The Republican Middle Class versus the Democratic Bureaucrat Class

The rise of the middle class over the last five hundred years has transformed the entire world, liberating billions of people from servitude and giving them better lives in every way. This has had an effect on the political sphere, two of the highpoints including the American Revolution, which established the first country on earth dedicated to government controlled by the people, especially the middle class, and the creation of the Republican Party, which ended slavery in the United States and enhanced the position of innovative small businessmen. This latter policy has had several florescences, notably during the 1870s under Grant, the 1920s under Coolidge, the 1950s under Eisenhower, and the 1980s under Reagan.

Needless to say, the old ruling classes have reacted politically to the increased presence of these upstarts. Many reactionary movements have arisen to oppose the empowerment of the majority middle class over the last half millennium. The most successful of these arose in the nineteenth century; it aimed at the reestablishment of the secular literati, more commonly known today as the bureaucrats, under the intellectual façade of socialism. Today almost every western nation has one or more leftist parties pushing the agenda of this Victorian political movement.

In the United States, the Democrat Party has come under the influence of this retrograde force. The older, previously dominant branches of the Democrats, the one dedicated to the suppression of persons of African ancestry, and the one concerned with expanding the power of the big city machines have bowed down to the Left to some extent. To be sure, the big city machine politicians have a natural inclination towards the expansion of the bureaucracy, but they have long recognized that “socialism” is a hard sell to the voters. They have now reached a compromise which mostly involves the avoidance of this and other leftist terminology in association with the Democrat Party. Since Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and LBJ the government has grown steadily under this bait and switch frame job to the point where the federal sector alone spends more than three trillion dollars per year.

The Republican Party used to oppose this sort of reactionary power grab. In the last seven years, however, the leaders of the Republican Party have somehow lost their way, and the middle class stalwarts who have formed the core of the party for years feel cheated. In terms of numbers, and numbers win elections, this misstep by the leaders of the party had to lead eventually to disaster, and in 2006 it did.

The Republican Party more clearly resembles a tree with many branches than a bird with two wings. We must get our branches to grow together or we will wind up with a dead albatross hanging around our necks. The most important branch on our tree is that of the small businessman. There are twenty-five million small businesses in the United States. These provide America with most of its jobs and all of the innovation that has made us the most powerful nation on earth. Until recently small businessmen voted Republican at a ninety per cent clip with high turnout while providing financial sustenance in hundred and two hundred dollar checks by the millions. Unfortunately, they more than any other branch of the party feel betrayed by what has gone on in Washington the last few years. They know they could not run their businesses with the wild spending they have seen.

They saw how President Reagan lowered taxes but also went after the bureaucracy, both by reductions in force, which meant phasing out positions, and by cutting back on the size of the Federal Register with its thousands of pages of government regulation. These rules and the bureaucrats who enforce them create enormous difficulties for the small businesses which give the middle class its vitality, and which form the most important core support for the Republican Party. George H. W. Bush made a great mistake when he ignored this most important branch of the GOP by rolling back some of President Reagan’s initiatives, especially the raising of taxes in contradiction to an express promise. This resulted directly in the election of Bill Clinton. Under the brilliant electoral strategy of Newt Gingrich, the Republicans retook control of the Hill in 1994. Speaker Gingrich brought much of his program into law, including a balanced budget, although Bill Clinton continues to take credit for many of Newt’s policy he originally opposed. The GOP at last achieved total control in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush.

Tragically, our vision of returning to limited government did not come to pass.

The first budget proposed by President George W. Bush for Fiscal Year 2002 and developed in the Republican House of Representatives was also the first budget to surpass two trillion dollars. It has grown every year since then by an average of more than ten per cent per annum, to where the 2009 budget now exceeds three trillion dollars. Most of the non-defense additions arose out of the initiatives of House and Senate members who acted like children after getting a funny money printing press for Christmas. President Bush, who should have played the responsible parent, never brought out the veto pen. The Left likes to claim that the wild spending has to do with the War on Terror, but no Bush budget has had a military outlay in excess of 20% of the budget or 4.3 % of the GDP. In Ronald Reagan’s last budget the figures were 23% and 4.6% respectively. We have worked hard for our candidates all our lives hoping that they would cut back the pork and bring entitlements under some sort of reasonable and responsible control. This did not happen.

If we start rebuilding our reputation now, and bring our candidates back to their true mission, that of cutting back government, we can still save the Party and the country from further disaster.

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