The GOP’s Self Sabotage
A striking thing happened this week, and by striking, I mean totally unsurprising. The GOP had a debate about the economy, and by extension, domestic issues. During this debate, all they talked about was how much they had cut taxes and spending in their past terms as executives. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton released a good plan to encourage middle class saving and investment, while the GOP talked about more tax cuts. A few days later, David Brooks wrote this column, where he pointed out that Republicans have basically nothing to offer the middle class in terms of savings, investment or health care. For the past few years, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam have been insistently pounding this drum, while Ramesh Ponnuru has been saying much the same thing about GOP tax policy. Also, on global warming, the GOP has very little to offer.
Reihan suggests that the GOP takes up the Shellenberger and Nordhaus approach to global warming. This makes sense for the Republicans, they don’t have to institute a new tax or a bunch of new regulation, instead they can talk about public investments, markets and inventing cool new technology. The Manzi plan is very much along these lines, but outside of Ross and Reihan, very few on the right seem to say much about global warming besides some pseudo-denialism and solely negative rhetoric towards Democratic plans and even projections about how bad global warming is. One day, maybe after a drubbing next year and taking more than 60 votes in the Senate in 2010, the GOP will start to listen to Ross, Reihan and Ramesh, but until then, if you want a party that actually has plans to address the needs and concerns of most Americans, the Democrats are the only one for you.
