Paul Ryan, Solamere Capital partner, Teneo vice chairman, and former House Speaker, joins CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to discuss the growing U.S. debt, solving the debt crisis, welfare reform, 2026 midterm elections, and more. <\/p>\n
FORMER SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: The Overton window in our politics is open for all these crazy ideas, but it’s closed for things like debt reduction. So our politics are just fundamentally unserious right now. And they used to be better, frankly. When I was budget chair in the early 2000s, in the 10s, I passed four budgets that paid off the debt, that balanced the budget, that reformed Medicare and Medicaid and all of these things. And no one lost their seats over those votes. We showed out of Congress, we passed out of the House these budgets that did this. And today, you can’t get that done. BECKY QUICK, CNBC ANCHOR: What changed? What happened? PAUL: Our politics changed. We became populist. Both parties are populist parties. Most grievance politics, I would argue, is what is being pushed. But we became populist parties, and populists believe things like debt reduction, entitlement reform is unpopular. Therefore, we don’t have anything close to the politics we need to get this stuff done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n