The G.O.P. lacks a cohesive vision for America. Now more than ever, conservatism needs a reboot.
DAVID BROOKS wrote a timely column in The New York Times on Tuesday, entitled “The G.O.P. Rejects Conservatism.” He describes a Republican Party that has abandoned its core principles—free markets, individual liberty, and opportunity through choice—in favor of an “oblivious” approach to American politics.
Mr. Brooks is exactly right; today’s Republican Party has become cynical and ineffectual. It cares more about tax cuts for the rich than policy outcomes—or even positive political reception.
Take, for instance, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (B.C.R.A.), championed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Having witnessed the fate of Paul Ryan’s health-care bill in the House, Mr. McConnell ought to have learned a thing or two.
Mr. Ryan’s band of House Republicans was hamstrung by internal division and further blindsided by the Congressional Budget Office’s (C.B.O.) projection that 24 million Americans would lose their health care. The C.B.O. “score” (i.e. estimate) was the nail in the coffin for Mr. Ryan, forcing him to pull the bill and declare Obamacare the “law of the land.”
Mr. Ryan would eventually resurrect his bill and shove it through the House in what amounted to a confounding display of expediency and apathy. Even still, the political lesson for Mr. McConnell was clear: be wary of intra-party fighting and a negative C.B.O. score.
Déjà vu. According to C.B.O., the B.C.R.A. would throw 22 million off of health insurance. Shortly thereafter, a predictable firestorm erupted in Washington. Hard-right Republicans expressed consternation that Mr. McConnell’s bill was not more aggressive in rolling back Obamacare; more centrist Republicans feared that the bill would harm their constituents. In the midst of this infighting, Democrats fell back on an all-too-easy set of attack lines, while some on the right resorted to throwing up smokescreens in order to defend an indefensible bill.
And it’s not as if Mr. McConnell couldn’t have prevented this from happening. Indeed, the C.B.O. estimate also noted $321 billion in deficit reduction, a portion of which could have been used to prevent a debilitating verdict from C.B.O.—through, say, more generous subsidies or less punitive Medicaid cuts, both of which would have resulted in a more positive score.
Moreover, Mr. McConnell could have kept some of the Obamacare taxes in order to further shore up the bill. You might imagine an iteration of the B.C.R.A. that maintains a 2% tax on investment income, down from 3.8%, and uses the funding from this tax to provide reasonably generous subsidies on the exchanges or to maintain support for Medicaid. Maybe he gets away with a coverage loss of 10 million and $200 billion in deficit reduction. That would still be poor policy but could feasibly be defended from Democratic broadsides.
And though Mr. McConnell may still be forced to make these sorts of changes, he has already made a hefty blunder in prioritizing the bill’s tax cuts over its political viability.
But to return to Mr. Brooks, what has happened to the Republican Party? When did they abandon conservatism in favor of political cynicism and an almost ecclesiastical devotion to cutting taxes for the rich? While not a conservative myself, I hold in esteem that view of America.
The conservative vision is fundamentally optimistic. It envisages unbounded American potential, a hard-working, compassionate citizenry joined together by a love for country and neighbor. It wishes to scale back the role of government not to punish the poor and needy but instead to empower enterprising Americans with an idea. It believes that states, where appropriate, will be better able to create laws responsive to the needs and wants of its own residents.
Conservatism recognizes America’s most pressing problems, too. The rich become richer at the expense of all other Americans. The poor are too often ignored. Well-paying, secure jobs are hard to come by, even with unemployment below 5%. Public education in many places is deficient. Health care is too expensive for too many.
To these American ailments, conservatives propose thoughtful solutions. Curb income inequality with market-oriented incentives for things like child care or college. Expand the earned-income tax credit to lift the scourge of poverty. Provide wage insurance to ease workers through frictional unemployment. Let public schools opt into charter systems to boost educational attainment. Establish universal catastrophic care alongside health savings accounts and high-risk pools to rein in outrageous health-care expenses.
If these were the policies being debated in the Senate today, I might rest assured that our politics was, as it should be, a competition between legitimate visions of America. But as it stands, the Republican Party only coheres because of a mutual dedication to getting re-elected. That’s no way to run the greatest country on Earth.
Discourse in a Discordant Society is a monthly column on society and politics.
