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From
the July 28, 2003, issue of National Review
Left
Turn
Is
the GOP conservative?
By NR
Editors
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he news this
summer has been rather bleak for conservatives. The Supreme Court first
decided to write "diversity" into the Constitution. A few days
later, it issued a ruling on sodomy laws that called into question its
willingness to tolerate any state laws based on traditional understandings
of sexual morality. In neither case was there much pretense that the Court
was merely following the law. At this point it takes real blindness to
deny that the Court rules us and, on emotionally charged policy issues,
rules us in accord with liberal sensibilities. And while the Court issued
its edicts and the rest of the world adjusted, a huge prescription-drug
bill made its way through Congress. That bill will add at least $400 billion
to federal spending over the next ten years, and it comes on top of already
gargantuan spending increases over the last five years. The fact that
a pro-growth tax cut is going into effect this summer hardly compensates
for these developments — especially since expanding entitlements
threaten to exert upward pressure on tax rates in the future.
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Republicans have
been complicit in each of these debacles. Both the affirmative-action
and sodomy decisions were written by Reagan appointees. President Bush
actually cheered the affirmative-action decision for recognizing the value
of "diversity." Bush has requested spending increases, and not
just for defense and homeland security. He has failed to veto spending
increases that went beyond his requests. But let it not be said that the
president has led his party astray. Many congressional Republicans have
strayed even more enthusiastically. Bush originally wanted to condition
prescription-drug benefits on seniors' joining reformed, less expensive
health plans. When the idea was raised, House Speaker Denny Hastert called
it "inhumane." Congressional appropriators — the people
who write the spending bills — have been known to boast that they
would beat the president if ever he dared to veto one of their products.
We have never been
under any illusions about the extent of Bush's conservatism. He did not
run in 2000 as a small-government conservative, or as someone who relished
ideological combat on such issues as racial preferences and immigration.
We supported him nonetheless in the hope that he would strengthen our
defense posture, appoint originalist judges, liberalize trade, reduce
tax rates, reform entitlements, take modest steps toward school choice.
Progress on these fronts would be worth backsliding elsewhere. We have
been largely impressed with Bush's record on national security, on judicial
appointments (although the big test of a Supreme Court vacancy will apparently
not occur during this term), and on taxes. On the other issues he has
so far been unable to deliver.
It is not Bush's
fault that Democrats oppose entitlement reform, or that the public wants
it less than it wants a new entitlement to prescription drugs. He should,
however, have used the veto more effectively to restrain spending. Had
he vetoed the farm bill, for example, Congress would have sent him a better
one. We need presidential leadership on issues other than war and taxes.
Instead we are getting the first full presidential term to go without
a veto since John Quincy Adams. Bush's advisers may worry that for Bush
to veto the bills of a Republican Congress would muddle party distinctions
for voters. But this dilemma results from a failure of imagination. Why
must the House Republican leadership always maintain control of the floor?
When Democrats and liberal Republicans have the votes to pass a bill,
sometimes it would be better to let them do so, and then have the president
veto it. The alternative — cobbling together some lite version of
a liberal bill in order to eke out a congressional majority — is
what really makes it hard to press the case against big-spending Democrats.
The defeats on racial
preferences, gay rights, and the role of the courts generally reflect
a conservative political failure that predates this administration. Republican
politicians have never been comfortable talking about moral or race-related
issues, and have been eager to slough off these responsibilities to the
courts. Their silence is not, however, only an abdication of responsibility;
it is also politically foolish. Opposition to racial preferences and gay
marriage is popular in every state of the Union. And if the courts are
going to block social conservatives from ever achieving legislative victories
— and Republicans will not even try to do anything about it —
social conservatives may well conclude that there is no point to participating
in normal politics. There goes the Republican majority.
To get back on track
will require effort from President Bush, congressional Republicans, and
conservatives generally. Bush ought to bear down on spending; we suggest
that an assault on corporate welfare, followed by a reform of the appropriations
process, would be a fine start. Republicans need a strategy for dealing
with the judicial usurpation of politics that goes beyond trying to make
good appointments to the bench — a strategy that now has a two-generation
track record of nearly unrelieved failure. On gay marriage, a constitutional
amendment appears to be necessary to forestall the mischief of state and
federal courts. But a mere statute can make the point that Congress controls
the federal judiciary's purview. Congressman Todd Akin's bill to strip
the federal judiciary of jurisdiction over the Pledge of Allegiance has
the votes to pass the House, and has a powerful Senate sponsor in Judiciary
Committee chairman Orrin Hatch. It should be high on the Republican agenda.
Conservatives, finally,
have to find ways to work with the Republicans — their fortunes are
linked — while also working on them. The Pennsylvania Senate
primary offers a choice between a candidate who is conservative on both
economics and social issues, Pat Toomey, and one who is conservative on
neither, the incumbent, Arlen Specter. The White House and the party establishment
has rallied behind Specter. But President Bush's goals would be better
served by a Senator Toomey. And as recent events underscore, this is not
a bad time for conservatives to declare their independence from the GOP
establishment.
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