JAY COST: If the GOP wants to win, it needs to talk to the middle class.
Congressional Republicans would have better spent their time drawing up a middle-class agenda. They could start by adopting the perspective of families that make about $65,000 per year. These people’s economic situation is uncertain, and they pay a goodly portion of their income to the IRS—not so much through the income tax, but through Social Security and Medicare taxes, which flow into the federal government’s general revenues. So a middle-class agenda would aim to make these voters more secure and stop the government from wasting their money.
Economic security for this group primarily means lowering the cost of education, health care, and energy. Where has the Republican party stood on this in the last two years? Mike Lee has promoted interesting education reform ideas, but the leadership has not gotten behind them. The 2017 Project has put together a health care reform package that aims to contain costs for people like these, but the party leadership has offered nothing. About the only area where the party has done much is energy; not coincidentally, the energy sector is a major donor to the GOP.
What of cutting government? Republicans in Congress too often suggest that the first dollar to be cut come from programs that the middle class finds useful or worthwhile. Corporate welfare, meanwhile, which takes up a shockingly large portion of the budget, is almost never discussed. To wit, why did the congressional Republicans not make a full-throated assault on Obamacare’s risk corridor program, which is a naked payout to insurance companies? Why did they cave on the Export-Import Bank, which is a payoff to Boeing? Why did they buckle on tax reform, an opportunity to excise tens of billions in payola to the well connected? Middle America would not miss these programs. Indeed, it would be glad to see them go. Ask the average American if he thinks special interests hold too much sway, and prepare yourself to be told, “Hell, yeah, they do!”
And what about Congress itself? Middle-class people get angry at the thought of Congress because they (correctly) regard it as corrupt and irresponsible. Republicans have an ironclad grip on the House. Why not pass some tough reform measures to make members behave better?
Why, indeed?