Already, I’m sure I’ve frightened more than just a few students of political history with the words ‘new deal’ in my headline. Well, rest your soul a moment, let your blood pressure come back down and allow your heart rate return to normal. I have no visions of resurrecting FDR’s disastrous big government policies.
Rather, I’m advocating something more akin to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” in the early 1990s that led to the first Republican takeover of the House in four decades. Only this time, the emphasis won’t be so much on party, but on platform and principle.
The victories of so many Tea Party-supported candidates since 2008, combined with the unofficial results of this Absolute Rights survey, are the inspiration for this week’s Sunday Read. Moving forward there is a strategy I believe can be employed to continue conservative electoral success - despite what Debbie Wasserman Schultz says.
New priorities
For those of you old enough to remember Gingrich’s “Contract,” the concept I am advocating is familiar to you. To everyone else, it will become apparent quickly enough.
And it is simply this: Conservatives need to develop a new core set of principles and values that they will not only sign onto but pledge to vigorously support and pursue once in office. Gingrich’s “Contract” offers some guidance, but as they say, times have changed and with them, political realities and priorities:
1. Replace Obamacare with…nothing: It’s a no-brainer that Obamacare, as unpopular as it is now, will get more so as tens of millions of Americans lose their favored health insurance coverage for plans that are more expensive, have higher deductibles and offer less. But simply replacing Obamacare with another Big Government “solution” is no solution at all. Conservatives should emphasize that individuals, private insurers and their doctors should be making healthcare and coverage decisions, not bureaucrats in D.C. So at the soonest possible point, repealing this massive tangle of an entitlement should be a priority. As a consolation, conservatives can offer insurance companies tax incentives to insure those with preexisting conditions.
2. While we’re at it, pledge to roll back the bureaucracy at all levels. One of the easiest bureaucracies to roll back should be the Department of Education, and yet even Reagan was unsuccessful in doing so. Well, as President Obama has demonstrated time and again, chief executives who command a massive Bureaucratic State will wield that power oppressively and unconstitutionally, so the only way to curb future abuses is to reign in that Bureaucratic State, and doing so will, in turn, reign in the Executive Branch. Conservatives should focus on legislation that 1) eliminates some agencies altogether (this should be easy when you consider many of them duplicate functions); and 2) specifically describe the duties and functions of the agencies that remain. In the process, said legislation should include a requirement that agency chiefs must get congressional approval before implementing any new rules or regulations that will cost the regulated industry more than $500,000.
3. Address the debt: The nation’s burgeoning debt is like the housing bubble on triple steroids. Once it bursts, it will take a generation to recover from the global economic tsunami that will crush other economies as well. It has to be dealt with. As I’ve argued, wrestling control of our debt and paying it down so our kids and their kids won’t be saddled with decades of poverty and stolen opportunities is this generation’s most noble, moral fight.
4. Entitlement reform: Along the lines of getting control of, and paying down, our national debt, entitlement reform is another must do. Experts from the Congressional Budget Office to former Federal Reserve chairmen to a host of think tanks have all come to the same conclusion regarding the nation’s entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, food stamps, etc.) – they have got to be reformed because they are simply unsustainable. To make them otherwise would require massive new taxes, and as bad as debt is in producing downward economic pressure, large tax increases would exacerbate that downward pressure by a factor of several. How to “reform?” Conservatives should propose a public-private partnership, where a private investment entity takes over management of the programs with an eye towards weeding out waste, fraud and abuse and making them more efficient (and even profitable), all with a government guarantee (like the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation – FDIC – guarantees bank deposits)? Also, push individualism, personal responsibility and freedom as a means of combatting the “what’s in it for me?” cultural mindset Democrats have created with these programs.
5. Look homeward, for a change: Some will derisively dismiss this policy objective as a renewal of isolationism, but I am suggesting nothing of the sort. America must remain engaged in the world; we have no choice. Globalization, and the need to protect corporate and national security interests abroad, will make it necessary for the foreseeable future to keep some military and diplomatic efforts forward deployed. But where we can refocus our attention homeward, we should. Cuts to overseas military assets and deployments can and should be done. It’s time we put domestic concerns and issues at least on the same footing as foreign policy.
6. Renew and rebuild our infrastructure: I know, you think you are again hearing shades of FDR and revivals of his government-centric WPA programs of bridge- and road-building, but honestly, those functions are well within the purview of the federal government. In this vein, here’s what conservatives can and should pledge to do: To borrow a phrase from President Obama, conservatives should identify a number of infrastructure projects and them make them “shovel ready” by cutting regulations and red tape that add years to completion. And conservatives should make sure these projects be funded not in pork-barrel fashion, but truly according to identifiedneed. We can start by pushing for approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
7. Commit to job and economic growth: Yeah, that sounds like a campaign slogan, but here’s what I mean – commit to job and economic growth in the same way conservatives vow to commit to #6 above. Cut needless regulations, cut bureaucracy, cut red tape. Make it easier for businesses to get access to loans. By committing as well to #1 and #2 above, job growth will explode. Corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars. They won’t expand in the United States as long as Democratic socialists like Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Charles Schumer run the show because of the wealth redistribution policies they back.
8. And finally, it’s about priorities, not party: There are few other places for conservatives other than the Republican Party, that’s the reality. But being a Republican these days, as the GOP Establishment has proven, doesn’t mean you’re conservative. As our informal survey last week demonstrated, a healthy number of Americans would back any candidate, so long as they supported their viewpoints. So, the emphasis for conservatives should be on a set of core conservative principles that the candidates themselves pledge to pursue and support.
After eight years of Obama and “progressive” policies bordering on socialism, with little economic growth, higher than normal unemployment and rank political partisanship, Americans are ready for leaders who seek to empower not themselves but all of us with a set of core principles that will cut our debt, invest in our nation and our people, dramatically streamline our bloated overly bureaucratic government, and put us back on a path of sustainability and constitutionalism.
Together, this plan would certainly represent a new deal the American people desperately need - and deserve.
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