GOP Review: Part Two

A New Focus

To say the Republican Party has lost its focus is sort of like telling Steve Spurrier his offenses have become anemic. It may be obvious, but it’s still a problem.

Republicans were born the party of Lincoln, grew up under Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower, matured under Goldwater, and came of age with Reagan.

However, we’ve now lost our bearings. While drunk on power over the last decade, we have left our conservative roots and made our home in the squishy middle, trying to out-earmark and out-Democrat the party of big-spending liberalism.

Two prime examples of this are a national debt which has doubled under President George W. Bush and federal government spending has grown by 106 percent since the “Republican Revolution” in Congress.

This national hypocrisy was mirrored locally in South Carolina with Republican legislative leadership preaching fiscal responsibility but practicing otherwise, growing the state budget by nearly $2 billion, or 42 percent, from 2004 to 2008.

Millions of taxpayer dollars went to balloon festivals, Elvis impersonators, parades and other pork – all under Republican leadership.

And even this year, with painful budget cuts limiting government’s growth (because our elected leaders in Columbia chose not to,) some Republicans have the nerve to blame tax cuts for the state budget predicament we’re now in.

This is ironic because Republicans didn’t actually cut taxes, they swapped them – bowing to the altar of a state policy of “revenue neutrality.”

This outright apostasy can be explained in part by the fact that many old school South Carolina Democrats simply changed parties decades ago when they realized their seats were in jeopardy.

And it turns out that while you can put tusks on a donkey, it still doesn’t make him an elephant…

It’s also a sign the Republican brand is tarnished.

Brands are important because they mean something. Just ask Chick-fil-A®.

Tragically, the Republican brand now stands just as much for corruption, earmarks and big spending as it once did for free market economics, tax relief and individual responsibility.

Returning to our conservative brand – a commitment to liberty, to limited government, to lowering people’s tax burden, and to serious government reform – will be an uphill battle, but I believe there are glimmers of hope.

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