Can The GOP Get Its Mojo Back?
The dust still hasn’t settled from November’s agenda-changing elections. Obama has moved into the White House amid considerable pomp and circumstance (in fact, Time magazine should just be renamed Obama…because he is always on the cover). The President and the Democrat-led Congress are already moving to remake America in what the Party’s leaders perceive to be the direction our country ought to head – which is, simply put, anywhere George W. Bush either hasn’t been or chose not to go.
Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending upon your viewpoint – 2008 marked a low-point for the GOP. The Party, which held strong Congressional majorities and the Presidency for the first half of the 2000s now has neither. Nationally, the 2008 elections left the Party with a true crisis of conscience. What should the Party stand for? How can the GOP be a big tent Party once again? Does the Party need new leadership? How can Republicans adapt to America’s changing Demographics?
These hefty questions are still being debated and discussed in Washington, D.C., around dinner tables and in diners across America. Below are some observations, based on the passage of two-months time since the Obama wave swept the nation. Some solutions follow:
A Way to Fix the Employee Free Choice Act
Since last week’s post on the dishonest business campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, my email box has been full with friendly if critical missives from business and labor sources and friends.
EFCA, for those who aren’t following the controversy, is major federal legislation supported by labor interest and Congressional Democrats (and a few Congressional Republicans). It would replace the current so-called secret ballot system (so called because these ballots are rarely, as a practical matter, secret) for elections in which workers choose whether to join a union. Instead, workers could unionize simply by signing cards. This is known as “card check.”
I don’t like the current system or the EFCA system. I’d rather we take the existing structure and tighten time limits, add penalties for employers who break the rules, and create a secret ballot system with real secret ballots and prompt, fair elections. I thought this was a middle position. But in the emails, each side – business and labor – accused me of being on the other’s side.
Poll Numbers No Map Out of the Budget Wilderness
The Public Policy Institute of California poll results this morning don’t provide a clear map on leading the state out of the budget wilderness.
While 44% of those polled believe that a combination of taxes and cuts are the remedy for our current budget problem, the kind of taxes voters chose to support will not get us off the long term budget rollercoaster. Corralling the greatest support was the proposal to tax the wealthiest Californians at 69% of likely voters. The trouble with that is the wealthiest Californians already pay the greatest portion of the state income tax. The wealthiest one percent pay fifty percent of the income taxes in the state. Hitting that group of taxpayers up for more will mean California will be even more dependent on the volatility of the marketplace. Relying on the most progressive income tax in the nation already has led us into the fiscal ups and downs we have witnessed over the last decade.
Raising taxes on corporations was approved by 60% of those polled. Given all the lay-offs corporations have made of late this maneuver is contradictory to the voters feelings on the number one concern in the state as indicated by the poll: jobs and the economy. Raising taxes on corporations is sure to send more workers into the unemployment line because the corporations will be paying money to the state instead of paying salaries to workers.