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By Neil Stevens Posted in Earmarks | Medical Care | Policy | Redstate Roundtable | Schools | Social Security | Spending | taxes — Comments (64) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

For this week's roundtable, let's discuss what Republicans in general and conservatives in particular should pursue as our top domestic federal legislative priorities over the next four years. Obviously, if McCain is elected, or if the GOP recaptures at least one House of Congress in November, we will have a foothold from which Republicans can propose a legislative agenda of our own. If none of those things happen, we should still consider what our agenda should look like besides (as the late Bill Buckley would say) simply standing athwart Obamania shouting "stop."

Read on for the discussion...

Dan McLaughlin: Personally, I'm voting in this election cycle mainly on defense and judges, since after the fiasco of 2005-06 (especially the Social Security flop) I'm not optimistic that we are going to make much in terms of successful domestic legislative inroads in the near future. But we have no future as a party or a movement if we don't try. So what should be at the top of our list of battles we could win or that would be worth fighting even unsuccessfully? And if McCain wins the White House, which of those battles might be plausibly be willing to lead?

Leon H. Wolf: I think that McCain can and will lead when it comes to fighting wasteful spending. One idea that I particularly liked that Senator Brownback touted when I worked for him was a BRAC-type process for all non-discretionary spending programs. After all, it's the non-discretionary stuff that really gums up the works. Outrageous pork projects and earmarks are good for headlines, but if McCain is going to lead a movement that actually reduces the size of government, he has to come up with a way to reduce non-discretionary spending that targets it all in a uniform way.

Dan McLaughlin: Not to get us too far off track but a BRAC style commission is one area where if they can put the primary campaign aside, Mitt Romney might actually prove of great use to a McCain Administration. Identifying duplicative and wasteful government programs is a classic job for an experienced management consultant.

One area where I would like to see us finally put some legislative muscle behind is school choice, possibly even to the point of converting a lot of current federal aid to school districts into federal vouchers. I know it's not always popular within the GOP for a lot of reasons: it means putting more federal money and federal power into a traditional state area for social-program reasons, and largely to benefit kids whose parents don't vote Republican, and some suburban parents don't really want poor kids coming into their school districts. That said, it's an area where McCain ran to Bush's right in 2000 and one where we could do some real good while driving a wedge between Democrats' voting base and their special-interest backers. A good starting point would be to kick-start efforts to do a vigorous school choice program in DC, where there are no federalism issues.

Neil Stevens: I'd start with tax reform. President Bush had his choice of tax reform and Social Security reform back in 2004. He chose poorly, as the knight said in Indiana Jones. We're over 20 years from the last tax simplification, and especially after the Clinton years emphasized the practice of tax breaks and penalties for narrow issues, we're overdue for a simplification. Even if we don't get a true flat tax, we need to streamline the tax code.

Judges are of course a perennial issue to consider. The Clinton and Bush years have seen a bunch of vacancies grow on the federal bench. Assuming John McCain wins, he would be well-served I think to try to fill every last one of them. He and Congressional Republicans should then be aggressive, and keep the pressure on the Democrats to justify obstruction. Though of course, under a Democratic President and Senate our options would be limited.

I also wish we'd take the offense against the Global Warming industry. We need to push back against bad science. Far too many of our Presidential contenders raised their hands when asked that question. The science just isn't there, and we need some Congressional leaders to highlight that fact. By contrast, this one gets tricker if we do win the White House, but I still think conservatives can fight this one.

We should also consider true educational reform. Vouchers have stalled. They're not getting anywhere. Let's consider tax breaks instead, to make private schools, home schooling, and even just supplemental educational materials at home more affordable. We can also take a good hard look at the union stranglehold on public schools, and try to break it by pushing further accountability.

Dan McLaughlin: I'd agree that anything done with vouchers needs to have an equivalent component to encourage/support homeschoolers.

The Huckabee campaign tapped into the popularity of tax simplification - it actually fits well with McCain's overarching reformist theme, since tax loopholes, like earmarks, are a perennial favor of rent-seeking lobbyists. Some of the proposals from Fred and Rudy in the primaries were good possible takes on setting up a simplified system as a parallel alternative that will eventually overtake the existing system.

Another area where we could use major legislative action, though I confess ignorance on the details, is telecom/internet/broadband policy. It's not much as a political issue but could really make a difference economically.

Adam C: Tax: McCain has suggested a BRAC style commission for tax simplification. Make it a single up-or-down vote so that each interest group can't veto a reform to their part. Also, McCain is pushing a cut in the corporate tax rate. Both should be popular and could be bipartisan in the first year of a McCain Administration. If Obama wins, conservatives will be in a defensive posture on tax issues.

Health Care: It's complicated, but Republicans need some plan. I think moving away from tying health care to employment is good and focusing on cost cutting fits more with Republican strengths. If for no other reason, Rs will need to have things to negotiate for in whatever D-Congress legislation makes it to the White House in the next two years.

Immigration: Border security that lowers illegal immigration crossing to a negligible amount. Follow that with a bipartisan bill that gives a path to legalization or guest worker status to those who are in the United States. This ends the de facto amnesty of the status quo and brings people within the legal sphere and out of the shadows.

Social Security: I don't think Rs should drop this. It's one of few areas where Rs are more popular among the young worker voting bloc. Personal retirement accounts are worth negotiating for. Regardless of who is President, if PRAs can be traded for lifting the cap on Social Security tax or some other tax hike, it might be worth getting the foot in the door.

Earmark/Corruption: Especially if McCain wins, corruption should be tackled head-on. Errant Rs should be confronted (See Sen. Stevens). The zeal of 1994 "change" was based on making government less corrupt and now Washington changed the Outsiders into Insiders. Ds had their chance these last two years to take on the Earmark Corruption, but they unsurprisingly didn't do anything about it. The grandstanded on the War instead. Rs have a second chance to show the public that we know government corrupts people and that's why we support smaller government.

California Yankee: First and foremost we must keep the federal government focused on staying on the offense in the effort to achieve victory in the War the Islamic Extremists are waging against us. I also agree that limiting federal spending and taxes are extremely important. I'm all in favor of school choice and fighting for judges that won't legislate. I believe Senator McCain is in agreement with us on these issues.

Another issue that we must pursue with equal vigor is controlling the border.

My goal would be a freedom agenda. Let's set an agenda that will begin to roll back the government's impairment of our freedom. Less taxation and less spending would be supportive steps in that effort. Reducing the federal governments roll in education would be a huge step toward more freedom. Encouraging school choice and diversity (and by diversity I mean a diversity of ideas not merely color or other physical attribute), will help. Limiting the government's ability to take private property in order to transfer it to another private entity would also help. We need to also oppose the concentration of power - both political and economic. We should encourage more self reliance at the local and state level, and not necessarily reliance on local and state government.

Perhaps we have the cart before the horse here. In order to consider specific issues should we not first try to agree on a common set of principles, such as the Sharon Statement?

Pejman Yousefzadeh: BRAC style commissions are good for both taxes and earmark reforms. Indeed, I remember proposing one for earmark reforms in an e-mail thread amongst Contributors last year . . . only to be told by Leon that Sam Brownback was already on the case. "Great minds" and all that. Tax reform is long overdue and the fact that countries in Eastern Europe are implementing flat tax reforms to great effect should certainly capture our attention. Our current "progressive" system is nothing of the kind and if we are able to implement a flat tax system that lowers rates while at the same time broadening the base, we will be practicing both good policy and good politics.

Judges are always crucial and any Republican President worthy of the name ought to be working to ensure a powerful originalist presence in the judicial branch.

Education reform is highly important. I can understand if initially, the federal government gets involved in order to implement school choice, but eventually, I want the federal government out so that states and localities can carry the effort further. Using DC as a laboratory is a very good idea.

Eminent domain reform is very much needed and another situation that can be a high vote getter for Republicans.

There is a great deal more, but this should do for starters. Of course, any Republican President worthy of the name should continue to fight for free trade and for the implementation of trade liberalization agreements. McCain has the best free trade record of all of the candidates currently in the race and it is to be hoped that he will use his standing to push for further trade liberalization.

Adam C:I should note that I didn't mention judges because I think they are a given and they are only possible with a Republican President. We don't really need a policy or anything, just a Republican President who does the appointing.

Dan McLaughlin: Adam - I'd love to see better health care policy options as well. Pejman - I think tax simplification can be done without necessarily lowering rates, and I wish that we could talk about the two as distinct concepts even though both are often lumped into the phrase "flat tax." I will count us very lucky on tax rates if we succeed in beating back any hikes.

On the border, obviously McCain has promised to take on enforcement first, but I also don't see why a guest worker program has to be linked to a path to legalization for existing illegal residents - the latter is much more controversial.

And I'd agree with the idea that anti-Kelo legislation could be very popular.

On Social Security and Medicare I have thought for a while that McCain might have better luck than Bush...but I'm fearful of what a bipartisan compromise bill might look like. If we can get long-term reforms with a real private-accounts component, I'd be willing to accept a less-than-perfect bill to get it.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: The flat tax would necessarily bring about lower rates since we would eliminate many--if not all--deductions in the name of simplicity. Assuming large savings in the compliance area, government could easily afford lower rates. To be sure, we will not see the dramatic lowering of rates that we have seen in Eastern Europe, but that is because taxes in those countries have so far to fall. Additionally, the Russian experience shows us that the rate can be set exceedingly low--13%, if memory serves--while at the same time getting more revenue because of an expansion of the tax base and because taxes are not yet so low as to negate Laffer benefits.

Thomas Crown: I have been too slammed of late to have enough mental energy to contribute anything meaningful to this, insofar as I ever would; I would simply make one, and only one, note:

Right now, a huge portion of the country pays no income taxes at the Federal level. None, zip, zero, zilch. It gets sucked from them on mandatory withholding (now, make that illegal, and you'd have one heckuva campaign issue), but they get it back after they file. That they have no taxes is because they can attach Schedule A, they get to take off for children in two bites at the apple, and so on; and they get to exempt student loan interest and any losses they take from businesses they start. I know this, because every year when I do my taxes, I cackle every time I find another way to deny those bloodsuckers any of my money, in those years that I can do so. I never lie, I never cheat, I do read the CB and the IRB and the Tax Court rulings, and I take every penny back from them that I can.

A flat, or simplified, tax, may be a very good idea at a policy level. I confess to not being one hundred percent sure about this -- I like the idea of encouraging home ownership and having children, but this is in at least part because I do both things, and I think societies crash when people do not -- but whether it's a good policy doesn't mean it's better politics.

Republicans have lost our brand on keeping government under control. How well would it work if we lost our brand on cutting taxes?

Oh, no, you say. We'll be lowering taxes overall. Tell that to the folks who will be told, correctly, that they're now going to be paying taxes, where before they were not. Seriously: Exactly how hard do you think it'll be to turn this into a winning policy attack?

Next question: How, precisely, do we keep that rate at 10 or 15%? With no deductions or exemptions, there is no shield to Congress screwing with tax rates. And no Republicans in any significant number in Congress will go to war over the difference between 15 and 16%. Anyone who thinks differently can point to how easily President Bush got his tax cuts made permanent years ago.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: Good points. My response is as follows: Democrats have run successfully for decades on having established Social Security. We can do the same thing with taxes and we will have more of a policy reason to do so. Additionally, even if we do not have a flat tax, we can have a flatter one to take into account the working poor and the like. The point is that tax simplification can lead to overall lower taxes--yes, it is important--a broadening of the tax base, greater revenue generation and a winning political issue. It may not work perfectly. But it will work exceedingly well on both the policy and electoral levels.

Thomas Crown: Pejman, I must be missing something, because I not only think you're smarter than I, but significantly smarter, and what you're saying seems to be an Underpants Gnomes argument. First, we raise people's tax bills, then something happens, then we win! The working poor are not the only ones running free and clear from Federal income taxes. Indeed, a significant portion of the people who are effectively tax-free reaches deep into the middle class; and even those who end up owing money, owe considerably less than 10% of their income when it's all said and done. Just looking over the 2006 and 2007 tax tables, assuming really bare-bones deductions and exemptions, and I'm seeing an income bracket that is devastatingly close to $100K, aside from the AMT, that doesn't pay 15% of its income in taxes.

Tell me how we don't get plastered on this.

Dan McLaughlin: This is the elegance of the alternative-tax solution that Fred and others have suggested: you basically strip the tax code to its barest bones and offer that as an option. If it proves to be hugely popular, you can revisit later whether to make it mandatory, but in the interim you have saved a lot of people a lot of work. And you can try to sunset the existing code in other ways over time.

Thomas Crown: I could get behind that.

Adam C: Optional Flat Tax. Good stuff. Heck it could be an alternative minimum tax... except it would actually be an alternative and you would pay the minimum.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: As could I. The plan would not carry the immediacy I crave but if it is implemented, it would represent a significant policy victory.

I would mention that this debate is beginning--in some respects--to resemble the "Reagan raised taxes by a record amount when he was President!" claims; claims which overlook the fact that overall, Reagan cut taxes considerably. After all, at the end of Reagan's term, the top rate was not even remotely close to the 70% mark it was at when Reagan took office.

Thomas Crown: Let me be clear: I am not arguing the truth of your claim. I accept it as simple, unvarnished truth.

But two points:

(1) My parents voted Perot in 1992. Yes, I told them not to, and yes, they understood they were not making a pro-life vote (though they thought Bush was a fairly crappy pro-life President, so they considered this a wash). They did this because of "No new taxes." That stung them because they were middle class voters who had lost deductions for things like credit card debt in the 1986 reform -- "closed loopholes" carried the same stigma in my household whether applied to taxes or gun shows -- and who were convinced that Republicans were backing away from cutting taxes. Whatever Reagan's great legacy on overall tax rates, there is no way around what the 1986 reform did.

(2) That segues into my second point: Americans generally have no problem with Tax cuts for the rich! as long as it's also Tax cuts for the poor and middle class too! Why do you think the Democrats have been so horrible at winning any points on this? It's because (he answered) no one cares that the rich are paying less (or are perceived to pay less) so long as he is, too. If the logic of tax reform that flattens the curve and reduces deductions is We're taxing the rich less, you're paying more, but don't worry, overall taxation is down! we're going to get what Teddy Kennedy gets when he's been a naughty, naughty boy, and needs to be taught a lesson by Mistress Pain. And we'll deserve it.

Without the horrifying mental image.

Adam C: I agree with Thomas overall. One way to address this would be to make the flat tax rate only cover income after your first $50,000 in income (or some other threshold). That is how the Fair Tax deals with the problem. Technically, it would no longer be flat (you'd have a 0% bracket and a 20% (or whatever) bracket). But it would have a substantially similar resemblance to our system to lower income earners.

Dan McLaughlin: This feeds into a larger point: not just on taxes but education, health care, retirement savings, we need to find ways to let people voluntarily opt in to better, freer systems. Be the real "pro-choice" party. It can be much easier to sell such systems if we propose them as stand-alone legislation rather than as part of a "comprehensive" fix where we get tied down in sniping about revenue assumptions and (invariably inaccurate) financial forecasts and taking away somebody's pony. Make the Democrats explain why they need to mandate that you pay into a big government system, and send your kids to big government schools, and live by big government rules, just so the system will be financially able to support somebody else. The more areas in which we can propose such voluntary alternatives the better.

Adam C: Exactly Dan. Personal retirement account were an optional reform. School choice is an option. A true AMT would be an option. Give people choice and see what they prefer.

Brad Smith: Judging by the reception that personal retirement accounts and school choice have received at the polls, it is pretty clear that they prefer the alternative. The benefits of freedom are not immediately apparent to most people, and somewhere along the line we quit explaining or describing those benefits.

Adam C: Brad,

I wrote about those polls a lot during the reform effort. If you ask someone if they prefer "current guaranteed benefits" or "higher return but not guaranteed benefits" you are correct. Of course, the problem is that the characterization of the current system is flawed. The current benefits are not guaranteed, you do not have a legal right to them, and if you are my age you will most likely not get what they are promising. I repeatedly hoped for a poll that asked about "current promised benefits" or "higher return, legally owned but not guaranteed benefits." Alas, the media didn't care if they were accurate in their question. And nonetheless, young people still supported PRAs. I presume because most of us know that whether they say "guaranteed" or not we are not seeing those benefits.

Social Security Reform failed because Ds were dead set on not letting Rs or President Bush have a success. Many had voiced support in the past. It was reasonable to think a bipartisan bill could pass. That's why I'm hoping a future D Congress and R President or vice versa will get there, perhaps as part of a negotiated bill. Rs should hold firm that any reform include a PRA option. If for no other reason, it's an unchangeable reform. Once it happens, you can't go back (like school choice).

Brad Smith: I'm talking about the polls where people vote and elect politicians, not Gallup, Rasmussen etc. The fact is, school choice and private savings account appear to be net vote losers.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: All the more reason to continue to make the argument for them. I'm not accusing you of this, Brad, but too many people look at one electoral failure or another and decide that is an excuse to stop agitating for good policies that have good selling points--in this case, a freedom agenda.

Brad Smith: I completely agree, and that is why I have emphasized (to some scorn on this site) that Republicans need to get back to thinking more about the theory of limited government, and selling it on first principles. Remember, the original post to which I was responding suggested that if we just gave people a choice on school choice or private savings account, they would prefer freedom. I don't think that in the current climate there is much evidence for that - indeed, I think we see the opposite. If one thinks these are tickets to winning the 2008 election, they are very wrong. (Note that if America truly lived under the tyrannical Bushhitler regime, it would choose freedom. But we have a great deal of freedom in this country, and there's not much evidence that, at the margin, people are looking for more.

So here is the basic problem facing Republicans right now - they can either be a big government party, as say, David Brooks would prefer, or they can be a small government party, as say, George Will would prefer. In my view, big government is over time inherently destructive of conservative values and societal traditions, so I would see Brooks' course as self-defeating, even if I agreed with his micro agenda (more government involvement in preschool, return of the draft, etc.), which I don't. But right now there does not seem to be a majority for shrinking government. The idea that the GOP could get abolition of the Departments of Energy and Education into a platform, as was the case in 1980, let alone act on it if elected, is laughable.

A problem with the McCain candidacy, with which we are stuck, is that there is no agenda of any meaning. McCain has never had much interest in a theory of government, instead basing his political career on values - important values to be sure, such as faith, honor and duty - but not a core view of the role of government. At some point in the late 90s some folks convinced him that he needed an ideology and came up with Teddy Roosevelt, so McCain invokes him, but Roosevelt was not a man of limited government, that we know for sure. McCain's values based view of politics is one reason why McCain is so personally nasty and explosive with those who disagree with him - to McCain, it is all personal, not about disagreements or means to a shared goal.

McCain will probably appoint better judges than his Democratic opponent, but that is not an agenda, and where the courts are concerned, Republicans are increasingly turning to the courts to strike down the other side's winning agenda rather than to preserve its own legislative victories (this is what liberals did in the 1970s and 1980s). It is important for courts to be prepared to strike down unconstitutional acts - I am something of a judicial activist, in fact - but if you are relying on the courts to implement your agenda, you've got a fundamental problem. McCain will support the surge, but as others have noted, that is a tactic, not a strategy, and McCain has said little else on foreign policy, in the middle east or elsewhere. McCain will oppose pork, but that is more symbolism than serious government cutting. I am not saying that any of these things are bad, merely that they do not an agenda make. And because McCain has little interest in core governing philosophy, he is susceptible to various whims of the day, be they massive taxes to fight global warming, or campaign finance reform, or opposing the Bush tax cuts, or working overtime to curtail "ultimate fighting," (another failed McCain legislative initiative). If somehow McCain is elected, there will be almost no energy available for the GOP to actively pursue an agenda of limited government and lower taxes, because the people who most have McCain's ear are big government conservatives. Additionally, conservatives will be left to defend McCain's policies, which will for the most part be better than proposed Democratic alternatives, but will not be truly limited government policies. Perhaps the best we could hope for realistically would be tax reform and maybe, maybe if we are lucky and really push the issue, entitlement reform.

If McCain loses, Republicans will have greater freedom to reintroduce a meaningful agenda. But the agenda should be big. Tax cuts have lost much of their bite because, even after Clinton, the top marginal rate is about half what it was under Carter, and is now indexed for inflation. Moreover, a huge percentage of the population now pays no income tax. We supply siders have been proven right - you can raise lots of money for government programs with low tax rates. This is certainly better than raising lots of money with high tax rates, but it doesn't shrink government, as we have seen. Conservative energy, then, has to focus on the size of government. Back in the 70s, conservatives methodically reviewed government programs for reduction (see e.g. Don Lambro's "Fat City" or the Heritage Foundation's 1980 proposed agenda for the incoming Reagan administration). In opposition, we could be free to support a major effort of the kind Pejman suggests on entitlement reform. We should avoid any base-closing type commission on entitlement reform, because in the current climate such a commission would yield a big government, rather than a small government, plan.

Mike Huckabee showed how you can still score political points by calling for the abolition of the IRS, even if the "Fair Tax" is a sham. But the Fair Tax is a sham precisely because it does not reduce the size of government or the tax bill at all, or even reduce the government enforcement apparatus. It is, truly, rearranging the deck chairs. If, however, government spending in constant dollars were back at the level it was at just ten years ago, we could cut taxes by $700 billion and have no effect on the deficit. We could almost abolish all social security taxes and have no effect on the deficit. We could make the transition to private savings accounts effortlessly (of course, the effort would be to cut spending). How hard is it to convince people that the 1998 federal budget, adjusted for inflation, is a reasonable budget target? Make that macro case. Here's the bargain: if you can live with the 1998 Clinton budget, adjusted for inflation, we will cut your social security taxes by two-thirds.

The point here is that if, as looks likely, Republicans lose in November, we need to offer big, meaningful alternatives, and we need to get back to explaining why limited government is relevant to people's lives and a good thing for them.

Jeff Emanuel: Dan and Adam, I agree with the idea that we need to focus very strongly on health care policy in the next few years. Health care as an issue will, of course, become more important as time goes on. The "50 million uninsured" (the number is growing all the time, according to the media and the Left) mantra has become part of every Democrat politician's standard rhetoric, and the members of the Left side of the aisle and their media spokespersons are treating so-called "universal health coverage" as though it is (a) the correct solution, (b) a foregone conclusion, and (c) simply a matter of timing an detail at this point. Polling shows that a significant number of Americans view this situation as being an issue that is important enough to be further intervened in and regulated by government, which means that Republicans must come up with some response to the Left on this, not just sit idly by and let them own this issue.

With public opinion being as strong as it is on the side of greater government involvement in heath care -- and with media outlets like CNN helping that along by finding "lifelong Republicans" who claim they are now going to vote Democrat because only the Ds will offer "universal coverage" and by demanding that all positions except favoring state health care be vigorously defended -- the GOP will have to move leftward a bit from a strictly-free-market position on health care, but can still occupy a niche far to the right (i.e., far more pro-choice) than the Democrats.

As with many issues, health care and health coverage (two entirely separate concepts which have been blurred together in the public and political consciousness) are emotional topics; therefore, they are more easily capitalized on by the sloganeering, appeal-to-heart-not-mind Left than by the Right, who -- given the fact that our positions and prescriptions are based on reality -- is stuck doing a great deal of explaining of their ideas, complete with the numbers and formulae that show why they will actually work. That being said, if we can get in front of the press and the American people for -- not in, but for -- the next three years and explain our health care policy and why it will work better than the state-run program proposed by the Democrats, we can make some real progress in educating the American people and in taking back an issue that should -- by all practical rights -- be ours.

To do this, we need to come up with a unified and workable market-based health care platform, which acknowledges heath care and health coverage as a necessity, but which maximizes consumer choice and provider competition. The GOP needs to vocally embrace options and solutions like: encouraging voluntary high-deductible, low-premium coverage options like Health Savings Accounts; allowing health insurance competition to take place across state lines; continuing to advocate for Tort reform; restricting Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP to actually needy individuals; eliminating ridiculous mandatory coverages (like birthmark removal and chiropractics that some states require of insurance policies sold within their borders); and providing tax breaks for individuals and businesses who purchase health coverage.

At the same time, we need to make sure that the problems with state-run health care systems around the world are presented to the American people. For example, in Britain in 2004, low-quality, taxpayer-funded health care killed more than 17,000 citizens, and the country had a 29% higher amenable mortality rate than Denmark, Germany, Spain, and France, all of which have health care systems that are less dominated by government. Further, medical professionals are running away from the country's National Health System at a record rate. In a case of "when the rats start abandoning ship, it's a good time to look at hopping off yourself," thousands of practitioners have taken out private health insurance policies instead of sticking with the national system that they work in.

Heck, Britain's NHS is in such dire straits financially that physicians' groups are now saying that, if the program is to remain solvent enough to keep running at all, they must start refusing medical treatment to the elderly and to those with chronic diseases or addictions -- something that negates the whole argument for state-run health care: namely, that everybody will be able to be treated.

It doesn't help that, with the health system being under the thumb of the government, care is sacrificed for the sake of boastworthy statistics that ignore the cost of their achievement -- like the fact that, in order to fulfill the Labour promise of "every patient being seen within 4 hours of entering the hospital," thousands of seriously ill patients a year are being kept in ambulances outside hospital emergency rooms for hours, because administrators will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours.

Another example is Russia. By law, every Russian citizen is "entitled to free health care." What this has wrought – despite Pres. Vladimir Putin's doubling of state health care spending during his term – is a system that is astronomically expensive, rampant with corruption, and dependent on massive bribes to get any manner of "quality" care whatsoever.

Those foreign examples really aren't even necessary, though; for a glimpse at what Democrats would lead us into with state run health care, we need look no further than this example of government health care here at home: Building 18 at Walter Reed.

Health care is an issue that we can -- and must -- lead on, but it will take a concerted and collaborative (but uncompromising) effort...not to mention better PR skills than the GOP has been known for. There are solutions available that are much more market-based than what has been offered to date by government; the Republican party needs to begin touting those as frequently and as loudly as possible. Though an individual mandate is neither enforceable nor advisable, the fact is, we require that every driver in the country be insured -- and, while millions of people will get through their lives without ever having needed that insurance, 100% of people will, at some time in their lives, need medical treatment or care. This means that health coverage must be accessible to those who can afford it, and who desire it (as a great deal of the "50 million uninsured" are that way because of personal choice). Advocating the aforementioned market-based reforms like HSAs, interstate competition, and tax credits will help make that coverage more accessible -- and the advocating of increased choicemay help persuade the American people (those who care enough to think for themselves, that is) that the GOP's platform on this issue is the one which benefits them the most.

Mark I: I think a general reform program for Washington D.C. would be in order. Congressional term limits would be a good one. If ever the country was in the mood for cleaning out the entire Congress, now is the time. Standing for a return to civilian legislators as opposed to career politicians would do the help re-make the Republican brand as the party of reform and good governance. While we're at Constitutional amendments, I love to get a Federal TABOR amendment and perhaps a reduction in Senate terms to 4 years, keeping the class system.

On domestic issues, education is always a good one. But I concur with others that tax and entitlement reform is the way to go. The complicated tax system is losing justifications by the day. There simply is no reason why a tax filing has to be made at all. The IRS gets all your information anyway. Reduce the rates, end withholding, and let the government send every taxpayer a bill for 10% of their reported income. That would be the surest way to guard against future tax increases.

I also am partial to Newt Gingrich's ideas in his Platform of the American people. It is the result of surveys of hundreds of thousands of people who participated in the Solutions Day workshops last year. He has identified issues that get overwhelming majority support of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. One is English as the official language. It gets something like 87% support in all three categories.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: Please, let's not push term limits. As a general matter, people should be free to vote for whomever they want. Additionally, let us remember that if our favorite politicians are term limited, they will be outlasted by bureaucrats who likely will be of the other party, or share the other party's leanings.

Thomas Crown: Exactly. God save us from another round of Federal term limits. We get the legislators we deserve.

Neil Stevens: Bad legislators are a dime a dozen. The good ones we need to take hold of and not let go.