Young Guns : A New Generation of Conservative Leaders (16 page)

If there is one word that is responsible for the current majority in Washington it is “change.” President Obama and the congressional Democrats rode to victory in 2008 by promising to change Washington, to change our political culture, even (although not many seemed to notice) to change America itself.

But “change” is, of course, a morally neutral word. It describes a movement… but in what direction? “Change” can be for the better or for the worse. As a candidate, Barack Obama cultivated the image of a centrist. He promised to rise above “ideology.” But as president, Obama has proven himself to be zealously ideological. With his Progressivist allies in the Democratic leadership of Congress, he has set about fulfilling a very old vision for America, one that is meant to surrender the timeless truths on which our country was founded, and in which the vast majority of Americans have always remained loyal.

A few years back, most left-of-center pundits and politicians stopped calling themselves “liberals” and began calling themselves “Progressives.” I can’t say precisely why they made this switch. Perhaps they felt that something about
the word “liberal” no longer sat well with the American people. But whatever the reason for the change, liberals didn’t just dream up the term “Progressive.” Progressivism is actually an old political movement in America, going back before the beginning of the twentieth century.

Progressivism marked the point at which some politicians and intellectuals began for the first time to question the meaning of the Constitution and the self-evident truths of the American founding. Politicians like President Woodrow Wilson, one-time professor of politics at Princeton University, argued that the Constitution should be a “living” document whose meaning had to “keep up with the times.” In practice this meant whatever a Progressivist president, Congress, or Supreme Court said it was—for now. And once the Constitution’s very words were no longer considered binding over time, the concept of limited government outlined in the Constitution—of government that protects our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—was out the window. Suddenly government could create “rights”—and just as easily as it could create them, it could take them away. The central notion of the Declaration of Independence—that the people grant power to the government, the government doesn’t grant power to the people—was turned upside down.

As the twentieth century unfolded, Progressivism became responsible for the increasing centralization of power in Washington. We can see its effect in the growing legions of federal bureaucrats. The Progressive doctrine
holds that “experts” are professionally trained to tell average Americans how to live. So we have armies of elites running our schools, regulating our businesses, and dictating what kind of lightbulbs we should use. Progressivists don’t trust the people to spend their own money well. They believe in taking more and more of the peoples’ income through taxes and leaving it to government to decide how it is best spent.

The endgame of the Progressivist vision is to take America past the tipping point I talked about earlier; to create an America where dependence on government has replaced individual initiative, innovation, and imagination. The Progressivist vision is to create a new American person who no longer strives to better oneself but accepts one’s station in life—and looks to government to help cope not only with difficulties but with every important personal decision. And from the enactment of the failed $1 trillion “stimulus” bill last year, to the pass-at-any cost government takeover of health care, President Obama and the Democratic leadership have zealously followed this Progressivist strategy, taking us closer to the tipping point, closer to a European-style welfare state where high taxes, big government, and double-digit unemployment become a way of life. The passivity this way of living encourages means that most people abandon the right to govern themselves, leaving bureaucratic experts and political leaders in control of every important aspect of individual and social life. A long time ago, the insightful French visitor to America, Alexis de Tocqueville, had already identified this subtle
threat to America’s democratic freedom as a soft kind of despotism.

The rhetoric of “change” in the 2008 election and beyond appeals both to our constant desire to improve our lives and those of the next generation, and to a deep disaffection among the American electorate. We are right to be unsatisfied with our institutions—our financial institutions, our economy, our schools, and, most of all, our government. Our hope for change that brings more freedom and prosperity is real, but abused by those that claimed to be for “change.” Almost two years into the Obama presidency, it has become abundantly clear that the Democrats’ Progressive vision is not the change most Americans voted for.

For Eric, Kevin, and me, the result is that it’s an exciting time to be an advocate of liberty. We have a tremendous opportunity to present a different vision of change, one guided not by the soft despotism of European-style social welfarism, but by the timeless truths on which our nation was founded. We have a deep attachment and enduring faith in the Constitution and the principles of freedom that were given to us by our Founders. We feel them in our bones precisely because they are natural to all human beings. Whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent—you feel it and you know it.

Guided by our founding principles, we have the opportunity to direct “change” toward the ends that have made America the envy of the world. We’re fully aware of our nation’s challenges, but we reject the notion that America
needs to be remade. The miracle of America is that, through our openness and entrepreneurialism, our nation is always new; we remake ourselves every day. The great achievement of our founding was to take the unchanging truths of liberty and equality and use them to build a nation that never stops changing.

No, America does not need to be remade, we just need to recommit to the ideas that have made us great. We need to rededicate ourselves to the most liberating and most inclusive idea ever conceived by man: that all human beings are created equal, with equal rights to live, to be free, to acquire property, and do all we can to fulfill our God-given potential. And we need to reconnect to the fundamental fact that the great purpose of government is to secure these rights. Protecting every person’s life, liberty, and freedom to pursue happiness is the great and only mission of a government true to our founding. When government grows beyond this mission—even if the motivation is noble—it weakens freedom, reduces prosperity, and becomes arrogant and intrusive. Such a government isn’t “progressive.” It goes backward, finding excuses to entitle some groups at the expense of others. It suffocates individual initiative and encourages victimhood. It creates an aversion to risk that saps the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for growth, innovation, and prosperity. It replaces, in the words of the Declaration, the “laws of Nature and Nature’s God” with a regulatory state of “experts” who believe government is answerable to no higher authority. It abandons constitutional
limits and expands its powers into every aspect of society, centralizing control in federal bureaucracies that are not accountable to the people.

This is the point we are rapidly approaching today. And both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for bringing us here.

The president’s lack of focus on our spending addiction was understandable, if regrettable, in 2002. But it is unforgivable in 2010. America stands at the brink. Our government is headed toward bankruptcy while our people are out of work. And for the last eighteen months it has been the Democrats’ turn to drive us further toward the tipping point. They have done so in disregard—actually, in
direct opposition
—to the will of the American people. They have done so arrogantly and undemocratically. And they have done so in defiance of their promises made to the American people. Runaway spending, piling new unfunded entitlements on top of old unfunded entitlements, cutting backroom deals, and executing undemocratic legislative maneuvers—this is emphatically
not
the change America has been waiting for.

We deserve better from Washington. It’s time that we demand more than “change.” It’s time that we demand a new commitment—in the form of workable solutions—to the principles that have made us great.

What would an agenda of solutions based on American principles look like?

I have put forward my specific solution, called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” to meet this challenge. The Congressional Budget Office confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth.

The problem, in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress’ spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.

Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan. There’s a better way to save America’s financial future while keeping our promises to the elderly and the needy.

A new Congress could start by making you the owner of your health plan. Under my Roadmap reform, a tax break that now benefits only those with job-based health insurance will be replaced by tax credits that benefit every American. And it secures universal access to quality, affordable health coverage with incentives that hold down health-care cost increases.

Everyone fifty-five and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under fifty-five, Medicare
will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy. Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans—with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low-income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else.

Under the Roadmap’s Social Security proposal, everyone fifty-five and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under fifty-five will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress’s own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by Social Security. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases.

The Roadmap also offers a better way to get this economy moving again. It offers taxpayers an option: either use the tax code we have today, or use a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax that gets rid of loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. It also replaces corporate income taxes with a simple, competitive 8.5 percent business consumption tax. These low-rate and simple tax reforms would provide the certainty and the incentives for investors to open new enterprises and for workers to find a marketplace expanding in new jobs.

The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the
expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.

I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis, as well as the larger debate on the proper role of government. It’s time politicians in Washington stopped patronizing the American people as if they were children. It’s time we stop deferring tough decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. It’s time we tell Americans the truth, offer them a choice, and count on them to do what’s right.

PART THREE
 
 
CONGRESSMAN
Kevin McCarthy