A Republican agenda
Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal:
Whatever one thinks of its policies, the Democratic Party surely made a difference during its 20th-century heyday. Set aside its last, corrupted years in power. When liberalism was ascendant, from the 1930s through the 1970s, Democrats permanently altered the face of government.
They ended poverty for the elderly with cross-generational entitlement programs, broke Jim Crow's hold in the South with civil-rights laws, built the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies that bedevil American business every day, turned our courts into quasi-legislative bodies, and planted the seeds of government-run health care that continue to grow today. As the party of government, they built institutions and processes that have consistently expanded its scope.
What, in the decade since they've retaken the House, have Republicans done that is consequential in the same way? If the GOP majorities vanished tomorrow, what couldn't Democrats easily repeal?
Mr. Gigot suggests a Republican agenda, including
• regulatory reform that requires cost-benefit analysis;
• market-based health care reform;
• tort reform and a stop to the redistribution of wealth to the lawyer class by litigation;
• an end to the filibustering of judicial nominees;
• and, of course, partial privatization of Social Security.
To these goals I would add:
• abolition of the income tax. It should be replaced with a revenue-neutral national sales tax, which would encourage productivity and savings while discouraging consumption.
• immigration reform. In the post-9/11 world, failure to secure our borders is morally inexcusable. We need a national immigration policy that protects the homeland, meets the needs of the U.S. economy, opens the door to would-be Americans who share our Nation's values and restores respect for the rule of law.
• aggressive expansion of, and support for, faith-based initiatives. As President Bush put it: "The indispensable and transforming work of faith-based and other charitable service groups must be encouraged. Government cannot be replaced by charities, but it can and should welcome them as partners. We must heed the growing consensus across America that successful government social programs work in fruitful partnership with community-serving and faith-based organizations."
If Republicans can do even a few of these things, we will indeed alter the face of our Government -- and the American people's relationship to it.