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Defining
the Debate
Tax
advocates framed the budget debate as about funding
schools and roads -- issues that people care about.
Anti-tax forces never offered an alternative.
The
anti-tax forces lost ground against tax proponents
during the days after the special session of the
General Assembly convened on March 17. It was
less the result of heavy turnout of tax proponents
at recent hearings around the state than the failure
of anti-tax folks to define the debate.
Tax
proponents made the issue whether schools would be
improved, roads built or other desirable ends
achieved. A tax hike was incidental to their
message. It was what followed naturally once
the point was made that we all want better things
for ourselves, our families and our communities.
The
anti-tax coalition unwittingly allowed the debate to
be controlled by their opponents. Virginians
who had not chosen sides before the 2004 session
opened were left to wonder whether the anti-tax
forces really cared about education, transportation
and other matters that those undecided folks do care
about.
This
is a perennial problem for conservatives, who are
often perceived only in terms of what they’re
against. This year, they are identified with
only one aspect of what they oppose — taxes.
Simply
saying that taxes shouldn’t be raised isn’t a
winning approach. Few, if any, want their tax
bill to increase.
When
the equation is higher taxes equal better education
or better transportation, conservatives are at a
disadvantage. But as the late Theodore White
observed, conservatives always operate at a
disadvantage.
In
The Making of the President: 1960, White
argued that the Democratic philosophy is that
government is an instrument for good. Under
this philosophy, Democrats have gathered together a
coalition that wishes to extend government’s role.
The
Republican philosophy, according to White -- and he
was writing before the Reagan Resolution -- is quite
different. Republicans believe that each
citizen bears a responsibility in private and
community life as great or greater than the
responsibility of government to shape that life and
community. They have always had difficulty
translating that philosophy into a political theme
or program.
Because
of their philosophies, it is understandable and even
predictable that both major parties reduce political
debate to slogans. Too often, it resembles a
scene from Orwell’s Animal Farm, with
Democrats chanting “Government Good” and
Republicans responding “Government Bad.”
The
unaligned citizen simply wants to know whether his
or her life will be better or worse if a particular
program is pursued.
Unlike
the campaigns against the sales tax ballot measures
in 2002, the average citizen is hearing from
conservatives only that taxes and more government
are bad. The pro-tax message is that tax
reform is needed in the interest of fairness and
that higher taxes will mean lots of improvements in
the average citizen’s life.
What
members of the anti-tax coalition should do is persuade the
public that they are just as interested as tax
proponents in better education, transportation and
other things that the public clearly wants.
This is not a debate about which camp wants the
improvements the public favors. It’s about
how best to realize those improvements.
The
unarticulated assumption of the tax proponents is
that the only way to improve life is through
expanded government programs and higher taxes.
That assumption has never been directly attacked by
conservatives in 2004 as it was in 2002.
As
the 2002 referendum demonstrated, the public has a
healthy distrust of government, a suspicion that tax
funds are wasted and an openness to alternatives to
big government solutions. Too bad
conservatives haven’t appealed to those sentiments
in 2004.
--
April 12, 2004
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