By Arthur Schaper
Monday, November 17, 2014
Following the 2014 GOP shellacking which expanded
Republican numbers in the House and gained the US Senate, left-wing contrarian
William Saletan for Slate went to work dumbing down repudiation of Obama’s
economic policies. The title could not be more explicit (and misleading):
The US Is Moving Left Despite Republican Gains
Really? The basis for William Saletan’s argument?
Republicans campaigned, effectively and successfully, on income inequality, as
though the issue belonged only to the Left.
Excerpts defending Saletan’s untenable position include:
Republicans also zeroed in on blacks and other
underserved populations. In Louisiana right-wing candidate Rob Maness pointed
out, “Unemployment for young black men in this state is three times the rate of
unemployment for anybody else.” In Georgia, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal
emphasized the state’s progress toward reducing the number of black men in
jail.
Rather than adopting left-wing ideology, Republicans are
reaching out to minorities in part because they are underserved by
long-standing Democratic/liberal/left-wing politicians. Uproars in the
Chicago-area from the black community, and even former basketball star Charles
Barkley’s indictment of black voting patterns suggest that minority groups are
waking up to the disappointment results of Democratic branding.
Republicans researched how much money Democratic
officeholders paid their male and female staffers. Any Democrat who paid women
less was called out for it, regardless of circumstances. Republicans used this
tactic in at least five states: Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, New Hampshire,
and Oregon.
The “Equal Work/Equal Pay” fraud has gone unanswered long
enough, and in the 2014 cycle, conservative groups upended the Democratic
hypocrisy on this issue. The notion, however, that Republicans are calling for
arbitrary demands for exact pay are not taking place however, since the
differences in income having nothing to do with gender exclusively to begin
with. One conservative Republican, New York Congressman Tom Reed, schooled his
liberal challenger on this issue, and received applause in contrast to her
dismal reception of derision.
What about the effects of real unemployment?
While Democratic incumbents bragged about declining
unemployment, Republicans pointed out that this number omits people who are so
discouraged they’ve stopped looking for work.
This was a GOP talking point in Arkansas, Colorado,
Georgia, Kentucky, Oregon, and Virginia. Dan Sullivan, the party’s nominee for
the Senate in Alaska, put the argument this way:
"If nothing else, Republicans have exposed the
consequences of left-wing economic ideologies, which exacerbate income
inequality and diminish economic opportunity. In order to present viable
solutions to these problems, they have done what conservative Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher had advocated long before: define the terms of the argument
before your opponent, and you win the debate.”
Republicans are not adopting left-leaning ideology, as
much as they are stealing the terms to promote free market, pro-business
policies.
Before his hard-fought reelection campaign, Michigan
Governor Rick Snynder presented right-to-work reforms as “Workplace Fairness and
Equity.” Equality and fairness are left-wing, progressive buzzwords, but
right-to-work is right-leaning, conservative reform to put power back in the
hands of the individual worker while promoting economic growth.
Consider also these arguments cited in Slate’s misleading
column:
In Massachusetts, Baker criticized Democrats for raising
gas taxes, utility taxes, and everyday registration fees, all of which hit the
middle class. In Illinois, Rauner said sales taxes should target “services that
are more business-oriented rather than on low-income working families.” In
Arkansas, Hutchinson aimed his tax relief package at people making $75,000 or
less. Some Republicans and libertarians, including right-wing Gov. Sam
Brownback of Kansas, called for abolishing income taxes on low earners.
What Saletan ignores, and which conservatives highlighted
in these campaigns, is that Republican governors are still moving away from
taxation, rather than seeking deeper revenue streams for government largesse.
Contrary to the left-wing argument, targeting low-comes groups in these states
does not signal that Republicans have gone left, but they are reaching out to
the numerous groups which the Left’s economic policies have left behind.
Then comes the final litany:
Republicans picked up other liberal themes, too. They
harped on the injustice of cutting Medicare, the importance of educational
opportunity as “the great equalizer,” and the folly of gambling pension money
in the stock market. They endorsed health care as a fundamental right,
ridiculed the description of wealthy people as “middle-class,” and championed
midnight basketball.
Education as the great equalizer is not a liberal idea,
or a conservative one, but an essential American identity. As for the
referenced to midnight basketball, these transitions reveal the populist
heart-beat of an insurgent GOP, adopted by the Tea Party, integrated by a
rising class of Republican US Senators who are championing hope and change
through policy as opposed to hollow rhetoric.
Flashy, catchy headlines aside, Slate’s desperate attempt
to claim “We won by losing” is a lost cause, and even Saletan is forced to
concede the obvious:
No, Republicans haven’t become liberals. They still hate
taxes and blame everything bad on President Obama, Obamacare, and big
government. But their focus on wage stagnation and class stratification
reflects the economy and the political climate.
Ironically, Saletan’s argument affirm what Republicans
have argued all along: President Obama and his policies are hurting working
Americans, and our positions can turn this dire situation around. Instead of
claiming that the country is moving left, the Washington GOP political class
and its new members are exposing the corrupt failure of the Left, then coopting
their language to promote free economic principles.
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