Paul Ryan: Pick the GOP for families, and Democrats for bureaucrats

In an aptly timed op-ed spurning President Obama's economic policies, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, argues that as voters head to the ballot boxes Tuesday, they should keep in mind the choice between "empowering bureaucrats" and "empowering families."

"Here's the choice facing voters," Ryan wrote in USA Today, in an opinion piece titled, "Republicans will empower families." "The other side sees people as clients. We see them as partners. They want to take people off the field. We want to take people off the sidelines. Tuesday, we ask for your vote, and we make this pledge: We'll get the trains running on time -- and in the right direction."

Ryan, the House Budget Committee Chairman whose budgets have helped shape the House's policies, follows in the footsteps of some of his Republican colleagues by offering a glimpse at how his party might govern if they take over the Senate on Election Day."If Republicans win the Senate, we'll hold the president accountable. We'll make him hear you. We'll send your ideas to the president's desk, and he'll finally have to make a decision," Ryan wrote. "But we're also offering something more fundamental. We're offering a governing philosophy that promotes collaboration over coercion, that takes decision-making away from bureaucrats in Washington and puts it in the hands of families."

The talk of collaboration over coercion follows in the themes of Ryan's recent book, "The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea," in which he paints a vision for the future of the GOP and rejects confrontational politics like the 2013 government shutdown that hurt his party's standing with the American people.

Embracing the Republican case du jour, Ryan says in the op-ed: "It has been six years since the recession hit, yet millions of families are still struggling. The cost of living keeps going up, but paychecks haven't budged. College grads are moving in with their parents; student debt today is over $1 trillion. Just 62.7% of people are in the labor force, the lowest level since the 1970s. And even if they have a job, people feel insecure, as if the floor could fall out from underneath them at any moment.

"When the president and his party took over, they told the country, in essence, 'We'll handle it,'" he goes on. "They beefed up the bureaucracy. They piled up record deficits. And they centralized power in Washington. But the economy never took off. Today, whether there's a scandal at Veterans Affairs or a crisis in the Middle East, the bureaucrats in Washington show not just a lack of concern but also a stunning lack of competence."

Republicans are expected to handily retain control of the House; the currently Democrat-controlled Senate, though, poses appetizing turf for the GOP as it looks to sweep both chambers on Capitol Hill.