Conservative principles: Sacrificed to Expediency
From Tim Chapman’s article of 1-20-06
On February 2nd, when Republicans cast their vote for majority leader, the subtle undercurrent at play will be about conservative principles and the abandonment of such over the last few years. As members register their preference for their next leader, those who have been disillusioned may have a few things on their mind.
Perhaps as they cast their votes for the next leader they will be thinking about a very late November night in 2003 on the floor of the House of Representatives. Many of those members might remember that their conservative instincts and better judgment told them to vote against the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act—the largest expansion of an entitlement program in our nation’s history—but that by the wee hours of the morning, they had been coerced out of voting their conscience by Republican leadership who were convinced that the bill was a political necessity.
When the marathon vote was finally over, enough Republicans had been swayed to pass the bill by the narrowest of margins. In the end, only twenty-five were able to resist the efforts of the Republican leadership team. But twenty-five does not number the amount of members who would have voted their conscience if they could have. Mike Pence, Chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee remembers the vote well. “I’ll always believe that the experience of November 2003, where this majority allowed for and supported the creation of the first new entitlement since the Great Society in the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, that we reached something of a turning point,” said Pence in a December interview with Townhall. “It was in that three-hour vote – the longest vote in Congressional history – that many of the relationships that have now become the foundation of the Republican Study Committee and its effectiveness was forged.”
In an op-ed for the Arizona Republic, Shadegg, who was one of the twenty-five, explained the conservative opposition. “Under the bill Congress passed, the government will now have to borrow the money to pay for the new universal Medicare prescription drug benefit — adding to our annual deficits and increasing our already excessive national debt,” Shadegg wrote. “We simply cannot afford this massive new entitlement. Mortgaging our children’s future for it is irresponsible.” And yet, Republican leadership relentlessly pushed the bill on its rank-and-file members anyway.
Then this previously from Robert Novak’s Column of January ninth:
“President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit that went into effect Jan. 1 looks like a political blunder of far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, these critics assign major responsibility to Karl Rove.
“The hideous complexity of the scheme, which has the effect of discouraging seniors from signing up, is only the beginning of difficulties it entails for the president and his party. It will further swell the budget deficit without commensurate political benefits. On the contrary, the drug plan may prove a severe liability for Republicans facing an increasingly hazardous midterm election in November.
“This program looks less like a bump in the road than a major pothole on Rove’s highway to permanent majority status for the Republican Party…
“Just before Christmas of 2003, the White House and the House Republican leadership forced the drug benefit down the throats of unhappy conservatives. In a memorable pre-dawn session, resisting Republican House members were threatened with dire consequences and offered rich rewards as the roll call was held open for more than an hour to erase a 12-vote deficit.
“Rove’s aim was to entice low-to-middle income seniors who vote heavily Democratic and complain about the cost of prescription drugs. That political maneuver was translated by bureaucrats and health-care technicians into a government program so difficult to understand that someone now receiving any prescription drug care would be inclined to stick with the present program even if it seems inadequate. For many whose existing insurance does not help pay drug bills, the Bush program is only a disappointment…”
Obviously, the President is receiving and acting on bad advice.
