Without Economic Conservatism, Virginia, America, and the GOP are lost
I thank Shaun Kenney for taking the time to respond to my earlier post about the disagreements within the RPV. Unfortunately, while his discussion of social conservatives was the usually illuminating stuff I expect from him, his vision beyond that subject was unfortunately very cloudy.
For starters, his claim that my “argument – that social conservatives ruin the long pole of the big tent by trading moral orthodoxy for fiscal heterodoxy” was not actually my argument at all. In fact, I wasn’t even trying to make an argument (unlike in this post). I was merely trying to make sure it was understood that RPV is dealing with a very typical so-con/econ-con argument, one that every other state RPV has; only the unusual history of Virginia made it harder to see this important truth.
More importantly, though, Kenney went on to discuss the state of the party from his view, and (in my opinion) got a few things wrong. First of all, I’m not asking the party to “slough off” anyone. We can’t add by subtraction, and our recent track record makes it pretty clear we shouldn’t be turning anyone away: be that Randians, Paul-backers, communitarian so-cons, even social democrats panicked about the rise of evil in the world and determined to use American power to resist it (which, for those of you born after 1980, is the description of the original Cold-War-era “neoconservatives”).
The critical problem here, and the tension that exists within both the conservative movement and the Republican Party – is Kenney’s determination to put social conservatism at the heart of both to the exclusion of anything else (at the heart, that is, not within the larger organism). In the process, he avoids the arguments that have actually torn the RPV asunder in this century.
His insistence that the party has “become much more monolithic” is a unique interpretation of the tax fights that have plagued the party in 2002 (the NoVa and HR Referenda), 2004 (the Warner tax hike), 2005 (the primary fights over the Warner tax hike) 2007 (HB3202), 2008 (the special session to deal with the Supreme Court tossing HB3202), and 2013 (Plan ’13 From Outer Space). There was no “monolithic” view within the party at all, because too many social conservatives ignored the arguments economic conservatives were trying to make against those tax increases. To focus on “Tea Party populism combined with the Ron Paul/Rand Paul liberty movement” is to ignore the fact that this argument began long before either existed.
For economic conservatives (even those, like myself who agree with social conservatives on a number of issues), the governing philosophy that Kenney seems to think we don’t have is quite simple: American governments do too much; they do almost all of it badly; the more they do what they’re not supposed to do, the more likely they mess up what they are supposed to do; and even what they’re supposed to do is being done far too inefficiently. Now, within that, there is plenty of discussion as to how to begin reversing this problem: what priorities should be set, how fast should government’s role be phased out where it’s unnecessary, etc. However, we can largely agree that when a “solution” is presented that enlarges government size, scope, or cost, then it is actually a problem in a not-so-clever disguise.
Recent history shows that the voters understand this, especially in Virginia. Kenney and I both have high praise for George Allen and Candidate Bob McDonnell, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that Allen’s most ambitious policy (even more than the abolition of parole) was a broad-based tax cut that actually won majority support among voters in the 1995 mid-term elections (redistricting by the 1991 Democrats shoe-horned the GOP’s 52% majority into 47 Delegates and 20 State Senators). Jim Gilmore built on that with his call to abolish the car-tax, and won 56% of the vote in 1997. It wasn’t until Mark Earley went silent on a plan to force Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise taxes on themselves (it would become the 2002 referenda) that the party ran into trouble; Earley himself reversed course and – but for 9/11 freezing the campaign for a month – might have completely erased a multi-digit gap against Mark Warner (it fell to five points on Election Night). As for Jerry Kilgore: when you manage to get Tim Kaine to run to your right on the tax issue, you should be grateful for the 46% you did get (really, you should; Ken Cuccinelli tried to take three different positions on Plan ’13 and he couldn’t reach 46%).
Just so we’re clear, I’m not asking for social conservatives to be “sloughed off,” or even kicked to an outer circle. They are an important part of the party and of the conservative movement. Kenney in particular is absolutely right about the moral and ethical considerations behind the defense of the free market and of limited government. I am saying that economic conservatives are the ones who – especially in Virginia – seem to be more concerned about mounting the actual defense.
Indeed, for all my talk about taxes, the Ex-Im bank, and economic policy (along with my disagreement about “mock weddings”), I take my basis for my concerns about government’s size, scope, and cost from none other than Christ himself: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto the Lord that which is His.” Economic conservatives are the ones who can – and do – speak as to just how far Caesar has run amok.
@deejaymcguire | facebook.com/people/Dj-McGuire | DJ’s posts
