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The Daily Signal
The GOP’s
Healthy Debate: It Makes Us All Better
Mike Needham
July 14, 2014
Photo: Douglas Graham/Roll Call/Newscom
If you want to see people who are afraid of an honest policy debate in
America today, visit a college campus. This year alone, the left’s fear
of discussion was on display at Smith College, where IMF head Christine
Lagarde withdrew from giving a commencement speech, Rutgers University,
where Condoleezza Rice was set to speak, and Brandeis University, which
withdrew plans to give Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree.
Informed and honest debate is a good thing, and the debate playing out
in American politics over the future of the Republican Party is a good
one for conservatives. It will make us all better.
It does a disservice to the debate, to pretend it doesn’t exist, which
is what’s so confusing about an exchange I had with The Washington
Post’s Bob Costa last week on PBS’ “Charlie Rose Show.” Bob—a good
reporter who follows Congress closer than many of his peers—claimed the
debate within the Republican Party is largely one about “temperament.”
He’s not the only one to believe this. Even in his own paper, The
Washington Post, we see statements such as, “The reality, however, is
there was never any significant ideological divide between the
Republican establishment and the Tea Party.”
This just isn’t the case.
Let’s start with the current fight over the Export-Import Bank.
Commonly referred to as “Boeing’s Bank” because nearly 70-percent of
its loan guarantees last year went to Boeing, the Export-Import Bank is
the purest form of corporate cronyism in Washington. In addition to
Boeing, its loans go to large corporations such as Caterpillar and
now-bankrupt Solyndra and benefit foreign companies owned by Russian
oligarchs and Australia’s richest person.
It’s tough to think of a better example of a debate over ideology than
the Export-Import Bank. On one side, supporters such as Sen. Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., argue Ex-Im stimulates
consumption in foreign countries and therefore increases American
exports. On the other side, opponents such as Rep. Jeb Hensarling,
R-Texas, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.,
recognize government has no business being involved in an activity the
private sector can do, and is doing, itself.
“One of the biggest problems with government is they go and take
hard-earned money so others do things that the private sector can do,”
McCarthy has said. “That’s what the Ex-Im Bank does.”
Ex-Im is not the only ideological divide that exists in the Republican
Party today. One of the most divisive fights of the last few years was
the reauthorization of corporate farm subsidies. For decades, an unholy
alliance existed between Republicans who support taxpayer dollars being
used to support farm subsidies and Democrats who seek to expand our
nation’s food stamp program. This alliance stands in stark ideological
contrast from those conservatives in the Republican Party who sought to
reform both programs.
One of the easiest ways to roll back federal overreach is to focus on
the Department of Transportation. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., has
introduced the Transportation Empowerment Act, which would take the
federal highway program and return it to the states. Then, local
leaders—rather than government bureaucrats heavily lobbied by special
interests in our far distant capital—could make decisions about what
roads to build. This is not a disagreement about temperament; it’s a
healthy policy debate.
Keep these examples in mind next time somebody says the debate in the
GOP is one about “temperament” or “tactics.” It’s not. The debate is
whether the GOP should be the party of free enterprise and limited
government or a party that delivers government favoritism to
GOP-aligned special interests. Forgive grassroots supporters for not
being enthusiastic about the hard work of walking precincts if the
choice is the latter.
Read this and other articles with links at The Daily Signal
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