Is Ryan a colossal failure or outright fraud?

The 116th Congress convened last week, and Paul Ryan has left the building.

Hey, bro — don’t let the Capitol doors hit you on the way out. Wow, what a disappointment. History will not treat him well.

Ryan entered Congress 20 years ago as a conservative fiscal policy wonk from Wisconsin, rose to prominence as a budget hawk, and became speaker of the House in 2015 on the basis of that reputation. As speaker, he threw that reputation all away.

I, too, am a fiscal conservative. By that I mean government should not agree to do things for which we do not have a reasonable payment plan. Yes, some government debt is sustainable in the long run, but all tax and spending policies need to meet a basic fiscal test: Can we afford it in the decades to come? We do not promise rainbow cupcakes on every plate and unicorns in every backyard unless we can afford it.

For fiscal conservatives,

Paul Ryan was the Chosen One. To compare Ryan’s reputation as he accumulated power to his accomplishments once he had power — the Grand Canyon between his stated goals and what he did as speaker — is to expose him as either a colossal failure or an outright fraud. Those are really the only two options.

In 2012, Ryan told Fox

News’ Sean Hannity about government debt under the Obama administration: “This is the most predictable economic crisis we have ever had in this country — it’s a debt crisis. Our debt literally gets out of control, and it ends the American dream as we know it.”

Fortunately, according to Ryan, we had him to save us.

He went on: “Let’s get back to a path of prosperity and debt reduction and paying the debt off. So what I’m basically saying is we are offering the country a choice of two futures. … The more you kick the can, the worst (sic) it gets, the more imperiled our economy becomes and the more of a debt crisis we have on our hands.”

Anyway, the joke’s on us. Apparently, Ryan was only kidding about the debt problem in the years leading up to his speakership. Ryan, as House speaker from October 2015 until last week, finally had the chance to back up his ideas with legislation.

Yes, power is shared among many people in Washington. Enacting one’s vision is hard. But Ryan completely drove the