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GOP loses by failing to acknowledge mistakes
No Child Left Behind starts slide from principle into big spending
Washington,
Nov 14 -
Hopefully, Nov. 4 marks the rebirth of the Republican Party. The GOP's overwhelming defeat is the result of Republicans being unwilling to admit to its mistakes and unable to articulate a compelling vision for the future.
Recent polling indicates that America is still a center-right country. Americans were ready for change, but all Republicans offered was more of the same.
Republicans began losing America with the passage and signing into law of the No Child Left Behind Act in December 2001. No Child was a massive shift from the previous Republican position, which would empower parents, teachers and local administrators. No Child rested on the wrong-headed premise that the federal government was better equipped to direct the education of our children.
No Child Left Behind has been a dismal failure. Several prominent House Republicans played crucial roles in passing No Child Left Behind. I regret that few have admitted to how this disastrous program led congressional Republicans down a slippery slope. If you could sell out parental rights in education, what followed would be easy in comparison.
What followed? Republicans passed President George W. Bush's massive spending plans during the last eight years. If Republicans and the president had increased discretionary spending at the same rate as the Republican Congress and President Bill Clinton did during the 1990s, our deficit would be $363 billion less, a 32 percent reduction. Clinton could only have dreamed of the spending that Bush advocated and received.
In the next Congress, Republicans must change course and demand a four-year spending freeze on discretionary spending.
Congressional Republicans and Bush took a shot at reforming government, resulting in the Department of Homeland Security and the director of National Intelligence. Although well-intentioned, the reforms were not well-executed and fell prey to the bureaucratic inefficiencies and inertia that they were supposed to fix. Neither organization reformed nor streamlined the agencies they consolidated. Instead, new layers of bureaucracy were piled on top of old outdated bureaucracies.
Combined with the economic challenges our country faces, the table this year was set for an invigorated Republican Party that would talk about empowering parents and state governments (remember welfare reform and more effective delivery of services), reduce federal spending, reform government and get America moving again. Americans are sick and tired of Washington excesses and government programs that don't work.
Instead, the Republican message was that Democrats were big spenders and Republicans were tax cutters. Based on the GOP record during the past eight years, no one believed us.
Republicans never addressed the issue that was compelling to America: Government is too big and doesn't work anymore. What good is an Energy Department that can't predict an energy shortage or a Treasury Department that can't anticipate a financial crisis? We failed to address what many people now believe: Republicans like big government as much as Democrats.
By failing to address our mistakes and rolling out a tired old message with no compelling arguments for the type of future we stood for, Republicans not only lost the privilege of leading Congress but also the executive branch. We left the American people, they didn't leave us.
Now is the time for bold leadership throughout our party. Never again should we stand by as our leaders take us somewhere we shouldn't go. Our leadership failed us, we followed and the American people held us all accountable.
I'm confident about the future of our country. The check on a liberal federal government will not come via the currently rudderless Republican Party, it will come from the American people who love freedom and opportunity. A political party will develop to present the future the American people desire. I just hope it's the Republican Party.
Note: This Op-Ed appeared in the November 14, 2008 Detroit News.
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