Archive for November 12th, 2008

Like everyone, it seems, I’ve been stewing over what lessons can be learned from this election. The GOP has been having an internal war over whether the answer is to become more centrist or more conservative, more pragmatic or more principled. I’m probably inclined toward the latter in each case, but I understand why party leaders might be worried about aiming for purity. If Obama has his way, approximately half of Americans will soon pay no federal income tax whatsoever. One of the Republican Party’s biggest selling points has always been its low-tax philosophy, but if half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, they won’t have any particular personal incentive to vote for those in favor of lower taxes. In fact, the inclination will be the other way. After all, the federal government has to be funded, and if you are safely off the tax list, it makes more sense to vote for higher taxes. You get more government-funded goods, but don’t have to pay for them.

Unless, of course, you believe in income mobility, and fret (like Joe the Plumber) that someday you might find yourself in the income-tax paying brackets. Joe the Plumber was one of the few highlights of the McCain campaign (except for my hero, Sarah Palin, of course!) The other was McCain’s announcement at the Rick Warren/Saddleback debate that the exact income level qualifying as “rich” didn’t matter so much, because “I want everybody to get rich.” That’s a good, positive message. We want everyone to have the education and training necessary to land high-paying jobs. We also want lots of people to start businesses and succeed wildly. We need to create the economic climate where oodles of entrepreneurship is possible. That’s a message Republicans should stress more.

As it is, unfortunately, Republicans have become the Party of No. What’s happened is that the public currently believes that both Republicans and Democrats are perfectly OK with high levels of government spending. Republicans will spend money on the military-industrial complex, the testing regime of No Child Left Behind, earmarks, prescription drugs and bailing out banks. The Democrats want to spend money too, often on many of these same things, plus bailing out the auto industry, social programs and so forth. The Democrats don’t necessarily mind spending money on the Republican things as long as the Democrat things get funded too. The Republicans, though, occasionally have the ghost of Ronald Reagan appear in their heads and feel like they should say “no” to many of the Democratic social programs. Net result: Republicans are always put in the position of saying “no” to things that at least sound good on paper, like school lunches, children’s health insurance, “investment” in green energy and the like. There is absolutely no logical consistency to being OK with buying up mortgages, but not wanting to spend money on, say, children’s health insurance — especially since the Republicans seem to think that health insurance (with prescription drugs!) is A-OK for old people.

Personally, I’d like the GOP to say no to pretty much everything except courts and a smaller version of the military and at least be consistent, but I realize this is not a particularly inspiring message. So the party needs to figure out what it can be for. A few possibilities:

* More people becoming rich (and hence growing our way out of the shrinking-pool-of-taxpayers problem)

* A flat tax for people who are rich. Also, a flat, low, business tax rate — not because corporations are wonderful, but because other countries have more transparent taxes than we do and we’re losing jobs because of it.

* Becoming the top country on the ease-of-starting-a-business rankings

* Tax parity for the self-employed. The GOP needs to become the party of the self-employed because, frankly, that’s the business model of the future.

* On that note — the GOP needs to figure out a way to sell breaking health insurance apart from employment. McCain tried with his health insurance tax credit and taxing it as a benefit, but Obama just hammered him for wanting to tax health insurance for the first time (Obama knows why McCain is pushing this, and knows it needs to happen, but hey, that’s politics). The government may need to coax private companies into setting up group plans that are not tied to employers, but if people knew they could get health insurance as individuals, it would release a lot of entrepreneurial energy. The government doesn’t have to run these plans; the non-profit Freelancers Union in New York has a guaranteed-issue group plan that now provides health insurance to 19,000 people. Other states need such plans too.

* Free trade — but the GOP needs to come up with a better way to spin this one. Currently, people think it’s about outsourcing jobs to Mexico or India. Can someone come up with a good way of showing that it’s also about opening markets to American businesses?

* The free market in education. Vouchers, charter schools, homeschooling, virtual schooling — anything that can break the union stranglehold that keeps horrible teachers from being thrown out on the street. But with that…

* High standards — national standards. Chuck No Child Left Behind. Instead, everyone takes the NAEP and states, cities and schools should be absolutely humiliated when only 1% of students score at or above proficient. So should parents. Maybe that will cause some soul searching about turning off the TV and opening the books… OK, I realize that’s not being “positive” but it is about being for something!

* Honoring small business owners wherever possible. Small businesses create 60-80% of the jobs in this country. When more people start small businesses, more jobs are created. Simple as that. Such a PR strategy would also push the message of self-reliance (starting your own company in order to get somewhere, succeeding or failing on the merits) which the GOP should be stressing (but, alas, isn’t. See Wall Street, bail-out of).

* Yay rah Second Amendment. It really is a winner.

* So, I have to say, is a general stance against abortion. People don’t like extreme versions of this (e.g. being against stem cell research). But in a world in which starlets’ babies are all over the covers of magazines, being generally in favor of babies is not a bad way to go.