The Conservative Movement Is Defending Free Markets — from Both Sides

By Erick Erickson

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

 

For decades, the Republican coalition sat united atop the so-called “three-legged stool” of fiscal conservatism, traditional values, and a peace-through-strength foreign policy. All of these priorities helped to combat the spread of communism, and to create and maintain prosperity at home. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, some on the right have questioned these orthodoxies as new challenges have arisen, such as the rising cost of living and the breakdown of many communities as the economy evolves.

 

Some degree of discussion and even reprioritization about what the Right’s agenda should be today is necessary, and welcome. But when such thinking fails to heed the lessons of the failure of economic central planning and instead jettisons conservatism’s longstanding commitment to free markets and limited government, it should be vigorously challenged. Thankfully, new efforts within the conservative movement are doing precisely that, ensuring that Republicans remain committed to free markets and have the policies to address America’s most pressing problems in the 21st century.

 

Conservative principles have generated economic success in the past. But today, Bidenomics plagues tens of millions of Americans. It has collapsed real wages, led to out-of-control inflation, and given us special-interest-driven governing. But self-anointed populists on the right want to counter Bidenomics with Bidenomics-waving-a-bigger-American-flag, touting trade wars and multi-billion-dollar-wealth transfers to subsidize national industrial policy. They may be correct in some of their diagnoses that Americans feel left behind. But they are better at peddling emotive grievances than they are at honestly analyzing the economic landscape and crafting policies to meet the needs of suffering Americans.

 

The supposed novelty of big-government solutions coming from self-identified conservatives has piqued the interest of Beltway reporters. But such people have long thrilled to figures on the right who embrace big government. Go figure: Media in Washington, D.C., want to expand D.C.’s influence over our lives. But conservative policy-makers should know better.

 

Some still do. Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the largest conservative grassroots-advocacy group in the country, has been at the forefront of pushing back against Bidenomics and those who foisted it on us. AFP has made clear the negative effects of Biden’s policies, through such efforts as launching Bidenomics.com and a nationwide accountability tour that will run through the fall.

 

AFP is also ensuring bureaucracy-first public policy doesn’t drag down the Right. Hence its launch of a new coalition featuring prominent conservative organizations active on Capitol Hill. Its purpose: to advance policies that will deliver relief to disaffected communities across the country with solutions that uphold the values of limited government, flourishing free markets, and individual liberty.

 

The coalition understands that the real solution to America’s woes lies in freeing people from overbearing bureaucracies and regulatory-captured big businesses, not rewarding them with ever larger shares of taxpayer dollars and incumbent-protecting, D.C.-empowering government control. Both Bidenomics and industrial policy would only make things worse.

 

Conservative principles of free markets and limited government are assets in the quest to reassert America’s competitiveness and industrial capacity. Contrary to the strawman arguments put forward by proponents of industrial policy and other big-government schemes, those of us committed to free markets understand that manufacturing matters and that it is government regulations and distortions that weaken this critical industry. For manufacturers to succeed, government needs to get out of the way and stop “helping.”

 

That will still require a real policy agenda, however. This is why the Club for Growth Foundation will soon release a series of white papers on reinvigorating American manufacturing through free-market reforms in areas such as taxes, regulations, energy, and more. These proposals will reflect the common sense at the heart of our shared conservative principles and empower the American people — not bureaucrats in Washington.

 

Populists, Left and Right, may claim that they hate the disconnected D.C. blob and its entrenched interests. But in actuality, their agenda is the most swamp-friendly option available. Their grandiose schemes of government intervention and protectionist measures promise jobs and economic vitality. After generating plenty of billable hours for lobbyists and lawyers, they would deliver job security for bureaucrats and economic windfalls for the well-connected. The average American will experience the fruits of central planning in the form of larger tax bills, soaring deficits, and higher prices.

 

Industrial-policy proponents may claim to have the interests of working-class Americans at heart. But their policies will do more harm than good. By protecting entrenched industries and stifling competition, they prevent new entrants from entering the market and thus increase costs for consumers, and hamstring American producers from access to the markets they rely on. They hurt the very people they claim to help.

 

That is why former vice president Mike Pence’s newly launched American Solutions Project is tackling self-defeating tariffs as a top policy priority. While tariffs can be used surgically for national-security purposes that benefit the United States, tariffs raise costs for consumers on the whole, costing jobs, hurting manufacturers, and making America less competitive on the world stage. Advancing American Freedom understands that industrial policy will not work to uplift Americans — free-market policy will.

 

The best way for policy-makers to achieve actual results for their constituents is to show how economic freedom can help lower- and middle-income Americans expand opportunities for themselves and their families. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREEOP) is bringing some of America’s most innovative policy researchers to Capitol Hill with monthly briefings to get Hill staff up to speed on free-market solutions to society’s most serious issues. FREEOPP has a special focus on those issues that national conservatives and others want to paper over with more government subsidies and micromanagement. FREOPP’s work is vital in ensuring that policymakers can apply our foundational principles to the problems of both today and tomorrow.

 

At a time when Americans feel left out of the political process, these and groups such as the National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Stand Together, and others are ensuring that policy-makers have solutions that can bring Americans relief without surrendering to the siren songs of class warfare, wealth redistribution, and bureaucratic corruption that come with industrial policy.

 

The status quo in Washington will not be overcome by making politics more entertaining on social media or by pushing Bidenomics wrapped in Republican talking points. It will be overcome by recommitting to the Founders’ vision of a limited federal government, by producing policy solutions embodying those principles to solve today’s problems, and by working with policy-makers to implement them.

 

Conservative principles have delivered prosperity and opportunity for all Americans by embodying trust in American communities and families first rather than in government agencies and the Washington swamp. Luckily, even though its members may not always be the loudest voices on social media, there remains a vibrant conservative movement capable of delivering on this commitment.