New Years 2015 offers up an opportunity for a rightward political renewal. President Obama has cracked open the big government door. This opening can be exploited to initiate a return to national pride, strength and self-respect. The nation has had a six-year lesson in the inevitable failures of a centralized government that has run amuck. Gallup has been tracking Americans attitude toward big government as a problem solver since 1975. When Obama entered office 53% felt that “government was the biggest threat to America’s future”. Today that number has risen to 72%. The increase can be attributed to government ineptitude. Only 10% (Gallup) feel the Affordable Care Act has benefited them. Incomes have shrunk. Good paying full time jobs are hard to find, especially in blue states. The employment participation rate is 62.8%, the lowest since 1978. Our illustrious state of California has the highest cost of living adjusted poverty rate of the fifty states. Starting a business has become a journey along an obstacle-laden road of unnecessary regulations, restrictions and licenses. Risk takers and job creators are discouraged. The Department of Health and Human Services reports that forty-seven million people are on food stamps. Higher education has become expensive beyond reason. Public schools in our cities are failing. I could fill pages with the negatives that characterize this heavy-handed government led “recovery”.
Americans have also witnessed an horific upsurge in evil. The many beheadings, murders, kidnappings, rapes and enslavement practiced by Islamists in America and around the world have been hard for even the casual observer to ignore. Wherever and whenever American leadership equivocates and panders evil raises its ugly head.
Real life is far more impactful on the average voter than the partisan political rhetoric, ideological platitudes and pundit outrage that dominate activist discourse. People are more likely to embrace conservative principles based on what affects them personally. Ranting about the President’s many lies, failures and ideological inflexibility has rendered minimal results for expanding the conservative base.
We who swim in the warm pool of news junkies and partisan politics tend to discount how few we are in number. We get very worked up; often appropriately so, when we see core constitutional principles ignored, free markets crippled and Islamic terrorists gaining strength around the world. Unfortunately, righteous outrage when turned into hot rhetoric is often a turn-off to those who conservatives most need to influence-young people, blacks and Hispanics.
Obama’s failures have laid the groundwork for two years of well thought out conservative based solution production going forward. The power of the left has dwindled to the use of the veto pen and the assertion of unconstitutional executive power. The former can only be overcome by attracting Democrats and the latter through litigation that could consume years. In light of the midterm elections and the Landrieu lose Republicans may be able to cobble together enough Democrats to pass legislation to override a veto. Democrats are manning the lifeboats as Obama’s ship of state slowly sinks into the deep blue sea.
Those who can establish standing to challenge the unconstitutional use of executive power should litigate. But if they want to shift the nation rightward they dare not depend on litigation.
Some of the bills that have already passed in the House with Democratic support that can now be sent and passed in the Senate include: expanding charter schools, limiting lawsuits, expanding export of liquid natural gas, allowing more oil and gas production in the Gulf, banning a tax on the Internet and limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate every pond, stream and ditch. All of these are positive conservative steps awaiting Senate approval. A can do Congress under Republican control will alert Americans to the fact that new guys get stuff done.
The new agenda needs to counteract Obama’s failed policies, not a failed President. History will take care of that one. I understand that he has done decades worth of damage both domestically and internationally. Instead of wallowing in the recitation of that damage, we should propose a positive course back to prosperity and international order. And I emphasize positive.
Here’s a short list of some areas where we need to propose clear, short and easy to understand legislation:
• Tax reform (lower rates, eliminate deductions and loop-holes)
• Lower corporate income tax rate so as to compete internationally (bring bucks home)
• Entitlement reform (most effective budget controller)
• Immigration reform (Republicans need to be known for more than the negative mantras of “no amnesty” and “secure the boarder”)
Veto proof or not, this legislative agenda demonstrates the productive side of conservative/Republican action with Democratic support as 2016 approaches. The public will look favorably on that kind of leadership.
Public relations opportunities must be expanded as well. Last year the Democrats squeezed every ounce of positive public relations out of the Martin Luther King celebration. The media lapped it up like a parched dog given a bowl of water. They put on quite a show at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
Why in hell didn’t we have our own celebration to include Tim Scott, Mia Love, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder and a cast of dozens of black and Hispanic conservatives at the foot of Lincoln? Conservatives appropriately celebrate the meaning of being judged by the content of ones character. The power of the individual represents the essence of individual freedom. Many of those basking in the light of MLK at the National Mall that day have spent their careers defiling King’s message. Yet, Republicans seeded the visual and moral high ground to the likes of Sharpton, Reid, Polosi and Obama. Republicans and conservatives were so consumed with criticizing Obama and attacking one another that they ignored an opportunity to accurately rebrand in dramatic fashion.
Republicans need to be happy warriors instead of grouches. Armed with a majority in both chambers the initiative is in the hands of the Republicans. If they fail it won’t be because the left has better ideas or the media has distorted a conservative message. Failure will follow if the new majorities are not smart enough to unite around shared values and produce an enticing agenda. Republicans can turn the midterm wins into a national mandate in 2016 if they recruit the best players and execute the best game plan. Success on a national scale will require Republicans, conservatives, JFK liberals and libertarians to curb some degree of their ideological arrogance. Every one will need to make concessions. Successful politics is a team sport.
Happy New Year and God bless this exceptional nation.
toms̨پW