There is nothing novel about them. Eliminating Social Security, Medicare and all other government for the sake of eliminating debt without raising taxes has been the basis of the GOPs "starve the beast" philosophy since Reagan unveiled it in 1980. The whole idea was to shrug off desired spending cuts and just raise taxes anyway to manufacture a debt that could then be used to FORCE elimination of all spending. It is literally the sole cause of Americas towering federal debt, which was a paltry 33% of GDP in January 1981, but >50% of GDP by January 1989.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1981_1990USb_13s1li011mcn__US_Gross_Domestic_Product_GDP_History

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1980_1990USb_13s1li111mcn_H0f

Take a look at the 1930-2010 chart and tell me where the problems arose: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1930_2010USb_13s1li111mcn_H0f

There is an obvious and natural '70s spike due to leaving the gold standard, two energy crises and resulting stagflation, but that increase is dwarfed by the meteoric rise that began when we elected 1980s "starve the beast" president, and only briefly halted when Gingrich forced Clinton to accept spending cuts in conjunction with tax hikes and balance the budget for the first (and apparently last) time in a generation.

The responsible course is to both raise taxes and reduce spending, but Ryan is no more interested in that than either partys other leaders. He adds neither clarity nor insight to the tax and spend competition between Republicans saying all forms of both are bad vs. Dems saying all forms are good; he just doubles down on the former position. Whether it is getting rid of SS and telling people to invest their money in Wall Street for retirement (because Wall Street is demonstrably SO honest and reliable) or getting rid of Medicare and telling people to spend their money on private insurance, his plans are not for government to do anything. The very premise of his whole view of government, after all, is that it should do NOTHING.

As with Ron Paul (and for similar Objectivist reasons, despite one claiming devout Catholicism and the other devout Baptism) I cannot help wondering why anyone thinks them qualified to LEAD a government whose very existence they are dedicated to ending.