Lost On Main Street
By Trevor Bothwell
As we approach the end of 2005, it is virtually impossible to deny that the Republican Party is slowly abandoning its time-honored principles of fiscal responsibility and limited government. Through its majorities in both houses of Congress, the Party has, however, been able to team up with President Bush to prosecute a war against global Islamic fascism, cut taxes, and attempt to bring sanity back to the Supreme Court.
But despite this progress, Republicans have failed to implement many of the President’s important policy goals, including a repeal of the estate tax, the adoption of personal savings accounts for Social Security, and budget restraint. There are a variety of reasons for this, but none is as pervasive as the fact that “moderate” (or “centrist”) Republicans have emerged as a force of opposition in the Party.
For the past three years, conservatives have enjoyed Republican control of both the White House and Congress. But as a result, we are now witnessing the consequences of a virtual one-party government. Because most politicians fail to see beyond the next election, they become addicted to spending other people’s money as a means of preserving their tenure. From flagrant federal education expenditures to the egregious, pork-laden transportation bill, it’s hard not to conclude that most politicians by their very nature seek to keep their constituents dependent upon them. And without a responsible check on spending authority, such a departure from fiscal sanity is inevitable.
It is precisely the GOP’s overall inattention to fiscal restraint that has empowered a faction of moderate Republicans—led primarily by the Republican Main Street Partnership—to undermine some of the party’s more fiscally conservative ambitions. They quite accurately have assessed that if the conservatives amongst them have committed to expanding government, then any rationale for passing measures to counter such distension is severely compromised.
The schism between moderates and conservatives has existed within the GOP since the 1960s, but only in the past year or so have enough moderate Republicans in the House and Senate gained the leverage to undo good legislation. Therefore, despite having clear majorities in both chambers of Congress, the GOP has struggled mightily to pass needed reforms.
Permanent repeal of the estate (or “death”) tax, for example, routinely passes the House with overwhelming numbers, but the Senate can’t seem to muster the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. A sufficient number of Democrats are available if all 55 Republicans could be counted on, but senators like Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins often pose a problem. The same goes for private Social Security accounts and attempts to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, as moderates in the House and Senate continue to rebel against Party leadership.
Even the Deficit Reduction Act, which the House passed recently to cut $49.5 billion from federal spending, was adulterated by the Party’s moderates, who agreed to support the bill only if provisions for drilling in ANWR and along the Gulf Coast were stripped. It’s important to note that even though no Democrats voted for the bill, moderate Republicans claimed credit for its passage. It’s more accurate to say that they were able to manipulate it to serve their own collective ends.
While we could analyze the political differences between moderate and conservative Republicans ad nauseum, it behooves us to understand why moderates in the Republican Main Street Partnership wish to subvert the GOP in the first place. Playing off the GOP acronym, members of the RMSP will explain that they are interested in “Growing Our Party”; they give the impression that “compromise” is preferable to adhering to one’s values—that it’s the key to avoiding a right-wing majority in America. But commendable as such platitudes may sound, they ultimately account for policies that preserve our mixed economy, wherein capitalism and individual liberties yield to statism.
It all sounds so simple, but either we believe in freedom or we do not. We either place our trust in the individual, or we place it in the state. (In this regard, conservatives are often no better than moderates. Recall that only weeks ago many prominent Republicans, including Senator Bill Frist and Representative Dennis Hastert, foolishly asserted that oil conglomerates are “gouging” consumers and helped renew calls for a “windfall profits” tax.)
Moderate Republicans often claim that their residence in “blue” states accounts for their need to understand the opposition’s point of view; that their constituents are not solidly conservative and therefore as the peoples’ representatives they must represent a wide variety of beliefs. This is true to an extent. But it is also true that, on average, members of the Republican Main Street Partnership win re-election handily and reside in safe GOP districts. It is likely that such adherence to “moderate” views is as much a result of ideological weakness as anything else.
To “compromise,” by definition, means one does not stand on principle. Indeed, where is the “compromise” between shooting an intruder and being killed by him? Giving him all your money, or letting him rape your wife so long as he lets you live? Any “compromise” in such a situation is morally wrong; the only moral course is to defend yourself and your property.
For far too long, too many Republicans of varying stripes have meandered down the road of “moderation,” slowly but surely taking our collective freedom with them. It’s high time for them to realize they were elected to defend us and our property from encroaching state power, and not to needlessly compromise our most cherished Constitutional protections.
Trevor Bothwell is a contributing writer to Democracy Project.
