There once was a time when the principles of the Grand Old Party were pure. If not pure in the strictest sense of the word they were pure in a political sense – relatively.
The republicans espoused a political platform consistent with conservative ideology: economic policy rooted in prudent and sparing government interference; social policy rooted in Judeo Christian morality. Occasionally their actions veered from their pronounced positions but on the whole they were ideologically centered on traditional conservative ideals.
But now republican principles are anything but pure. They’ve been tainted by the fiscally decadent years of the much-maligned Bush administration during which the Republican Party violated the Jeffersonian principle that “the government is best which governs least.” Though the republicans remained staunchly conservative on social issues they became fiscally irresponsible – like a teenager going corybantic with a parent’s credit card.
In the wake of Sept. 11 the Bush administration embarked upon a massive increase in military and homeland security expenditures. Now these expenditures though many consider them untenable are at least understood by conservatives to be crucial to the protection and welfare of the country. This argument though consistent with traditional conservative ideology only reflects a portion of Bush’s spending.
Under Bush’s supervision government expanded and earmarks rose by 121 percent during his first term according to whitehouse.gov. The national debt inflated from $5.6 trillion to $11 trillion. Non-defense spending increased at the bloated real dollar rate of 25.3 percent the fastest in 30 years. Bush also signed a $190 billion farm subsidy bill a $1.2 trillion Medicaid prescription bill and a $295 billion infrastructure bill.
Such profligate spending signaled that a stark dichotomy was growing between the Republican Party’s espoused conservative positions and their tangible non-conservative policies.
In the aftermath of losing the presidency and numerous seats in the Senate the republicans have once again whipped out the old maxims of fiscal conservatism. But their message is chaotic.
Also it wasn’t as if these republicans were fundamentally against spending the money; they merely wanted to spend it on different projects. Even Senator Mel Martinez (GOP-Fla.) proposed a stimulus plan although his only cost a meager $717 billion.
Traditional conservatism still exists but not in the Grand Old Party now a floundering political colossus. Once possessing a monopoly on American political power – controlling Congress and the Oval Office – the republicans have fallen to the fringes of political importance at risk of becoming as irrelevant as SGA elections.
Though the republican message has been tainted by imprudent actions and hampered by multifaceted failure republicans do not need to ride off into the sunset just yet.
Americans did not run toward President Obama. They ran from fiscally irresponsible internationally interventionist republicans. They ran from spend-and-pray-the-debt-away neoconservatives. But conservatism – real traditional conservatism – still has bite.
If the republicans turn their backs on spending and big government and return to their roots then they may stand a chance in the 2010 elections. But if they don’t conservatism and republicans will certainly become relics of a bygone age.