There’s Tom Brokaw on NBC, playing the role of Peter Jennings, 1994, saying that voters today demonstrated unhappiness with ‘incumbents.” Next comes Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, to say that Republicans can cooperate with Pres. Obama on charter schools and merit pay for teachers (both, note, unconstitutional potential federal spending initiatives). Here we have Michele Bachmann, Tea Party darling, saying that the Republicans’ first priority will be — a tax cut.
Lining out programs is both fiscally essential and, in light of the Tea Party phenomenon, politically necessary to Republicans. Constitutionally, Republicans are in the best position they can be in: they have control only of the chamber of Congress in which all spending bills must originate. So, Republicans, line out programs. Kill them. Tell the people why you’re doing it. Do it now. You will be rewarded. If the program doesn’t go through, blame Obama. It will be his fault. Your constituents will understand. You have power without responsibility, so take advantage of it.
Republicans should reduce federal spending dramatically, and they should do it immediately. Americans of both parties would like to see an axe taken to foreign aid. Kill the NEH. The NEA. NPR. Come to think of it, anything with an “N” (constitutionally offensive) at the beginning of its acronym. Get rid of farm subsidies and quotas (production and import). Get rid of NASA. Get rid of various kinds of corporate welfare; the people will love you for it. Hang a lamp on it. The entire Department of Commerce could go, along with Education. Do it immediately, while the iron is hot.
The danger is that Republicans will do nothing, with the idea that they will be better positioned after winning the White House in 2012. But they may just as easily find themselves back in the minority in both houses of Congress in a second Obama administration. They should cut back spending now. Now. Good policy is good politics.
Kevin Gutzman is professor of history at Western Connecticut State University.
