This is my week for writing about NPR's Morning Edition, isn't it? In an interview this morning with Steve Inskeep, Mr. Duncan explained why he wants to keep his job as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, and explained steps he and the committee are taking to make sure the GOP "stays" relevant and viable on the national political stage.
The body of the interview consisted of Inskeep reading comments posted by Republicans at the GOP National Committee's "Republican for a Reason" web site and letting Duncan address them. Duncan repeatedly asserted that the GOP is a "big tent" party that welcomes all people with varying beliefs (religious and otherwise) and best reflects the timeless values of the American people.
But he rejected the substance of every comment Inskeep read. When Inskeep asked him whether the GOP is out-of-touch because people who are worried about their jobs and health care are not too worried about tax cuts, Duncan's only answer was that the GOP needed to do a better job of communicating its ideas.
Duncan's answer to a GOP member who expressed the desire that the GOP distance itself at least a bit from the religious right was to say that the GOP attracts people of all views due to its timeless values.
Duncan also trotted out the canard that all the Democrats want to do is irresponsible--because they want to "spend us out of recession." First, that simply isn't what the Democrats want. What the Democrats [and an awful lot of Republicans, if the presidential election returns are any indication . . . which they are--Ed.] want is a return to fiscal sanity. The Republicans during their past 8 years of being in power have spent us into such a deep hole we may never get out--while cutting taxes for the richest Americans at just as dizzying a pace. The facts show who's been irresponsible, and about what.
Duncan, however, remains clueless. In another part of the interview, he claims the GOP had in insurmountable lead in the presidential election until the economy went south. He goes on to claim that the electorate was voting to punish the GOP because of the perception that the GOP had been in charge for the past 8 years. First, it was no "perception." The GOP was in power during the past 8 years, and GOP fiscal policies, no matter how much they try to spin the facts otherwise, are the direct cause of our present economic woes. Second, even before the economy tanked, Obama was gaining steady ground on McCain, and had already put several states that used to be GOP strongholds into play. All the economic meltdown did was help a lot of people make up their minds about how to vote sooner than they might have decided otherwise.
Duncan also claimed that this "spending [our way] out of recession" has been rejected by every president since Jack Kennedy. For the sake of argument, even assuming that statement is true, look how carefully Duncan cherry-picked his administrations. Kennedy presided over the beginnings of a large economic expansion (the "Go-Go Sixties"); Johnson was the last president till Clinton to submit balanced budgets to Congress. Nixon's carrying on the Vietnam War 5 years longer than he needed to produced record (at the time) deficits, forcing Ford and Carter to deal with inflation and stagflation. Reagan started the modern trend of massively transferring wealth to the already wealthy at the expense of the middle class--but since he was such a nice grandfatherly figure to so many, it was OK by them. Bush Senior said "read my lips--no new taxes" and then had to pay for Reagan's excesses by raising taxes . . . thus cutting off his re-election chances. Clinton worked hard to improve the country's fiscal status, and it was working, too, until Dubya used Florida to steal the election in 2000 and wipe out all the gains Clinton had made.
If Duncan had intellectual honesty, he'd have made his list of presidents longer . . . but that would have forced him to admit that FDR DID, indeed, spend us out of the Great Depression, thus torpedoing Duncan's entire argument. As economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has cogently noted more than once, "government is the spender of last resort." When the banks won't lend, businesses and consumers can't spend, and until spending goes up, the economy won't grow--so the government then becomes responsible for restoring economic health to the nation.
And President-elect Obama's plans to improve our infrastructure as a massive part of that spending will give us back more than ten times their costs in the benefits they'll confer on the entire country.
So I say leave Duncan in his post. As long as he's just mouthing the same tired old canards for which the GOP is known, and of which everyone is presently sick, Obama's plans will have more chance for success than they would otherwise. The vitality of the US depends on it.
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