the course of the forum, he endorsed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in spite of the existence of humane and promising alternatives. He proposed controversial government regulations on faith-based charities that accept federal funds. He attacked Justice Clarence Thomas as unqualified and defended his vote against the confirmation of the widely admired Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama deserves points for honesty on all these issues, but it is possible to be honestly off-putting.

Obama's response on abortion -- the issue that remains his largest obstacle to evangelical support -- bordered on a gaffe. Asked by Warren at what point in its development a baby gains "human rights," Obama said that such determinations were "above my pay grade" -- a silly answer to a sophisticated question. If Obama is genuinely unsure about this matter, he (and the law) should err in favor of protecting innocent life. If Obama believes that a baby in the womb lacks human rights, he should say so -- pro-choice men and women must affirm (as many sincerely do) that developing life has a lesser status. Here the professor failed the test of logic.

For many evangelicals, the theoretical Obama -- the Obama of hope and unity -- is intriguing, even appealing. But this opinion is not likely to improve upon closer inspection of his policy views. Obama is one of those rare political figures who seems to grow smaller the closer we approach him. "I want people to know me well," Obama said at the forum. Among religious conservatives, that may not be an advantage.

Finally, McCain's performance at the Warren forum helps change the political psychology going into the conventions. Republicans have spent the past few weeks pleasantly surprised at the closeness of the presidential race. But they have generally chalked this up to Obama's weakness, not McCain's strength. After Saturday night, even Republicans most skeptical of McCain must conclude: "Perhaps we aren't doomed after all."

Of such small hopes are large upsets made.