A Declaration of Independence
TUCKER, WILLIAM
A Declaration of Independence Here's a theme for the Bush pudding. BY WILLIAM TUCKER THE BUSH CAMPAIGN needs a new focus. "Compassionate conservatism" got it through the convention but has failed...
...Those people favored him 46-37 percent...
...Choice in retirement plans is the key to improving Social Security...
...it's a winning formula...
...More than anyone else, they understand the implications of Gore's anti-business rhetoric and high-tax policies...
...In a New York Times/CBS News poll released September 13, Bush trailed in every single income category except the $30-$50,000 bracket...
...The same holds for health care...
...What would you call these people except "working families...
...They don't mind paying 25-30 percent of their income for basic public benefits and services, but they want to have the rest of their money to spend for themselves...
...The biggest shift since the conventions has been the stunning desertion of Bush by the college educated with incomes over $50,000—apparently put off by Bush's bumbling...
...Elections are won not by winning debates but by setting the terms of the debate...
...The government now takes the highest portion of a peacetime economy in history, even though the Cold War is over and there is nothing catastrophically threatening on the horizon...
...They don't want to be herded into inadequate public schools if there is something better available...
...Choice in medical insurance is the safest and easiest way to spread the risk of calamitous diseases...
...School choice should offer people the opportunity to improve their children's education by seeking their own educational opportunities...
...We all want to live lives relatively free of catastrophe...
...What's wrong with having a private severance payment...
...More important, he has done even less in trying to frame their desires in a way that the rest of the electorate would find appealing...
...Even Joe Lieberman himself has been known to admit that the Independent Economy is the source of the nation's prosperity...
...What happened...
...He or she will readily acknowledge that s^-me people—the very poor, the severely ill, victims of disaster—will always need government help...
...So let's start by asking the simple question: What do working families really want...
...The over-$75,000 group—the supposed natural allies of the "party of the rich"—went for Gore 47-39 percent...
...And now that you mention it, has anybody bothered to ask Lifetime Legislators Gore and Lieberman about their government pensions...
...Choice and opportunity are the hallmarks of an Independent Society...
...We have just lived through a century in which the solution to everything and anything has been to enlarge the government...
...As Bush has plainly proposed, the government should assist people with severe or chronic illnesses by giving them a choice of private subsidized insurance programs that will help cover prescription drugs and serious illnesses...
...In fact, that's what we all want to become...
...George Bush must shift that debate to his own natural advantages...
...All they want is the opportunity to earn their living, maintain their dignity, and live their own lives...
...Thus, George Bush's proposal to allow people to set up their own Social Security plans through private investment...
...They don't want welfare, they don't want something for nothing (particularly if it's free health care that requires dealing with government bureaucracies...
...What's wrong with working for an oil company...
...They do not want to leave older people to fend for themselves...
...Compassionate conservatism" got it through the convention but has failed miserably ever since...
...is a simple way of putting that...
...What does this mean in practice...
...Let's take Social Security, the biggest government program of them all...
...although no one seems to realize it yet—working families are now George Bush's most faithful supporters...
...These are probably the most important swing voters in the country...
...Independent Americans realize that self-government is essential to any decent society, but they don't want to depend on the government...
...Independent Americans do not want to abolish Social Security...
...While Republicans were worried about trying to put on a good front to blacks, women, single mothers, and the poor, Al Gore and the Democrats made a quick cut and started campaigning for Working Families...
...But paying for everyone's prescription drugs is hugely expensive, and bashing drug company profits in the process threatens the new and improved medicines Americans have come to take for granted...
...Moreover, people higher on the economic scale are able to empathize with waitresses and truck drivers...
...Yet Bush has done almost nothing to appeal to them...
...Let people make their own decisions and spend their own money instead of taking it and trying to spend it for them...
...Nor does it mean that working families support him...
...If Al Gore is so much in favor of working families, how come he's against repealing the marriage penalty...
...They are the old "Reagan Democrats," still looking for redemption...
...Who is the Independent American...
...The simple answer is this...
...The Independent American is not rich, not selfish, not "insensitive to the poor...
...This is not the old Democratic solicitude for the welfare-dependent underclass...
...But that doesn't mean they want government assistance to become the norm...
...The waitress and the truck driver are stand-ins for people with income at or below the median...
...Working families don't want to be conscripted into giant government programs that probably won't deliver the promised benefits anyway...
...Working families want to become "Independent Americans...
...Independent Americans realize that many people cannot afford their own health insurance...
...Other polls have shown married people going strongly for Bush while single people favor Gore...
...Anybody who is eager and willing to make it on his own...
...We need a rebirth of the Independent American...
...That's half the country right there...
...We want the chance to do a day's work for a day's pay and have something to show for it in the evening...
...In fact— William Tucker is CEO of theelevator.com, an Internet investment matchmaker for entrepreneurs and investors...
...Working families want exactly what everybody else wants—the chance to live prosperous, independent lives...
...Working families" are people who live on their incomes but do not have other assets or investments to buffer their fortunes...
...Right now the debate is about what the government can do for Working Families...
...They don't want to jump through hoops in order to qualify for some single sliver of a "targeted tax cut...
...Implicit in this manifesto, of course, is that the private economy (let's call it the Independent Economy) is not only the principal generator of the nation's wealth—it's also ¦-iv a damned respectable place to earn a living...
...They want the opportunity to make it on their own...
...Al Gore has made "the waitress and the truck driver" his target audience—and why not...
...Married, age 30-44, making $30-$50,000 a year...
...Now just because Al Gore tailors his campaign to "working families" doesn't mean he has their best interest at heart...
...The key question for this election should be, How do we foster and liberate a whole new generation of Independent Americans...
...What we need now is to unleash the power of individual citizens to solve problems the last century always viewed as the government's responsibility...
...people with higher incomes do not cringe at helping them because it means strengthening families and supporting work without fostering social disorganization...
...Bush also trailed in every age group except 30-44 year-olds...
...But at the same time they do want older people (and themselves) to be given the opportunity to run their own retirement programs if they wish...
...But that doesn't mean they want a giant health program for everyone...
Vol. 6 • September 2000 • No. 2
