After this past week’s debacle with the end of the shutdown, there were a few bright spots. In the public’s mind, and in the words of Surrender Caucus Republicans like John McCain and John Boehner, the GOP lost the shutdown. Both McCain and Boehner have a vested interest in portraying the shutdown as a loss for the Republican Party; namely, portraying the Tea Party as responsible for the loss.
The truth is that there were never more than 24 Republicans refusing to vote for Eric Cantor’s original C.R.; if John Boehner didn’t want a shutdown, he had 190 votes in his own party to override those two dozen Republicans quite easily. Instead, John Boehner went for the shutdown, and tried to discredit the Tea Party in the process. Boehner and McCain’s narrative goes as follows: we did what the Tea Party wanted, and we lost; do what we want next time, because we know how to win.
If winning were earmarks for $3 billion to fund a dam originally projected to cost $755 million, the last 33 years were unqualified wins. Of course, no one considers $17 trillion in debt and hundreds of trillions in unfunded liabilities winning. If it is winning, there’s no point in winning elections; voters put the GOP in power precisely to avoid such outcomes, or to drastically slash those outcomes.
And that is where the bright spot lies for the GOP: they did precisely what they were supposed to do in terms of outcomes. We’ve returned to pre-2008 levels of discretionary spending, and the sequester cuts are locked in until 2014. It is extremely likely that President Obama will be forced to lock in sequestration until the end of his term in 2016, and he may even be persuaded to lock in the sequestration levels until 2017 for his successor’s first year in office. No less a liberal outlet than the Daily Beast has taken note of these facts, and lamented how the shutdown defeat for the Republicans produced such victories in outcomes. President Obama’s spending increases have been wiped out.
Now, the Republican establishment is happy to go along with the narrative that they lost, but they got everything they originally wanted and a $3 billion dam. If that’s losing, the Democrats should be so happy to lose in future budget showdowns. In point of fact, the Democrats got two things they wanted: an individual mandate that wasn’t delayed, and healthcare reform that wasn’t defunded.
As to the first, individuals are likely to be outraged when they sign up for Obamacare only to realize that the out of pocket caps have been delayed for a year. That $6,350 cap on out of pocket expenses is not going to be in place for individuals, and neither will the $12,700 cap for families. What that means is that they’re going to pay much more than advertised in 2014 for major medical emergencies.
The stories that are going to come out will be one more nail in the coffin for Obamacare. The testimonials of families and individuals who thought Obamacare would limit their exposure to financially crippling medical bills will utterly destroy President Obama’s credibility on healthcare reform with the American people. He’s going to look like a liar, because he is a liar.
The out of pocket caps will exist alongside the horror stories of the HealthCare.gov site, and horror stories of premium increases and existing policy cancellations. The American people don’t give a damn that they’re receiving more features in their policies; they only care that the features are prohibitively expensive. The Affordable Care Act is producing outcomes that are anything but affordable in the eyes of American policyholders who vote.
Obamacare will have the dubious distinction of making the old status quo look desirable for millions of Americans, who will clamor for a return to the good old days when insurers could arbitrarily deny their claims for “experimental” treatments.
What Republicans received in the shutdown will ultimately discredit Democrats with their base, as sequestration cuts are locked in and the hope of a progressive agenda fades into nothingness. Progressive agendas cost money, and the Republicans have cut money out of the budget. As time goes on, the Democratic base is going to become increasingly more disillusioned. After all, they elected Obama as a savior. He’s given them ubiquitous surveillance in defiance of the Fourth Amendment, an IRS that targets political speech, healthcare reform laden with giveaways to insurers and pharmaceutical companies alike-in the latter case, up to $35 billion over the next ten years-, and no prosecutions whatsoever of the big banks who dip their beaks in a trough that is refilled every month with $85 billion in quantitative easing.
The progressive grassroots have been deracinated; Occupy Wall Street is no more, and the Tea Party, though battered, continues to survive and thrive no matter what the media has to say. In other words, we are winning; we just aren’t winning as much as we wanted to win. The inexorable progress of the revolution started under Ronald Reagan is unquestioned: we have slashed taxes from 70% to just 34% for top earners, and we’ve cut taxes at every income level until 53% of the population has managed to pay no income tax at all. Any attempt to bridge the spending gap for Democrats will require tax hikes on the working poor and middle class.
They don’t want to pay.
In short, the Democrats want to borrow, but they can’t get authorization to spend because one chamber of Congress is controlled by Republicans. There’s nothing to borrow for besides the status quo. The Democrats can’t raise taxes for the same reason: one chamber of Congress is controlled by Republicans. Quantitative easing cannot go on forever, and when it does end, interest rates will rise and require spending cuts at the federal level as the cost of servicing our existing debt increases.
Any tax hikes that occur are likely to take the form of tax exemption repeals rather than outright tax increases on income.
On the social front, abortion clinics have been shut down at a record pace. At the state level, the country is growing more conservative. In state after state, Republican governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana have successfully achieved conservative reforms in education, healthcare, and criminal reform. Rates of incarceration have actually fallen under Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Voters vote conservative at the state level because their candidates actually go into office and do conservative things blended with libertarian things. That’s why the state Republican Party has more credibility than, say, the national Republican Party. The national Republican Party has obsessed with trying to build a bigger tent, ignoring the ways in which state level parties have already constructed the tent and broadened appeal.
In Oklahoma, Governor Mary Fallin has taken Oklahoma’s cash reserves from $2.03 to $600 million during a recession. Again, that’s during a recession. In New Mexico, Governor Susanna Martinez has a 64% approval rating among independents, and 44% approval with Democrats on a smaller government, lower taxes, and pro-life platform. Her approval rating is at 66% overall.
Liberals outnumber conservatives in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. That’s it. In 20 states, conservatives are more than 40% of the population; in four states, conservatives are more than 50% of the population. In fact, the immigration cited as a catalyst for liberalism often results in more religious and conservative societies.
In other words, the GOP has every reason to hope, and very little reason to doubt. The incremental steps towards a more conservative reality are continuing, but the key is preserving credibility to maintain electoral outcomes that enable the achievement of core objectives. At the state level, the GOP delivers. At the federal level, the GOP is delivering in certain areas, in spite of its establishment rather than because of it.
That establishment has the lowest favorability ratings nationally, and if the Republicans continue to allow John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell to be their faces in the Senate, our credibility will continue to plummet. Party discipline is a useful thing; McCain, Graham, and others like them should be relegated to obscure subcommittees where they can’t exercise real influence. They should be punished for their sedition, and for their continued aiding and abetting of President Obama. Republicans who run interference for this president ought to face some deterrent consequence.
Until they do, they’ll continue to be out in public, making pronouncements that damage the national party’s chances of reaching the voters who have given us 30 states to run.