Call Me GOP

What are the unique characteristics that define the Republican party?

Since our real goal here is to find the voice of the G.O.P. by identifying the core values he/she should uphold and the characteristics he/she should embody, maybe it’s time to stop in our tracks and determine exactly what those are.

As a Democrat with a staunch Republican father and many Republican friends, I often pose the question, “What is it that makes you a Republican?” In doing so, I always find that there’s flawless consistency in these three answers:

• High taxes suck.
• No one’s going to tell me I can’t own a gun.
• My dad (or mom) is a Republican.

And that’s where the consistency ends. As a fiscally conservative Democrat, I usually offer that:

• I also hate, nay, loathe, high taxes (although I do have very un-Republican feelings about where my tax dollars should go when they inevitably leave me).
• I absolutely agree that people should be able to carry guns, (which stems from my first-hand exposure to my dad’s near-death at the hands of someone who could have easily been stopped with the help of such a defense mechanism) but that there should be stronger barriers of entry.
• My dad is also a Republican.

So, since these are the three most consistent answers I’ve come across in my (admittedly informal) research, and I can claim all three as a Democrat, what are the unique characteristics that define the Republican party? What is it that the Republican Party offers that the Democratic party doesn’t? And of those things, which do the majority of Republicans claim most consistently?

In 1975, Ronald Reagan (then governor of California) was popping up on more and more national polls as a viable presidential candidate for the Republican Party.  In July of that year — Regan sat down with a magazine reporter and presented his views of what role government should play in the lives of Americans.

“Well, the first and most important thing is that government exists to protect us from each other. Government exists, of course, for the defense of the nation, and for the defense of the rights of the individual.”

“I think the government has legitimate functions. But I also think our greatest threat today comes from government’s involvement in things that are not government’s proper province. And in those things government has a magnificent record of failure.”

When the subject of raising taxes on business owners came up — Reagan made this simple argument:

“Who pays the business tax anyway? We do! You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes. And if they can’t be passed on to the customer in the price of the product as a cost of operation, business goes out of business. Now what they’re going to do is make it easier for demagogic politicians–to say to the people, look, we need money for this worthwhile project but we’re not going to tax you, we’re going to tax business…”   “So they’ll tax business and the price of the product will go up and the people will blame the storekeeper for the rise in the price of the product, not recognizing that all he’s doing is passing on to them a hidden sales tax.”

Reagan went on and offered this example:

“If people need any more concrete explanation of this, start with the staff of life, a loaf of bread. The simplest thing; the poorest man must have it. Well, there are 151 taxes now in the price of a loaf of bread–it accounts for more than half the cost of a loaf of bread. It begins with the first tax, on the farmer that raised the wheat. Any simpleton can understand that if that farmer cannot get enough money for his wheat, to pay the property tax on his farm, he can’t be a farmer. He loses his farm. And so it is with the fellow who pays a driver’s license and a gasoline tax to drive the truckload of wheat to the mill, the miller who has to pay everything from social security tax, business license, everything else. He has to make his living over and above those costs. So they all wind up in that loaf of bread. Now an egg isn’t far behind and nobody had to make that. There’s a hundred taxes in an egg by the time it gets to market and you know the chicken didn’t put them there!”

See why he was often called the “Great Communicator!”  Have we heard a Republican in the last 24 months make such a clear argument?  I haven’t seen it.

It’s been 34 years since Reagan made these statements — yet, from my perspective, not much has changed.  We’re still dealing with this basic fundamental: What role should government play in our lives?

I believe it’s become quite clear what the Democrats response is to this question.

How should the Republicans respond?  Do you agree with me that this is a key issue?

If Reagan were alive, what would he tell the G.O.P.?

This is just a start about Reagan. But what did the others — Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower — exemplify about the G.O.P.? How were they different from each other? What made each man great?

I look forward to your comments.

Michael Steele and Sean Hannity discuss the climate change bill and increase taxes. Which of them would you prefer to see in the bracket…and why? What are your thoughts on the new bill?