END OF THE LEAVE-US-ALONE GOP
BROOKS, DAVID
END OF THE LEAVE-US-ALONE GOP by David Brooks LOOK HOW FAR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has traveled in just four years. In 1995, the main thrust of the Republican Congress was to get government off our...
...But here is the leading Republican presidential contender veering sharply away from the libertarian song book, and there are no discernible howls of outrage from the free-market right...
...He also proposed a series of tax-code changes of the sort that do not necessarily sit well with flat-tax proponents: expanding the federal charitable deduction so that non-itemizers can take advantage of it...
...Bush attacked the "destructive mindset: the idea that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved...
...But we must correct it, not disdain it...
...John Kasich, who in 1995 had issued a list of over 200 government agencies that could be eliminated, began emphasizing compassion and positive governance...
...This is not a risk-free strategy for someone running in the Republican primaries...
...Even House whip Tom DeLay has launched a touchy-feely effort he calls Shine the Light on Children in the Darkness...
...The GOP of 1999 wants to restore faith in public authorities, including sections of the federal government...
...But it does represent, as the Bush press release bluntly states, "a different role for government...
...Young mothers without self-respect or education or the supporting love of a husband...
...When the Republican party tries to de-emphasize issues like the Human Life Amendment, there are always screams of protest from religious conservatives...
...Bush took a detour in his speech in Indianapolis on Thursday to explain why folks in Republican rural and suburban areas should want their candidate to give such priority to underclass issues...
...Which suggests if you give these people their way on their issues, they don't mind government's intruding further into social policy...
...In other words, Bush is targeting his policies toward people who, by and large, are not Republicans and would probably never dream of voting Republican...
...It must act in the common good...
...In 1995, the main thrust of the Republican Congress was to get government off our backs...
...But it is America...
...The gun people want to be left alone on guns...
...At the height of the Gingrich era, the GOP even seemed hostile to federal law-enforcement agencies...
...McCain calls for "A New Patriotic Challenge...
...David Brooks is senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Bush wants to devote his energies to helping "children abandoned by lathers...
...It is a matter of national cohesion, he said: "For many people, this other society of addiction and abandonment and stolen childhood is a distant land, another world...
...Senator Dan Coats put forth a series of proposals that would use government in a positive way to encourage charitable giving, to tackle social problems like divorce and illegitimacy, to help rescue neighborhoods...
...Republicans will always be skeptical of government programs, but the vehement anti-government thinking that crested in 1995 is now in retreat...
...Even more striking is that this dramatic change in emphasis has been achieved without bloodshed...
...The Gingrichites called themselves the Leave Us Alone Coalition...
...The tax people want to be left alone on taxes...
...When I read some of Bush's statements to Grover Norquist, the man most responsible for formulating the Leave Us Alone Coalition strategy, he insisted that the speech was "not a problem...
...Dole revives Ripon Republicanism...
...Whatever Bush says on the level of theory, Norquist says, Bush supports the Leave Us Alone voters on the issues they really care about...
...Government was the problem, and the Gop mission was to cut and devolve federal power...
...Different from the role envisioned by Clinton Democrats and Gingrich Republicans...
...changing IRA laws so gifts can be made from retirement accounts without penalty...
...At times it is wasteful and grasping...
...The Bush speech describes a country that is essentially content, but in which certain people are being left behind...
...And these are not strangers, they are citizens, Americans, our brothers and sisters...
...That's what they vote on...
...Whereas the Gingrich revolutionaries were rugged individualists who put the emphasis on freedom, the post-Gingrich crowd talks about other values—compassion and community...
...raising the cap on corporate charitable deductions...
...Now read the major policy speech that presidential candidate George W. Bush delivered in Indianapolis last Thursday...
...Children captured by addiction and condemned to schools that do not teach and will not change...
...He wants to help expand a program called InnerChange, run by Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, which uses faith to help reform inmates in a Texas jail...
...For that matter, if you look around the Republican primary field, there is not a single candidate running in the spirit of the Gingrich revolutionaries (Forbes comes closest...
...The Gingrich Republicans described a country of hard-working taxpayers who were bedeviled by a liberal elite that burdened them with workplace regulations, meddlesome environmental rules, and an intrusive nanny state...
...In that spirit, congressmen like James Talent, J.C...
...Bauer and Buchanan want to use government each in his own way, to preserve Social Security or regulate trade...
...They are special-interest voters, not across-the-board libertarians...
...Sure, the free marketeers can be heard quietly disparaging compassionate conservatism as mumbo jumbo, but they go along with Bush nonetheless...
...Specifically, Bush proposed federal grants to ministries to help mentor the 1.3 million children who have a parent in prison...
...creating a charitable state tax credit so individuals and families can get a break on state taxes...
...Watts, and Rick Santorum created the Renewal Alliance...
...The GOP of 1995 rebelled against authority...
...Remember Waco and Ruby Ridge...
...Government must be carefully limited—but strong and active and respected within those bounds...
...An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose than 'Leave us alone.'" Bush went on to defend limited but energetic government: "I know the reputation of our government has been tainted by scandal and cynicism...
...But the American government is not the enemy of the American people...
...Bush's language reflects the new Republican mainstream...
...Bush's speech reflects not only a new GOP view of government, but also a new GOP view of the country...
...After the failure of the government shutdown of 1995-96, key GOP figures began backing off the prevailing libertarianism of the early Gingrich/Armey era...
...This is not liberal, big government stuff...
Vol. 4 • August 1999 • No. 43
