Political
Spectrum Swings
We are now in
the fourth year of what, according to the
neo-cons, was supposed to be “a walk in the
park” in Iraq. While we have accomplished some
things in that country, it has come at an
enormous cost in terms of lives and expenditure.
At home, the war has resulted in continuing high
deficits that – together with unfunded Social
Security and Medicare liabilities – are
beginning to threaten our long-term fiscal
solvency. Any potential we may have had, with
the President and both houses of Congress
controlled by Republicans, to address issues
such as Social Security reform, to overhaul our
income tax system, to implement market-oriented
health insurance reform, or to advance parental
choice in education, have dissipated, with the
focus of the President on the war, and the
scurrying about by Congressional Republicans for
earmarks and pork barrel spending at the behest
of their constituents and the D.C. lobbying
community.
Shifting Political Axis
The negative
dynamic set into motion by the war is clearly
evident in this year’s Liberty Index of the
U.S. Congress. Until recently, the political
spectrum in the country was shifting from
left-right to up-down. In terms of a
two-dimensional analysis, Republicans had been
becoming better than Democrats on personal
liberties issues as well as economic liberties
issues. To be sure, the superiority demonstrated
by the Republicans in personal liberties was
modest and uneven, but it was becoming possible
to conceive of an emerging
libertarian-conservative policy agenda
buttressed by majority support among the
electorate.
In the 2004 Index for the
House of Representatives, I noticed that the
political spectrum had partially reverted to its
former left-right political spectrum, as
Republicans lost whatever advantage they had
previously had in the personal liberties
dimension. This year, House
Republicans are shown to be clearly inferior
on personal liberties, although still better in
economic liberties. In terms of the House of
Representatives, we are now back to left-right,
liberal versus conservative politics. On the one
hand, you have Democrats with proposals for even
higher taxes and spending but with some
sensitivity to personal liberties; and, on the
other hand, you have Republicans with an
increasingly nativist and police-state
orientation and only headed to fiscal disaster
in second gear.
In order to
track the political orientation of the Congress
in two dimensions, each year I carefully
identify 20 votes covering economic issues such
as taxes and spending, regulations, free trade,
labor policy and so forth, for each chamber;
and, another 20 votes covering personal liberty
issues such as freedom of speech, privacy, and
the rights of the accused, again for each
chamber. That’s a total of 80 votes.
Considering the number of votes involved,
getting the mix of votes to approximate the
range of libertarian concerns, trying to avoid
spurious bias, and properly interpreting
parliamentary procedure (e.g., a motion to table
an amendment to delete a provision that
prohibits the funding of a program), this is a
lot of work.
I am very
grateful this year, as in the past, for those in
the RLC who help me with this work. I need, this
year, especially to thank Bill Westmiller and a
second person whom I cannot name. But, while
they have assisted me, I alone am responsible
for the final decisions. My selections do not
necessarily represent the official
positions of the RLC.
Economic Liberties
In both the
House and Senate, I have assembled very
comprehensive sets of 20 votes on economic
issues. These votes cover the overall
budget, spending on programs favored by a slew
of special interests, and taxes. I have votes on
labor policy, such as outsourcing and
privatization, and on energy policy, such as
opening ANWR. I have votes on CAFTA, on
expanding medical savings accounts and on
restraining the growth of Medicaid
spending.
About the only
potential problem I have ever had with this part
of the index is that of including too many farm
votes, which would have disproportionately
impacted legislators from the rural parts of the
country, when the farm bill came up for
re-authorization a few years back. While there
were many “good” farm votes that year, I had
to make sure that the index wasn’t biased
against rural legislators by that year’s
Congressional agenda, but was, instead,
representative of libertarian concerns.
Personal Liberties
Turning to the
personal liberties component of the index, where
I often have problems, I think, in the Senate, I
wound up with a set of votes that was not very
satisfactory. A consequence of this is that I
will not be emphasizing my results for the
Senate in this report. I’ll come back to this
matter. But, with regard to the House of
Representatives, I am happy with the set of
votes on personal
liberties. In this chamber, there were many
votes on personal liberty issues, including
medical marijuana, the Flag Desecration
Constitutional Amendment, gun control, U.S.
involvement in the drug-related war in Columbia,
and the regulation of the internet. Other votes
involve the federalization of crime, the Patriot
Act, and immigration policy.
These votes, as
a set, reflect what I believe to be the “Republican
Liberty” understanding of personal liberty.
For example, on the Shiavo vote, the
Congressional Republican leadership wanted a
federal review of Ms Shiavo’s family’s case.
But, this matter had been duly considered by
state courts. I held to the principle that such
matters as were involved in this case, are to be
decided by the individual or his or her guardian
where that person is unable to decide, as can
best be determined by state courts, with federal
courts intervening only if there is a federal
concern. In this case, the libertarian position,
in my opinion, aligned with the liberal
position, but that was merely a
coincidence.
For another
example, on the bill to make it a federal
offense to transport a minor across a state
border to obtain an abortion without the consent
of the parents or guardians, I again applied the
libertarian principle that such matters are to
be decided by the individual or his or her
guardian where that person is unable to decide.
In such cases as this, liberals would have
parents be financially responsible for older
children who have not yet reached majority
status, while freeing those children from
parental authority. This would not only be
unfair to parents, it would be inconsistent with
Liberty. Liberty is not the absence of
restraints; rather, it is that the
decision-maker bears the consequences of his or
her decisions. In the exercise of guardianship,
we must defer to the family, and outsiders –
no matter that they are close outsiders –
should just butt out. To be sure, the guardian’s
competence or love for the ward can be
challenged in court; and, individuals within
families can or should be able to separate
themselves; e.g., precocious youth can or should
be able to seek early emancipation.
Thus, our “Republican
Liberty” position is truly pro-family and
pro-freedom of association, as well as
pro-individual. In contrast, both liberals and
conservatives would intervene into our families
and into our associations whenever they feel
something important is involved. Indeed, we look
at government as an association, having limited
and enumerated powers under a Constitution
transferred by the people to it, whereas
liberals and conservatives look at government as
sovereign, and at individuals as having rights
and obligations as decided by it.
In recent
years, Republican concern for personal liberty
has atrophied. As for the possibility that
Republicans will ever act on the President’s
now long-forgotten campaign promise to respect
state initiatives legalizing medical marijuana,
that has been pushed aside by the social
conservatives within the Republican Party.
Similarly, the President’s effort to promote a
rational and humane approach to our country’s
immigration situation has been pushed aside by
the rise of nativism within our party and the
country generally.
The Eminent Domain Vote
One vote that I
included in the personal liberties component of
this year index, that some people might suppose
should belong in the economics component, is the
House vote on “takings” of private property
for private purposes, following the Supreme
Court decision in the Kelo case. Obviously,
something is very wrong when five justices of
the Supreme Court think that a “public purpose”
is anything a city council says is a public
purpose. Why do they think we have a
Constitution? It’s because we’re not a pure
democracy. It’s because we know we have to
protect ourselves from ourselves. That’s why
we have such things as checks and balances and
staggered elections, and that’s why we have a
Supreme Court that is removed from
politics.
It is because
the Kelo decision strikes so very deeply at the
heart of our form of government, that I included
the House eminent domain vote in the personal
liberties component of the index.
Here is where I
return to the matter of the Senate and personal
liberties. The way that our federal legislature
is arranged, the House acts like a barometer of
public opinion, reflecting “the will of the
people.” At present, the will of the people is
not very pretty. Nationalism is on the rise, and
with it fear of immigrants, of Arabs, and of the
global economy. This is reflected in an
increasingly jingoistic legislative agenda in
the House. The Senate, on the other hand, is
set-up in a way that, at least for a time, will
deflect the excesses of public opinion. Possibly
as a result of their different structures, the
political orientation of the House is changing
and that in the Senate is not or is not yet
changing.
The Best and the Worst
In the House of
Representatives, the overall top score in this
year’s index is 90, posted by Congressman Jeff Flake
(R-AZ). Congressman Flake has been at or tied
for the top spot since he took office five years
ago. Number 2 is Congressman Ron Paul
(R-TX), 82, who was my predecessor as National
Chair of the RLC, and who has been first or tied
for first or second since he returned to the
U.S. Congress in 1997. Number 3 is Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
(R-CA), 80, who was the winner of the first
several RLC indexes way back when, and has in
recent years rebounded to the top of the
rankings. Other top scores were registered by
Congressmen Duncan (R-TN), Hensarling (R-TX),
Shadegg (R-AZ), Otter (R-ID), Feeney (R-FL),
Royce (R-CA) and Garrett (R-NJ).
The lowest
scorers in the House were Congressman Livingston
(D-RI), with a score of 24, Congressmen Case
(D-HI) and Miller (D-NC), and newly-appointed
Senator Menendez (D-NJ), with 26s.
The worst
Republican in the House was Congressman Higgins
of New York, with an overall score of 34 and the
best Democrat was Congressman Jim Matheson of
Utah, with an overall score of 57.5.
Economic Liberty
Ratings
In the area of
economic liberties, there were five perfect
scores of 100 in the House; Congressmen Flake
(R-AZ), Hayworth (R-AZ), Hensarling (R-TX),
Pence (R-IN) and Shadegg (R-AZ). There was one
“perfect” score of zero; Congressman Hinchey
(D-NY). His approach to economics must be, as
Ronald Reagan once said, “If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops
moving, subsidize it.”
There were 14
Congressmen who got only one vote wrong, and 11
Congressmen who got only one vote right. The
vote that most frequently tripped-up Congressmen
was Roll Call 73, which was to defund a proposed
billion dollar Baghdad embassy. Five spendaholic
Democrats voted to defund the proposed Baghdad
embassy. Perhaps they viewed this as an anti-war
vote, rather than as a spending vote. Two
Republicans, who normally scrutinize
expenditures, found that they couldn’t help
themselves when it came to this boondoggle.
Perhaps analogously they viewed this as pro-war
vote, rather than as a spending vote.
Only two other
votes that tripped-up otherwise perfectly good
or perfectly bad scores, marred more than two
scores. These were Roll Call 239, dealing with
the World Trade Organization, and Roll Call 235,
dealing with the Agricultural Marketing program.
Personal Liberty
Ratings
In
the area of personal liberties, the highest
score was registered by Congressman Paul (R-TX),
and the two lowest were registered by
Congressmen Kirk (R-IL) and King (R-NY). Notice
that Republicans were both at the top and at the
bottom in the personal liberty component of the
2005 index. This reflects the emerging cleavage
between libertarians and others within the
Republican Party.
Turning to the
U.S. Senate, the high scorers were Senators
Trent Lott (R-MS), 90; James DeMint (R-SC), 88;
and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), 87. The lowest scorers were
Mark Dayton (D-MN), 11; and, Barbara Mikulski
(D-MD) and Richard Durbin (D-IL), each of whom
got 12.
In the
economics component of the index, Senators
Ensign (R-NV), Gregg (R-NH), Kyl (R-AZ) and Lott
(R-MS) registered perfect 100s; and, Senators
Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Kerry (D-MA) and
Levin (D-MI) registered “perfect”
zeros.
In the personal
liberties component of the index, Senators
Thomas (R-WY), 87; and, Bennett (R-UT), 86;
should be mentioned; as should Senators Mikulski
(D-MD), 22; and, Akaka (D-HI), 25.
Corruption and
Reform
The
possibility of a libertarian-conservative policy
agenda has been damaged by the continuing war.
Most obviously, continuing large deficits make
problematic extension of the temporary tax cuts.
And, with huge increases in spending,
constituencies within the Republican Party –
e.g., farmers – figure why shouldn’t they
get their share. Combine these things with
former Majority Leader Tom De Lay’s old-style
approach to politics, featuring special interest
spending, earmarks and lobbyists, and catering
to the social conservatives while ignoring the
economic conservatives, was it really a surprise
to see political corruption on the rise, in
addition to seeing spending on the rise?
The election of
Congressman John Boehner (R-OH) as the new
Majority Leader, who has never sought an
earmark, can be the start of a reversal of
direction, away from excessive spending, special
interests and corruption, and back toward
economic and political reform. But, if this is
mere window-dressing, libertarians within the
Republican Party will be increasingly
disheartened, our party's political coalition
will fray, and our electoral majority will be
put at risk. After four years of Operation Iraqi
Freedom, it is time to focus on Operation
American Freedom.
Clifford
F. Thies e-mail
Past Chairman, Republican Liberty Caucus
Professor of Economics and Finance,
Shenandoah University
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