Congressman Ryan will expand on this roadmap to fiscal sanity in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute later today. We’ll continue to offer coverage as this crucial debate moves forward. As the title of this piece suggests, brace for impact. Today marks the official beginning of promises to be a hugely important, refreshingly clarifying, and — at times — inevitably maddening election year rumble. Will America choose President Obama’s illusory and reckless path that clings to an untenable status quo, consigning our future to what Paul Ryan calls “debt, doubt and decline”? Or will we be adults, recognize the red tidal wave that’s heading our way, and act boldly to avert a wrenching and deeply unpleasant debt crisis, on our own terms?