Kick the RINOs off the Hill

Make Bush return to conservatism

By Aditya Kashyap
From the November 2006 Print Edition

Efficiency has always been a credo of the Republican Party, until recently that is. The events of the past few months (if not years) have caused some concern in the minds of party-line faithful and independent moderates alike. Recently, the Republican Party has simply not been efficient at championing the conservative and libertarian ideals that led it to success in the past. Thus, a defeat in the upcoming November election, while perhaps damaging the Republican Party in the short term, would actually be a blessing in disguise; the Grand Old Party desperately needs a wake-up call to revitalize itself for the critical 2008 presidential race.

The signs of a Republican Party gone astray are quite abundant and apparent. One needs to look no further than our own President George W. Bush to realize that "conservative" is a term the party currently touts only on a nominal level. To be fair, his tax cuts certainly are the fruition of conservative ideology. Yet his stance on health care is anything but conservative; more Democrats praised his bill in 2002 than did reluctant Republicans.

Or simply glance at Bush’s original immigration policy, which delivered him criticism from the overwhelming majority of Republican senators and House representatives, not to mention his conservative base.

Also, under Bush, the nation has seen the greatest expansion of the federal government since Lyndon B. Johnson. One prime example of this trend was the president’s initiative to create a new Department of Homeland Security despite outcries from small-government Republicans. The creation of the department was completely unnecessary; the nation, with its National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Pentagon had enough defense ministries. The conservative response to 9/11 would have been a crackdown on the inefficiencies of the current agencies which led to intelligence failure, not the creation of another bureaucracy. If this is not enough evidence of Bush’s nominal conservatism, simply examine his No Child Left Behind Act, a testament to the president’s big-government ideology.

Education has always been, and always should be, an issue left to state and local governments. Though the act was a well-intentioned stab at maintaining school accountability, championing conservative solutions such as vouchers would have been time better spent.

Traditionally, it is conservative Republicans who have labeled liberal Democrats as "taxers and spenders." Yet the Bush Administration has racked up the largest federal debt in the history of the nation while on its spending spree over the past six years. Before Bush supporters become riled up about this point, let me refute their anticipated argument that we should spend "as much money as it takes to keep us safe." According to Fox News, only 23 percent of the federal spending and subsequent debt from the Bush administration has been due to defense-related ventures. And Bush is not the only one in the family who is sadly a mere nominal conservative.

His brother Jeb Bush, in light of the Terri Schiavo case coming to the national media’s attention, decided to encourage the creation of a law that applied only to one person: Terri Schiavo. This is the epitome of big government indeed. It is truly a shame that the small-government, personal-liberty-touting, conservative Republican Party has recently been hijacked by players who are unwilling to risk taking true conservative stances. While it may come as a shock to some that all this could happen under a Republican president, know that this president is not a true conservative.

Even most recently, as the Foley scandal has illustrated, the Republican Party hasn’t been able to revitalize its conservative roots. Tony Snow brushed off Foley’s sexual exchange with congressional pages as "simply naughty e-mails." It’s admirable many Republicans have expressed outrage, and demanded Foley’s resignation, since during Clinton’s sexual misconduct, Democrats defended and rallied around Clinton. Yet some Republicans, generally the champions of family values and moral righteousness in this nation, have failed to voice a strong condemnation of Foley.

Traditionally, it has been the Democrats who downplay sexual deviancy, but sadly the Republican Party is now behaving in a similar fashion. This has lead to an alienation from the party’s evangelical Christian electorate, who are quite frankly as disgusted with the party as the moderates of the nation.

If the Republicans suffer a defeat in the House this coming election, Bush will still retain office. This will put him in a similar situation to Clinton when the Republicans gained control of the House in 1994. Keep in mind that Bush’s presidency would prevent any major Democrat-led initiatives to pass, and, for the most part, no major damage to the party will be done as long as the Senate remains Republican. If anything, the Republicans’ loss in the House this November will be just the motivation the party needs to rediscover what it means to be Republican.

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