A. Citizen: A GOP Inventory

By A. Citizen

“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

-Ronald Reagan

A New Year

The New Year and a new Presidential Administration provides us of the Republican perspective a much needed chance to reevaluate our current predicament, and to mark out a deliberate path forward. Our goal is of course a return to political respectability, but more importantly public responsibility because while electoral success is important, a more crucial task, I believe, is earning back the trust that taxpayers and voters once gave us.

There’s an old saying that you have two ears and only one mouth for a reason. I’ve taken this advice over the years and observed more than I’ve opined. But serious times call for serious words, and with all due respect to the Republican Party, I feel compelled to stand up and speak out against what I view as the unraveling of the political tent I still call home.

Lately, the GOP is a shrinking shell of its once proud self. There are no two ways about it. That said, national political trends provide an appropriate backdrop for what has happened and may soon get worse here in South Carolina.

Republicans across the nation have by and large been driven from power and into the shadows, frightened and emasculated. Alan Greenspan explains this seismic political shift leftward by saying, “The Republicans in Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.” The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson went so far as to label the GOP “a mess and a fraud,” asking rhetorically if “any Republican candidate [can] claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government?”

Meanwhile, Democrats not only hold strong majorities in both houses of Congress, and the White House, but they’ve successfully jumped aboard a progressive zeitgeist demanding “change” and are using this momentum to push through a decidedly non-conservative agenda that will shape our country for decades to come.

Needless to say, the Grand Old Party finds itself in quite a pickle. But not so in South Carolina, right? Republicans hold eight of nine statewide elected offices, both US Senate seats and four out of six US House seats. Republicans also control both state chambers, and the political headwinds plaguing the GOP nationwide seem to wane when you step into the ruby red Palmetto State.

Yet the truth is not so clear. In fact, I see the same Republican rot that spoiled the national party eating its way through our state as well.

A New Focus

“Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it.”

-Edmund Burke

To say the Republican Party has lost its focus is sort of like telling Steve Spurrier his offenses have become anemic. It may be obvious, but it’s still a problem.

Republicans were born the party of Lincoln, grew up under Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower, matured under Goldwater, and came of age with Reagan. But we’ve now lost our bearings. Drunk on power for the last decade plus, we left our conservative roots and made our home in the squishy middle, trying to out-earmark and out-Democrat the party of big-spending liberalism. Two prime examples of this are the fact that the national debt nearly doubled under President George W. Bush and federal government spending has grown by 106 percent since the “Republican Revolution” in Congress

This national hypocrisy was mirrored here in South Carolina with Republican legislative leadership preaching fiscal responsibility but practicing otherwise, growing the state budget by nearly two billion dollars, or 42 percent, from 2004 to 2008.

Millions of taxpayer dollars went to balloon festivals, Elvis impersonators, parades and other pork – all under Republican leadership.

And even this year, with painful budget cuts limiting government’s growth (because our elected leaders in Columbia chose not to), some Republicans have the nerve to blame tax cuts for the state budget predicament we’re now in.

This is ironic because Republicans didn’t actually cut taxes, they swapped them – bowing to the altar of a state policy of “revenue neutrality.”

This outright apostasy can be explained in part by the fact that many old school South Carolina Democrats simply changed parties decades ago when they realized their seats were in jeopardy.

And it turns out you can put tusks on a donkey, but that still doesn’t make him an elephant.

It’s also a sign the Republican brand is tarnished.

Brands are important because they mean something. Just ask Chick-fil-a.

Tragically, the Republican brand now stands just as much for corruption, earmarks and big spending as it once did for free market economics, tax relief and individual responsibility.

Returning to our conservative brand a commitment to liberty, to limited government, to lowering people’s tax burden, and to serious government reform will be an uphill battle, but I believe there are glimmers of hope.

This hope is predicated on some decisive action, taken now.

First, the GOP must re-focus on ideas, on reason, and on arguments. Its philosophical cupboard is anything but bare, and I think we’ve got the principles in place; it’s just the political courage we’re lacking.

So when a Republican proposes expanding government to the detriment of individual liberty and taxpayers’ wallets, he or she should be resisted en masse.

When a Republican advocates a tax increase or condemns tax cuts as anti-growth, he or she should be opposed, with passion.

When a Republican supports selective business tax incentives that endanger the free market and eliminate a level playing field, he or she should be defied.

And when Republican bosses’ oppose a conservative Republican governor at nearly every turn as he tries to lower South Carolinians’ tax burdens, improve their quality of life and increase the state’s competitive advantage abroad, they should be challenged.

For no matter how contentious the personal relationship is between the Governor and the legislature, there is no excuse to oppose common sense reform and in essence forsake the Republican creed to keep your power and pride intact.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that this re-focusing on the conservative Republican brand is beginning, ever so slowly, here in South Carolina. Nearly a quarter of the state House and Senate Republican Caucuses are new members this year, and there’s a growing desire for a return to bedrock principles, starting from the ground up. Everyday South Carolinians are making their voice heard, and vote by vote, call by call, email by email, Republican leadership seems to be at least squirming, if not listening.

A New Challenge

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”

-Abraham Lincoln

It would be poor sportsmanship on my part if I didn’t offer any constructive way out of the GOP’s current morass.

Our state’s challenge must be met with a new attitude, a vibrant and bold declaration that the title “Republican” actually means something, and that diluting the brand by acting like Democrats will no longer be tolerated.

This change will require statesmen (and stateswomen) who will not sacrifice their principles for power, and instead, stand strong against the state’s status quo of glad-handing corruption and growing government on the backs of the taxpayer.

And most importantly, meeting this challenge involves each one of us engaging in every level of government.

I’d encourage you to step out of your comfort zone; talk to your neighbors; call your state legislators; write your US Senator and Congressman until your hand hurts. Take heart that together our efforts will matter.

That’s because America was founded not by the timid but by the bold – those men and women who prized liberty above tyranny, prudence above privilege, individual rights above state solutions, and the entrepreneurial spirit above a dependence on government.

Now, again, is the time not for timidity but courage; courage for our nation and for our party. We can not accept politics as usual, politicians as usual, and political parties as usual.

We can take back the momentum in this New Year with a new focus on proven conservative principles and the core Republican brand.

We can, and together, we will.

Editor’s Note: “A. Citizen” is an anonymous column written by FITS readers just like you. We accept submissions from any reader on any topic, and do not disclose anyone’s identity under any circumstances in the event we decide to (or not to) publish them. We reserve the right to edit as we deem necessary. To submit a column, just e-mail Sic Willie at w@fitsnews.com.

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