Adventure is worthwhile - Aesop

Steele Machine

by Hal_10000

Well, this is a step in the right direction:

It’s official. The new face of the National Republican Party is Michael Steele, a 50-year-old African American, the first in the history of Abraham Lincoln’s party.

At a time when Barack Obama is serving as the first African American president in history, the move is an interesting play to corral minority voters who will be crucial to a Republican comeback.

But Steele is actually a Republican. A foe of abortion, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and native of that state regaled the Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last year with his calls for offshore drilling. He got the whole convention floor to chant, “Drill, baby, drill,” a call that echoed on the campaign trail whenever vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin referred to it.

I disagree with Steele on quite a bit.  But I liked him when I lived in Maryland and I like him as the head of the GOP.  And not just because he’s black. Here’s an op-ed he wrote in the wake of November catastrophe:

Most Americans today see a Republican Party that defines itself by what it is against rather than what it is for. We can tell you why public schools aren’t working, but not articulate a compelling vision for how we’ll better educate children. We’re well equipped to rail against tax increases; but can’t begin to explain how we’ll help the poor. We exclude far better than we welcome.

Things were different as recently as 20 years ago. Back then, Ronald Reagan made it cool to be a Republican—it wasn’t just his specific policies, but the timeless truths he so eloquently gave voice to, and upon which his policies were based. That’s the Republican Party we must re-establish.

We must articulate a positive vision for America’s future that speaks to Americans’ hopes, concerns and needs. It’s time to stop defining ourselves by what we are not, and tell voters what we believe, how we’ll lead, and where we’ll go; how we Republicans will make America better; how we’ll make their families more prosperous, their children better educated, their parents more secure, and all of us healthier, safer and stronger.

Granted, you could run anyone from Barry Goldwater to Jesse Jackson on that rhetoric.  But he seems to have a glimmering, a faint understanding of what Republicans need to be doing.  They don’t need to be screaming empty rhetoric about Reagan and tax cuts.  And they don’t need to be compromising with the Democratic shark to get bitten in half rather than swallowed whole.  What they need to be doing is applying conservative principles to modern issues.  Tax reform and free trade to boost our economy, rather than deficit spending.  A carbon tax to deal with global warming instead of command-and-control Washington diktats.  Freer access to insurance rather than expansion of SCHIP.

In fact, I think Mike Steele would be the perfect person to execute an idea I’ve had simmering in my brain for a long time.  I think the Republicans should set up a shadow government, much like the shadow government that exists in Britain.  For every action that Obama takes, the Republicans could respond by articulating the action they would take if in power.  We’d see a series of statements like so:

While we still question the theory of manmade global warming, we agree with the President that the nation needs to decrease its use of fossil fuels and gradually move to better, cleaner energies.  However, we respectfully disagree with his plan to have the Federal government pick and choose technologies, to lavish subsidies on politically-connected interest and create a cap-and-trade system that we fear will become a mire of influence peddling.  Instead, we propose a carbon tax—balanced in the budget by a cut in marginal rates and business taxes.  This will make fossil fuels slightly less palatable and give the market a nudge toward finding better energy while still retaining the freedom the market needs to explore all possible solutions.

Or for the issue most in mind right now:

We agree with the President that our economy needs a stimulus from its government to avoid an ever-worsening cycle of fiscal contraction. However, the present package seems focused on special interest spending.  We believe this will be ineffective in stimulating the economy and potentially hazardous as it continues to increase our already formidable debt.

We are willing to countenance spending if measures are taken to help struggling businesses—and not just politically connected businesses.  We propose that we allow America’s business to opt out of the current byzantine tax system into a revenue-neutral flat corporate tax.  Such a tax would free them from the burden of tax compliance and allow them to make business decisions for business reasons rather than tax reasons.  We further propose that the Democratic party give a long-overdue approval to the Colombia FTA, which will open a new market for America to export its goods to.

Anyway, it’s just a little dream I have.  And I think Steele would be perfect for it.

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