Friday, June 08, 2012
Though it hasn't been celebrated as such, Scott Walker's
victory in Wisconsin represents the full flowering of the tea party movement.
It is also a sign -- among others -- that the Republican Party has recaptured
its ideological core.
The tea partyers are often mischaracterized as extreme
right-wingers. Thus, proponents of same-sex marriage or unrestricted abortion
will invoke "tea party" elements as those most opposed to their
efforts. That's off target. Though many in the movement may have conservative
social views, those weren't the issues that spurred them to organize,
demonstrate and vote.
No, the tea partyers -- judging by their signs, speeches
and writings -- were alarmed about irresponsible government spending, bailouts
of the undeserving and spiraling debt. The tea partyers are actually the 21st
century "goo-goos" -- good government types -- the label that was
attached to progressives in the early 20th century. They aren't anarchists,
racists (as in the more febrile accusations of their opponents) or culture
warriors. They simply want to see government scale back and perform its
essential functions fairly, efficiently and honestly.
For some time, Republican office holders were little
better than Democrats when it came to spending, accountability and reform. The
size of government seemed to grow inexorably under both parties. Some
Republicans earned and deserved tea party disdain.
But we are now in an era of true Republican reform. The
reformers are Republican governors who, like Scott Walker, have chosen to
tackle the bloated budgets and corrupt bargains of state governments. At least
a half dozen Republican governors -- Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Chris Christie
in New Jersey, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Susana Martinez in New Mexico, Bob
McDonnell in Virginia, and Walker himself -- have taken on the public sector
unions frontally.
The word "corrupt" is not too strong for a
system that worked like this: Unions worked to elect Democrats. Once elected,
Democrats passed laws that permitted states to withhold union dues from state
employee paychecks, further enriching and entrenching public sector unions.
State governments then signed contracts with the unions giving far more
generous pay, work rules (like teacher tenure) and benefits than the average
taxpayer receives. Unions thus elected the people who sat across the table from
them in contract negotiations. As Victor Gotbaum, a New York City union leader
boasted, "We have the ability to elect our own boss." That mutual backscratching
has burdened taxpayers with pension and other liabilities mounting into the
trillions.
On his first day in office, Chris Christie signed an
executive order forbidding public sector unions from making political
contributions (corporations were already barred). He then embarked on the
grueling, but necessary, battle to require unionized teachers to accept
slightly less generous pensions and to make tiny contributions to their own
health insurance.
In New Mexico, Susana Martinez has cut spending by $150
million without raising taxes, reduced the state workforce by 5 percent,
eliminated duplicative taxes on small businesses, and increased local control
of schools by opting out of No Child Left Behind.
Indiana's Mitch Daniels ended collective bargaining for
public sector unions early in his tenure. He balanced budgets without raising
taxes, earned the state a AAA bond rating for the first time, reduced the
number of state workers to the lowest in the nation, improved the business
climate, transformed a $700 billion deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus, and
earned Indiana the Tax Foundation's "First in the Midwest" award for
business climate. Indiana's government is also more efficient: child support
collections are up, wait times for child services have been halved, 150 state
troopers have been added, and the Healthy Indiana Plan provides health
insurance to 50,000 low-income Hoosiers. Among participants, emergency room use
has declined. Perhaps the most emblematic of all Indiana's accomplishments is
that wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles have been reduced to less
than eight minutes.
Both Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and Bob McDonnell in
Virginia have pushed for reform of teacher tenure. McDonnell, like the other
Republican reform governors, has reduced state spending. Jindal has also passed
a balanced budget, ethics reform, tax cuts, and one of the most sweeping school
voucher laws in the nation.
Scott Walker is in good company. He and his fellow reform
Republicans are the vanguard of a refreshed and confident Republican Party.
It's a party that, unlike the Democrats, is confronting the looming threat of
government debt. That is what the tea partyers have been demanding. All of the
Republican reformers are popular. Who knows -- if this continues, we may even
escape bankruptcy.
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