With the Republican Party embracing this radical individualism and extreme hostility to government, government institutions, and blue America, Republicans nearly disqualify themselves from the public debate about what America should do in the face of these great challenges. That will have to wait until after there are convulsions in the Republican Party that lead to Republican reform presidential candidates who really challenge this narrow conservatism from the inside and win, as Bill Clinton did when he led the reform of the Democratic Party. Then the conservatives’ version of the Democratic Leadership Council will matter. Until then Republicans will be aggressively promoting the conservative governing model wherever they can.25
THE REPUBLICAN STATE MODEL
Pay careful attention to what Republicans did when they took full control of state governments after the 2010 midterm wave. They translated this radical individualism, antitax, small-government philosophy into huge spending cuts, particularly from education, reduced aid for low-paid workers and the poor, and slashed regulation and tax cuts for corporations and the richest. This is not theoretical or posturing for elections. This is what they choose to do when unfettered by political opposition or Constitutional checks and balances. They moved with stunning clarity and impact.
On the judicial front, Ron Brownstein points out, governors and attorneys general in virtually every Republican-controlled state joined the suit to overturn the Affordable Care Act, block any judicial encroachment on traditional marriage, and overturn President Obama’s regulations on climate change. With a handful of exceptions, all have refused to expand Medicaid coverage among those with a lower income. While all states cut public-sector jobs with the economic crash, the GOP-controlled states cut more deeply, and more important, they pushed to restrict the bargaining rights of public workers and moved against the teacher unions and teacher tenure. They expanded the rights of gun owners, severely limited abortion access, and restricted the voting rights of racial minorities, foreign-born citizens, and college students.26
The first priority of Republicans in their states was cutting spending. All but four states in the country cut public services during and after the financial crisis. That is the key to understanding Republican priorities in these states: 728,000 public-sector employees, almost half in education, lost their jobs after the economy began to recover in June 2009. And over 70 percent of the public-sector jobs eliminated in 2011 came in twelve solidly red states.27
The Republican-controlled states led the way, slashing spending beyond what was needed and declining to use their “rainy day” funds to forestall cuts. In Texas, the Republican-controlled legislature, fueled by Tea Party supporters, passed a $172 billion two-year budget, an 8.1 percent decrease from prior spending levels. The budget cut $4 billion from public schools, $1 billion from higher education and financial aid to more than 40,000 students, and eliminated 5,600 state employee jobs. In the face of a $23 billion shortfall and a no-tax-increase budgetary policy, Governor Rick Perry and his allies in the legislature refused to avail themselves of more than $3.2 billion of the $9.7 billion rainy-day fund. GOP-controlled states oversaw a 22 percent decrease in education spending while state tuition rose 31 percent on average.28
While education spending was cut almost everywhere to balance budgets, twelve states simultaneously cut corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy, ensuring spending cuts would be larger than necessary. Cutting government further to cut taxes is ideologically driven. Accordingly, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Iowa joined Texas in refusing to use their massive rainy-day funds to avoid drastic cuts in state spending on vital public services. These GOP-controlled states have gone a step further, seeking to lock in the new spending levels and legally bar future tax increases through constitutional amendments.29
While workers and unions were struggling financially, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers joined with the Club for Growth, the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s Americans for Prosperity, big corporations such as Wal-Mart, FedEx, and Exxon Mobil, as well as the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, to strike a fatal blow. In the GOP-controlled states, public employees and teachers in particular lost collective bargaining rights, and Michigan, the birthplace of the UAW and progressive unions, became a “right to work” state.30
The poor, however, were hit the hardest, and by design, consistent with the ascendant values in the Republican Party and its conservative regional base. A majority of Republicans believe people are poor because of a lack of effort on their part, while a majority of independents and Democrats believe people are poor because of circumstances beyond their control. Republicans believe government efforts to raise people out of poverty have been stymied by society’s growing indifference to marriage, which further underscores the poor’s lack of virtue. Though there are many poor and low-wage whites in this world, there is a strong sense that blacks and other racial minorities “cry the blues” and feel entitled to aid. Republicans are even more distinctive in believing the rich got their riches through hard work and are virtuous.31
Republicans have moved to bring virtue and responsibility to work by slashing the safety net. These policies are actually meant to cause a little pain—to make sure people who are getting any kind of government benefit struggle to get it and to purge any sense of entitlement. The GOP-controlled governors and legislatures have largely refused or fought expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to cover more of the poor and low-wage workers. A striking two-thirds of poor uninsured blacks in the country live in these “refusenik” states, where almost six million residents will not get health insurance.32
In this new brave new world, unemployment insurance—a state-administered, contributory program that provides workers up to twenty-six weeks of benefits if they lose their job without cause—is now seen as welfare. That equation was only affirmed when millions were thrown out of work by the financial crisis and many remained unemployed through the Great Recession. Republicans determined that extended unemployment benefits removed the incentive to work. While the national unemployment rate stood at 9 percent at the worst of the Great Recession in 2009–2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied for unemployment insurance reform, “pressuring workers,” in the EPI’s words, “to take any job offered, no matter how low the wages or how poor the conditions.”33
A bloc of seven Republican-controlled states permanently reduced the number of weeks the unemployed can apply for benefits; some reduced the level of benefits as well. Under Wisconsin’s new law, the unemployed must wait a week before collecting benefits. Under Tennessee’s new law, the unemployed may stay out of work for only thirteen weeks before being required to take a job paying 75 percent less than their previous positions; and they must certify every week that they applied for at least three jobs that week.34
Child labor has become virtuous in this new world. Four Republican-led states lifted some restrictions on child labor, endorsing Newt Gingrich’s conclusion that child labor laws are “stupid.” Idaho acted first and now allows kids from twelve years of age to work up to ten hours a week. Jack Kingston, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Agriculture and Nutrition and a recent candidate for the U.S. Senate from Georgia, proposed that kids from poor families receiving free lunches at school “pay a dime, pay a nickel” or “sweep the floor of the cafeteria” to “instill in them that there is, in fact, no free lunch.” He elaborated, “[I] think what we would gain as a society in getting people—getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”35
Each of the Republican governors has battled to take the model as far as they could—and often to the limits of their own popularity.
Kansas
A Tea Party favorite and leader of uncompromising pro-life Republicans during his time in the U.S. Congress, Governor Sam Brownback announced that Kansans were “leading an American Renaissance—a return to the virtue and character that built this state and a great nation i
n the first place.” This starts with a vow to “rebuild our families” and realize the solution is not government, it is God: “Our dependence is not on Big Government but on a Big God that loves us and lives within us.”36
To that end, he made radically cutting taxes and spending the centerpiece of his platform. The governor’s stated goal was to totally eliminate the personal income tax and the earned income tax credit for the working poor and to cap spending increases at 2 percent a year, requiring major cuts in spending.37
The Tea Party governor had to struggle to win the support of some moderate Republicans who were allied with former senator Bob Dole, a Republican who respected President Eisenhower’s moderate conservatism. Nonetheless, Governor Brownback cut taxes by $1.1 billion and eliminated the income tax for small businesses while cutting welfare by nearly half. He announced, “Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.”38
The Kansas model is more than a little tarnished, as the promised economic miracle failed to produce a surge of new jobs and state revenue. Jobs grew only 3.4 percent between 2011 and 2014, the second-lowest rate in the region and well below the national average. Colorado job growth, for example, was 8.2 percent. With reports of growing poverty, the governor offered policies that cut the safety net and promoted marriage. He proposed waiving the marriage-license fee for couples who complete eight hours of premarital education and adding a work requirement for food stamps that encourage idleness.39
It all reached a point of crisis when state revenues evaporated because of the massive tax cuts. A state court found that school spending for poor districts was so low as to be unconstitutional and ordered that $129 million be restored. The state pensions underfunded and the rainy-day fund depleted, Moody’s Investors Service ultimately cut the state’s credit rating. At least the governor was able to win the repeal of teacher tenure in his new budget.
Governor Sam Brownback’s job approval fell to 33 percent in 2014, and with the endorsement of one hundred defecting Republicans, Democrat Paul Davis lost by only 4 points in this deep red state. His margin was 23 points short of what Republican candidates for Congress averaged on that same ballot in 2014.40
After the election, a prospective budget shortfall of $143 million in 2016 forced Governor Brownback and the Republican legislature to consider increasing sales and excise taxes and cigarette and liquor taxes and to slow the reduction of income taxes that was his signature conservative policy.41
Pennsylvania
Governor Tom Corbett, swept into office by the 2010 wave, cut education spending by $841 million in his first budget, and twenty thousand teachers lost their jobs. The Republicans’ education cuts, however, were not aimed solely at getting to a smaller government or a balanced budget. Its purpose was to reduce education spending for the poor, minorities, and immigrants. The governor scrapped the funding formula that took account of the number of students in poverty and who needed English instruction. This guaranteed that the brunt of the education cuts would fall on the poorest and Hispanic populations.
To forestall the possible political backlash, the state rushed to implement a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. A Pennsylvania judge struck down the law as imposing an unreasonable burden on voters.
Corbett embraced the GOP state model and moved aggressively to cut taxes on businesses. He cut corporate taxes by $1.2 billion and angrily opposed the Democrats’ effort to impose a severance tax on the booming shale-gas industry. “It’s the property owner’s gas. I’m sorry. It’s the mineral owner’s gas,” he declared. All of this business-friendly policy passed in the name of job creation proved for naught. Pennsylvania fell from seventh in the nation in job creation when Corbett took office to forty-seventh in the spring of 2014.42
The governor supported the “Women’s Right to Know” Act. It required that women considering an abortion get an ultrasound and required that the abortion provider hand copies to the patient and let them hear the fetal heartbeat—“as long as it’s not obtrusive.” When asked whether the law goes too far, Corbett offered, “You can’t make anybody watch, okay? Because you just have to close your eyes.”43
Governor Corbett’s job approval rating bottomed out at 35 percent in 2014—and he was not returned to office by the voters.44
North Carolina
The Republicans swept the North Carolina legislative elections in 2010. When Republican governor Pat McCrory was elected in 2012, he quickly forgot his moderate style as mayor of Charlotte, and state Republicans aggressively made up for lost time. They began by slashing education spending for local schools by $600 million and raising tuition for the state’s universities and community colleges. With the exception of a small 1.2 percent raise in 2012, North Carolina teachers had not received pay raises in six years. On top of that, the legislature passed a 2013 law that phased out teacher tenure, a change a judge would later overturn. Republicans persisted, however. They offered to raise pay and restore some jobs if the teachers would forgo tenure.45
They moved to reduce the participation of minority and younger voters by requiring a government-issued photo ID at the polls, ending same-day voter registration, reducing early voting by one week, and requiring university students to vote where they registered their car. The governor also signed the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, which had allowed convicted murderers to appeal their convictions based on evidence of racial bias in their sentencing.
Like Pennsylvania, North Carolina passed a law requiring that women seeking an abortion have an ultrasound and hear a provider’s description of the image, that abortion clinics qualify as surgical centers, and that the doctors there obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. A federal judge ruled the ultrasound provision an unconstitutional violation of free speech in early 2014. North Carolina Republicans were much more concerned about protecting rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment. The legislature expanded the rights of gun owners so they are allowed to carry concealed weapons in bars, restaurants, and parks.
That all pales in comparison to what the Republicans did on taxes and to the unemployed and the poor. The North Carolina model is truly the model for the other GOP-controlled states. North Carolina immediately cut the maximum weekly unemployment benefit from $535 to $356 and reduced the maximum period of benefits to nineteen weeks—one of the six states that provide fewer than twenty-six weeks of benefits and the second shortest period in the country.
North Carolina Republicans reduced the corporate tax rate and replaced the progressive income tax with a flat 5.8 percent income tax rate that cut taxes dramatically for the top fifth of income earners. At the same time, they abolished the state earned income tax credit for 900,000 low- and moderate-wage workers. Conservatives faced no ideological backlash when they raised taxes for the poor and those with a low income. Without embarrassment, the conservative state model cut taxes and regulations for the rich and corporations while cutting benefits for the poor, for those with a low income, and for racial minorities.46
These initiatives formed North Carolina’s response to the national debate over how to produce a faster economic recovery, raise stagnant incomes, and reduce inequality. Governor McCrory confidently touted the “Great Carolina Comeback” as evidence that his economic experiment was a success and a viable model for the country. But voters did not get the memo: only 37 percent thought the state was headed in the right direction in mid-2014 and the governor’s approval rating stood at only 39 percent. The leader of the State Senate, Thom Tillis, defeated the incumbent Democratic senator, Kay Hagan, by only 2 points, even as Republican congressional candidates in North Carolina won by 11 points.47
Louisiana
Genuine in his embrace of an exceptional individualism and the market and his contempt for government and government spending, Governor Bobby Jindal proposed abolishing the income tax and cutting taxes on business and the energy companies. He proposed radical changes in how to fund ed
ucation. In fact, he said the amount of education spending is unimportant. He proposed instead that every state education dollar follow the student. It did not matter whether he or she went to a traditional public or charter school, joined an online program, or went to a private, parochial, Christian, independent, or home school. The “public” option was barely mentioned, and Jindal was hardly disappointed when he closed the last four public schools in New Orleans. He was disappointed, however, when a state judge found the voucher at the center of his individualized education policy unconstitutional, and the public turned against it as well.48
The public and civic reactions were not pretty. When the plan was strongly opposed by business groups, the tourist industry, religious groups, and the voters, Jindal was also forced to abandon his plan and to propose a higher sales tax. When withdrawing the legislation, the governor observed, “It certainly wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.”49
Governor Jindal’s approval rating stood at only 32 percent during this troubled period in 2014 and, interestingly, his disapproval rating of 53 percent was as low as President Obama’s in Louisiana at the time.50
When the budget shortfall produced by Jindal’s policies produced a projected $1.6 deficit for 2016, the governor proposed a 40 percent cut in funding for the state universities to the horrified reaction of nearly everyone. Undeterred, he insisted on his red vision: “We made the intentional policy decision we think it’d be better to shrink government and cut taxes.”51
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The Republican-controlled states are a vital conservative laboratory for policies Republicans would implement in the face of our nation’s challenges. Clearly, the public is looking for something very different, even in these very conservative states.
America Ascendant Page 30