Republicans are beginning to get excited. Record levels of
spending and debt, deficits overwhelming a shrinking economy, and
Obamacare are creating tremendous downward pressure on the
Democrats and their falling poll numbers.
Some pundits are already
raising the possibility, remote though it be, of the
pachyderms retaking Congress.
Gubernatorial races in
Virginia and
New Jersey are looking very promising for the Republican
candidates, despite a recent bump for the incumbent Democrat in
the latest polling in the Garden State.
Even in our local race for the Virginia House of Delegates, in
the heart of a very deep-blue Fairfax County, a Washington, D.C.
suburb, purged of Republican officeholders, the GOP candidate
has a 7 percent lead against his opponent.
Notwithstanding our current preoccupation with the spectacle of
runaway government, taxes, spending and debt, unbridled social
liberalism and two persistent military engagements abroad, all
now owned by the current Democratic regime, would it be too
premature to ask what a new era of Republican governance would
mean for America?
The previous eight years, during which the GOP controlled the
executive, legislative and the judicial branches of government
were a mixed bag.
On taxes and federal judicial appointments, both Congress and the
White House get top marks. However, their transformation of a
budget surplus into a trillion dollar deficit, their contribution
to the nation’s cumulative debt load through the passage of a
new, huge entitlement for prescription drugs, and their abject
failure to do anything to reform entitlements, the Death Star
looming over the America, merit them failing grades. Add to these
their support of tariffs on steel, a monstrosity of a Farm Bill
and ethanol subsidies for an inefficient energy source with
negative consequences for food prices and the environment. It
isn’t a pretty picture of right-of-center governance.
Other areas for a Republican examination of conscience are
ethics, public and personal, and foreign and military policy. I
will not flog the obvious case of earmarking and its corrupting
influence on the body politic, but what, pray tell, was the
difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue, other
than the Republicans under Tom DeLay et al.
took it to even greater lengths of abuse than ever before?
High marks to Senators McCain and Coburn and Congressman Jeff
Flake for resisting these abuses, but they were voices crying in
the wilderness. Will the GOP change its ways once in power? Why
not start now?
Add to these public sins, the personal ones of Foley, Abramoff,
Ney, Cunningham, Sanford and a host of others. True, Democrats
have their black sheep, but this is not a contest over which the
GOP should strive for parity much less superiority.
More difficult subjects are foreign and military policy, as
opposed to homeland security, a clear success for the Bush
administration, given that American has been spared any terrorist
attacks since September 11, 2001.
Without undertaking a tedious discussion of what went right and
what went wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, clearly the Republican
party has tilted towards some form of Wilsonian interventionism
and an extremely aggressive approach to spreading democracy and
nation-building. Clearly, the GOP is in a very different place
post-9/11. Moreover, this up-tempo, interventionist approach to
foreign and military policy was followed by the Great Recession
of 2008 which has not been fully factored into America’s
geostrategic calculations, going forward, due to our immersion in
two wars, both very much open-ended and far from over, which
makes long-range strategic thinking very difficult.
One wonders if either the GOP or the Obama administration
appreciates the relationship between a robust economy and a
strong national defense, much less a national offense. How
sustainable is our current military program? The answer to this
question is closely tied to an overall assessment of our
debt-ridden, entitlement-dominated, high-tax economy many years
into the future.
I would not presume to answer all of these questions. No doubt,
they will get answered, variously, in numerous primary and
general elections over the next few election cycles. They are
questions well worth exploring, explicitly and transparently, in
the days ahead. To give just one example, take the fierce and
very necessary GOP opposition to Obamacare. This is a true
budget-buster and statist response to the challenge of affordable
and accessible healthcare. That said, Ross Douthat, that brave
conservative who writes for the New York Times, and one
of the more creative policy thinkers on the right side of the
political spectrum, has offered a
thoughtful critique of the way in which Congressional
Republicans are framing their opposition to the Democratic
proposals.
Douthat notes that senior citizen opposition to Obamacare, which
is driving the plans plunge in popular support in polls, is
primarily grounded in their opposition to cost-cutting to allow
for an expansion of coverage. This puts the Democrats at a
tremendous disadvantage “and the Republicans have noticed,” says
Douthat. This is a much more potent political line of attack than
simply criticizing the proposals’ high cost, negative impact on
innovation and the likelihood of Obama’s public-option plan
encouraging employers to drop coverage and put the costs on
taxpayers.
“That’s why Republicans find themselves tiptoeing into an
unfamiliar role-champions of old-age entitlements,” says Douthat.
“The Democrats are ‘sticking it to seniors with cuts to
Medicare,’ Mitch McConnell [Republican Minority Leader] declared.
They want to ‘cannibalize’ the program to pay for reform, John
Cornyn [Republican Senator from Texas] complained. It’s a ‘raid,’
Sam Brownback [Republican Senator from Kansas] warned, that could
result in the elderly losing ‘necessary care.’”
Douthat understands why Republicans, “after decades of being
demagogued for proposing even modest entitlement reforms,” would
enjoy turning of the tables on the Democrats. “But this is a
perilous strategy for the right.”
Medicare costs are spiraling out of control and, ultimately,
“will make a mockery of the idea of limited government. For
conservatives, no fiscal cause is more important than curbing
this exponential growth,” says Douthat. “And by fighting health
care reform with tactics ripped from the Democratic playbooks,
and enlisting anxious seniors as foot soldiers, conservatives are
setting themselves up to win the battle and lose the longer war.”
For now, “the country suddenly has two political parties devoted
to Mediscaring seniors-which in turn seems likely to make the
program more untouchable than ever.”
“And if you think reform is tough today, just wait,” warns
Douthat. “We’re already practically a gerontocracy: Americans
over 50 cast over 40 percent of the votes in the 2008 elections,
and half the votes in the ‘06 midterms.” By 2030, there will be
more Americans 65 than under 18. Thus, “the power of the elderly
and nearly elderly may become almost absolute.”
A lot of Douthat’s criticism involves the use and abuse of
political rhetoric. But words express ideas, and ideas have
consequences. The words coming out of many Republican legislators
express the same ideas which gave us their prior unfunded
entitlement mandate in the form of the prescription drug benefit.
Now is the time to start talking about the ideas, the principles
and the goals of the Republican Party. Republicans need an honest
conversation amongst themselves as to what a second coming of
Republican governance will really mean in terms of policies, both
at home and abroad. The party’s founder, Abraham Lincoln, spent
his wilderness years thinking and talking through his vision of
his party and his nation. That would be a good precedent to keep
in mind.
