To the Honorable John Boehner:
Coming out of the election, there is much fatalism in Republican circles. We believe such fatalism is unfounded and should be "nipped in the bud" before it becomes self-perpetuating. Although the GOP certainly needs to revisit, revise, reform, and retrofit some of our outreach and messaging strategies, it retains certain important advantages, most notably a "bumper crop" of attractive young leaders and issue-agenda strength.
Re. point number 2 -- issue-agenda strength -- we draw your attention to the bipartisan consensus behind a longtime GOP goal: cutting entitlements. While we understand principled opposition to raising taxes, we ultimately conclude that passage of a so-called "Grand Bargain" would generate both enormous substantive and political benefits to the GOP.
While a "Grand Bargain" would not by itself achieve our goal of giving individual citizens control of their own money, it would chip away at the welfare state and open the door to market-based experimentation. No less important: it would establish a crucial and unprecedented precedent. In light of the GOP's success in ensuring that the issue of debt-and-deficits ranks high on the DC issue agenda, there is no reason to believe that these cuts would be the last. We urge you to "play the long game."
Even this initial "Grand Bargain" is likely to contain real (if insufficient) cuts. Early reports indicate that the deal that President Obama and Speaker Boehner nearly agreed to last year is a baseline for the new package. That deal reportedly would have cut entitlements -- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- by $650 billion. Not an enormous amount given the size of these massive programs but not "chump change" either. Assuming the GOP could secure the same amount in cuts or even a greater amount, the Grand Bargain is worthy of its name.
In addition to scaling back the size of government, the Grand Bargain would begin to restrict the ability of the Democrats to deliver "goodies" to voters. We all know that Governor Romney was getting at an important truth with his "47 percent" remarks. People really are addicted to government programs, especially Medicare and Social Security, so if we succeed in diluting these program, we will also dilute the political potency of the Democratic Party.
Moreover, there is good reason to believe that a sizable portion of the Democratic Party base will "go apeshit" if party leaders cut entitlements. While activist Democrats have by and large "held their tongues" in responses to President Obama's divergences from liberal orthodoxy, such as his embrace of drone strikes and free trade, many Democrats (reasonably) see the welfare state as synonymous with their party and are unlikely to take such a "betrayal" lying down. A "Grand Bargain" would drive a wedge through the Democratic Party.
To review: "in one fell swoop" the GOP could take a bite out of the welfare state that has plagued this great Nation since the 1930s and fracture the Democratic Party.
Sincerely,
Common Sense