One thing about the Republican Party that has always baffled me is its repeated insistence that it is the "Small Government Party." To my mind, attempting to legislate the morals of a nation is not the work of a small, or limited government. And yet, the Republicans continue to fight against marriage equality, and to attempt re-criminalize consensual sexual behavior. Equally distressing is the Right's chipping away at the abortion rights of women.
Buried under the political posturing, what we are really looking at is a party that wants to limit government when it comes to social services and regulation of business, and to expand the scope of government when it comes to legislating fundamentalist morality.
Even by this dubious standard, one cannot help but question the moral consistency of expanding business at the expense of badly needed social services. Consider the Texas Enterprise Fund, which cut funding from the Children's Health Insurance program in order to provide tax breaks to businesses. It seems a fuzzy kind of moral code that can justify worsening Texas' already pitiful record of insuring the poor in the service of benefiting big business. I'm frankly sick of hearing these candidates claim piety and moral character while vocally trouncing on civil rights, attempting to promote unregulated business at the expense of millions of the working poor, and...I forget what the third one was.
As the primary draws closer, and the crowded Republican debates drift ever further into inanity, it gets more and more difficult to hear a discernible message coming from anyone beyond a few tired catch-phrases. But voting Texans on both sides need to take a clear-eyed look at the candidates in this sad display, and consider what morality in politics really means. From my point of view, it's nothing but a veneer of self righteousness disguising calculated avarice.
A recent post on the blog, Texas Politics Student Project, author W. R. Clements addresses the Republican Party ideology that government should exist in a small form. To quote the GOP directly, they state that:
ReplyDeleteThe Republican Party, like our nation's founders,believes that government must be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of individuals.
Well, as Clements also points out, they continually attempt to do just the opposite. I absolutely couldn’t agree with Clements more! We have seen the GOP in Texas contradicting that official statement above with such things as the Sonogram Bill. That interference from the government does indeed “infringe on the rights of individuals.” As it stands now, we will probably never see any progress in legalizing same-sex marriages in the state. The continued cuts in funding to education and health care…. that’s not helping out either.
I’ve said this before (probably in my blog too) and I wholeheartedly believe that a collusive relationship between government and business serves no great purpose. It definitely does not reduce the power of the government by keeping this relationship alive. Money is the driver behind the GOP’s motivations. They are not willing to risk asking for corporations to cough up a little more money. Corporations are given tax breaks while low-income families suffer through the oppressive regressive tax system in Texas. I suppose the politicians do not want to hurt the feeling of potential campaign contributors. Instead, they are actually expanding, not limiting, their power by taking extra away from the poor.
I disagree with Clements that it is very difficult to hear a discernable message in the recent Republican Party presidential debates. Yes, the candidates are taking a lot of craziness, so it can be quite tricky to filter through the words they are speaking. The message is quite clear to me. They are paranoid. Terrorism, immigration, spending money, abortion, homosexuality, civil rights in general and so on. They are scared! You can see that in the bills they create and the programs they cut.
But, W. R. Clements, you are right. In the hands of the Republican Party, government has done nothing but get bigger.
Take a moment and check out the GOP's platform right here.