A disappointed Paul Ryan. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
Barack Obama may still be President and Senator Harry Reid may still be Senate Majority Leader, but Republicans across the nation have been treating 2011 like one extended ideological victory lap. For them, the 2010 elections were not the result of a frustrated electorate upset with slow progress on the economy and frustration with the perceived effectiveness of Democratic rule. Instead, heedless of the consecutive wave elections that swept them out of control of the Congress and then the Presidency, Republicans apparently chose instead to believe that their entire ideology had finally prevailed in the minds of the public and now was the time to implement it.
At the federal level, the Republican House revved up the prosecution of its war on women, seeking at various points to redefine rape, to interfere in the private marketplace by making health insurance plans that cover abortion no longer tax deductible; and to defund an organization that provides vital cancer screening services to countless women each year who are otherwise unable to afford them. The state-by-state level has also seen a surge in legislation seeking to reassert proprietorship over the uterus, but perhaps even more drastic are the attempts by new Republican governors to eliminate the power of public employee unions in state like Wisconsin and Michigan.
To be sure, these were lofty and perhaps irrelevant goals for a party that was hired by the voters in an attempt to find a party that would jumpstart the economy to their liking. Recent polling numbers suggesting that over half the country believes that the new majority is not fulfilling its campaign promises should have sent a warning signal that perhaps it was time to refocus on the priorities of the American people. But the GOP was far from finished: It was finally time to launch the all-out war on the New Deal and the Great Society. Enter Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan.
Ryan's extremist prescription for getting our nation's fiscal house in order paradoxically calls for a massive tax cut for the wealthy: those making $373,650 a year would see a reduction in their top marginal rate of nearly thirty percent. But the much bigger deal is that it would eliminate Medicare as we know it by replacing it with a voucher system to purchase private insurance, costing seniors more money on average than they would need to pay for medical services otherwise. Now, anyone who has been paying attention to politics for the past some time would be perfectly aware that Republicans have been eager to cut marginal rates for the wealthy and to cut so-called "entitlement programs." Consequently, one would assume that the conservative intellectuals who had been pushing these policy prescriptions would be thrilled that someone like Paul Ryan was "bold" enough to draft it, and that the Republicans had a strong enough majority to pass it.
Instead, DCCC chair Steve Israel is saying that this vote will cost the Republicans that house. And conservative pundit David Frum has said that this vote will enable Obama to rebound and be in much stronger position when the 2012 elections roll around.
Major Garret explained in the National Journal that Republicans may believe in the principles behind the Ryan plan, but were extremely hesitant to embrace it for one simple reason: they know that individually, the policies of eliminating Medicare and cutting taxes for the wealthy even more are severely unpopular. But taken as a twin bill in one legislative performance? A potential political disaster. As Frum explains:
And so Republicans have united around Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal that for the first time in modern conservative history explicitly joins a big tax cut for the rich to big cuts in health care spending for virtually everybody else. If this were a tennis game, the Republicans would be placing the ball in exactly the spot on the court where it must never, ever go.
There are two lessons to be learned from this: first, it must be difficult to be a conservative and be forced to consistently hide from one's actual policy positions in the interests of getting elected. But more importantly, it is incumbent on Democrats and their allies in the progressive movement to use articles like those by Frum and by Garrett to remind voters at every available opportunity that no matter what Republicans campaign on, their real objectives that are obfuscated on the campaign trail but discussed only in Republican Study Committee backrooms are still out there.
Republicans and conservatives may try to continually nibble at the edges of the social contract in the interest of making marginal gains. But they have forgotten that the American public does not in fact support their actual objectives and they must, in fact, lie to get elected on a nationwide scale. In 2011, they have finally come to believe that the American public actually supports their actual agenda. And if Democrats play their cards right, they should be able to parley this into long term gains. To finish Frum's analogy: the ball is in our service court.
