The Republican Party is getting a lot of advice lately, and it would have received mine sooner but for a bout with the flu. Now that I’ve (mostly) recovered, I’m ready. If the GOP is looking for both better results at the polls and a more just, prosperous country, the solution is this: focus on the poor and the cost of living.
Most people in politics (and out) presume that when government interacts with the poor, it is a boon and benefit to them, at least in the short term. Even most Republicans who argue against government intervention focus on the long-term damage of dependency, while assuming short-term benefit. However, in many ways, government policies actually damage the poor in many ways, particularly regarding the effects on the cost of living – i.e., prices.
This can be seen in nearly every major piece of the American families’ budget for necessities: ethanol subsidies and regulations driving up the price of corn (and corn-fed foods), other farm policies driving up food prices as well, cotton trade barriers – which are so clearly out of whack that we pay Brazil not to sue us in the World Trade Organization – driving up the price of clothes (Delta Farm Press), “green energy” policies driving up electricity bills (Investor’s Business Daily), and finally, a crippling health care shortage exacerbated by the AMA’s control over prices – control handed to them by the government.
When government drives up the cost of living, it hurts all Americans, but it especially hurts poor Americans. Whatever one’s views on the causes of income inequality, policies like those described above make disposable income disparities worse. In some cases, they are simply a dressed-up version of redistribution from the poor to the rich.
This is not the free market; it is corporatism run amok. It must be stopped. The GOP would do the country and itself a great service if it addressed this set of problems, and promised America to reverse them.
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