by James A. Bacon
With Democrats controlling the Governor’s mansion, the Attorney General’s office, the state Senate, and the House of Delegates, what’s a Republican to do, asks Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania.
Republicans constitute a minority caucus of 19 senators and 45 delegates, but they are hardly powerless, Reeves says in a Fredericksburg.com op-ed. Today’s Virginia Democrats, virtually indistinguishable from their national counterparts, are pushing a left-wing agenda that will turn Virginia into “East California.” (I prefer the South New Jersey analogy, but you get the point.) Says he: “It is our job to hold that majority — and its agenda — to account.”
Any mitigation of legislation to repeal right-to-work, impose costly new mandates on businesses, increase taxes, or force the cost of energy to skyrocket will depend on the determination of Republicans and the persuasiveness of our arguments. …
Republican legislators have a responsibility to speak up forcefully, to point out the deficiencies of the Democrats proposals, and to detail the negative consequences—both intended and unintended—that ordinary Virginians will experience as a result of the enactment of these policies.
I agree, Republicans must lead the fight against job-killing legislation that will increase taxes, repeal the Right to Work law, and impose a minimum wage appropriate for Northern Virginia across the entire state. But if the GOP ever hopes to regain its status as a majority party, it can’t just play defense. It has to play offense… which means articulating an agenda it’s for, not just against.
Medical insurance. The biggest issue where Republicans can made inroads is to saddle Democrats with runaway medical insurance premiums on the middle class. While expanding Medicaid for the benefit of the poor and near-poor, Democrats have done nothing to avert the relentless increase in health care premiums on private insurance. Indeed, one can argue, their policies have shifted costs from Medicaid patients to privately insured patients, which results in higher deductibles and co-pays. Meanwhile, Democratic legislators propose new legislation that would increase the power of health care monopolies and boost the profits of putatively non-profit hospitals. (See Jim Sherlock’s great work on this topic in Bacon’s Rebellion.)
The mechanisms by which these policies ream out the middle class are opaque, and the media is not remotely interested in telling the story. Republicans need to do three things: (1) identify how hospital cartels and Medicaid cost shifting have ripped holes in middle-class budgets, and (2) figure out the Republican alternative (the hard part, because Republicans have given little thought to this), and (3) package that message effectively.
Higher-ed. Another big issue is the insane cost of higher education. The General Assembly sees its job as funneling as much taxpayer money into higher-ed as possible in the hope of moderating increases in tuition, fees, room, board, and other costs of attendance. Republicans have been as guilty as Democrats in their refusal to hold college and university presidents accountable for pushing costs higher. Democrats propose more financial aid funded by the tried-and-true expedient of bigger state subsidies. But no one is asking colleges and universities to get serious about cutting costs.
The mechanisms by which higher-ed piles on cost after cost — administrative bloat, superstar faculty, Club Ed facilities, R&D subsidies, building sprees, mission creep, athletic programs, perpetuation of obsolete disciplines — have been amply documented in Bacon’s Rebellion. This cost inflation is geared either to enhancing institutional prestige in college rankings or pleasing internal constituencies, none of which does middle-class families any good. By and large, Virginia’s four-year residential colleges charge what the market will bear; the only limit is the level at which middle-class families become financially exhausted and can pay no more. While individual Republican legislators have stood up for tuition payers, the GOP has never tackled the cost of higher education — fundamental to achieving middle-class status — in a comprehensive manner and has never made it a centerpiece of its appeal to middle-class voters.
K-12. There are other pocketbook issues Republicans could exploit. I think K-12 education is a sleeper, especially the Democrats’ insistence (1) that racism and a lack of financial resources is what’s holding back minority students, (2) that schools serving lower-income students require, and deserve, more funding than schools serving middle class students, and (3) that the middle class ought to pay the bill. A related issue is the corrosive impact of social-justice ideology on educational outcomes, especially the minorities that social-justice advocates purport to help.
Energy. Reeves alluded to this, but Republicans could so highlight the impact of Democratic environmental policies on the cost of electricity and, if they get their way, on gasoline and other energy sources. They could benefit from reading Steve Haner’s Bacon’s Rebellion posts on this topic.
Housing. This might be a bridge too far, but perhaps the GOP could try thinking seriously about how to expand the supply of affordable housing for younger middle-income families who weren’t fortunate enough to buy a house 20 years ago and enjoy the upward ride in home values. An affordable-housing agenda would require changes to zoning and planning policies, however, which might not go over well with existing homeowners.
If the GOP hopes to grow beyond its rural base of Second Amendment advocates, it will have to emphasize pocketbook issues that will win in the suburbs. Otherwise, Reeves and other Republicans will have a long time to learn how to perfect the minority-party art of obstructing bad majority-party legislation.
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