JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 24, 2011
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Marco Rubio, the near-certain Republican vice-presidential nominee, delivered a speech that is yet another signpost in his party's rightward lurch. During the 1980s and 1990s, the thrust of mainstream conservatism held that American government started veering off course in the 1960s with welfare and the counterculture. Rubio expounds a far more radical critique, repudiating essentially the entire last century:
Except for the Reagan Administration, to be quite frank, both Republicans and Democrats established a role for government in America that said yes we will have a free economy, but we will also have a strong government, which through regulations and taxes will control the free economy, and through a series of government programs, will take care of those in our society who are falling behind. That was the vision crafted in the 20th Century by our leaders..
That sounds like the part in the speech where the Republican says he wants to stay in the tradition but trim the excesses of government, right? but no -- Rubio proceeds to assert that this entire 20th century edifice was a failure:
These programs weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government's job.
The notion that sick people always or even usually received care and poor people always or even usually received help before the emergence of the modern state is wildly at odds with historical reality, which of course explains why Americans created those state functions in the first place. What's more, the dramatic transformation of American medicine makes it no longer practical for relatives or charity to provide medical treatment to an uninsured person.
Rubio hilariously excludes Reagan from the pattern of presidents who accepted a government role in the economy. Conservative mythology insists that Reagan must always be correct, so Rubio lauds him for rejecting the twentieth century model of government, even though Reagan very much accepted the broad contours of the post New Deal state. Indeed, Reagan liked to boast that he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, and that the Democratic Party only went wrong sometime after FDR passed from the scene. Reagan trimmed government but he never even attempted to fundamentally challenge the basic role of government in regulating market failure or providing medical care to the poor and elderly:
The GOP has been moving right for thirty years, but since then it has lurched rapidly and dramatically, toward a 19th century vision of the state. This new position can be seen in the arguments on figures like Clarence Thomas, Rick Perry, and Paul Ryan. Rubio is placing himself within the new party consensus.
15 comments
The extreme rightward tilt of the Repubs supporting unpopular policies is exactly why they can be beat by a real Dem.. And what makes BHO's failures a tragedy less Shakespearean-like than the tragedy of LBJ. LBJ failed because he tried to do too much--BHO has failed because he tried to do too little.
- drofnats1
August 24, 2011 at 10:48am
Pretty incredible chart. One I have never seen before. Shows that Reagan left total government and federal spending pretty much where he found it, the big decline occurred under Clinton, and Bush II reversed that. Someone should re-do this to adjust the denominator, GDP, for recession. Incidentally, notice the almost flat line for non-defense government spending. Pretty much puts paid to the whole right-wing narrative all by itself. The US post-war period has been the greatest boom in per capita GDP in the history of the world. How exactly does this prove that the post-New Deal 20th century was a failure and we should aspire to return to the 19th century?
- roidubouloi
August 24, 2011 at 10:49am
LBJ failed because he turned a small military advisory action into a giant, losing, bloody, vicious, and pointless war on the other side of the globe.
- roidubouloi
August 24, 2011 at 10:51am
Sounds like Marco is nostalgic for the income and wealth distribution of his parents' native Cuba (pre-Castro).
- wildboy
August 24, 2011 at 10:52am
"BHO has failed because he tried to do too little". Give me a break. I don't see how anyone can look at Obama's record and say that he has tried to do too little. That's just absurd.
- kluhman
August 24, 2011 at 10:54am
Say one thing for the current Republican players - Romney, Rubio, Bachman (Mr. and Mrs.), Perry, Ryan - they all have a great hair! Just amazing hair! Oh, the days of George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and John McCain (and the deep ambivalence or outright loathing they brought out in the GOP base with their follicly challenged, open to nuance, book learning ways) are but a distant memory! The Reagan legacy lives on in all its gross ignorance, utter assurance and tonsorial glory!
- mtinora@me.com
August 24, 2011 at 10:59am
kluhman. The stimulus failed to revive the economy because it was too little... it prevented an immediate Depression, but not a recovery. having the Titanic sink and stay at 500 feet below the surface, rather than 5000, in indeed an accomplishment that gets few cheers from passengers. And the health care bill is really hard to understand-- and weak-- insurance reform. The list goes on. roi. Pick Hoover for the economic comparison failures. Pick LBJ for foreign war comparisons. BHO may yet get both --- the jury is still out on Afghanistan. Or do you consider that a present and future success??
- drofnats1
August 24, 2011 at 11:46am
Your chart is totally off on federal non-defense spending. Discretionary spending is around 8% of GDP, then throw in Medicare and SS plus interest on the debt. Your missing massive swathes of federal spending. Total federal spending this year is around 25% GDP, not the 8% your chart shows.
- nayyer_ali
August 24, 2011 at 12:21pm
There is a pattern here. When the Bush administration fails to plan the Iraq war properly, Bush declares "Mission Accomplished." When Democrat programs provide for the sick and the elderly, Rubio merely declares. "Mission Not Acomplished." The facts don't really enter into it.
- Nusholtz
August 24, 2011 at 12:30pm
Does Rubio seriously believe that a Gilded Age political and economic system could have brought the U.S. to its leading position in the world after WW2? He seems to be trying to argue -- and it's a problem the GOP has -- that the twentieth century was the American century and at the same time that's when everything went wrong.
- ironyroad
August 24, 2011 at 1:07pm
So, we are now re-writing the story of why LBJ failed? he failed because of the war on poverty, not the war on Vietnam? So, now we need to pretend that Vietnam was a politically and morally neutral occurence to justify the need to primary Obama? Sheehs.
- miceelf
August 24, 2011 at 1:25pm
Well, I for one look forward to the new days of McKinleynomics.
- MikeB.
August 24, 2011 at 2:42pm
Chait described Rubio as "the near-certain Republican vice-presidential nominee". He missed the memo: Obama, Jindal, and Rubio -- none of them are eligible: dailycaller.com/2011/08/24/coming-soon-rubio-birthers/ If the Birther's don't go after Rubio the way they've gone after Obama, my head is going to explode.
- aboufade
August 24, 2011 at 2:59pm
Just to be clear, I think the Birthers are insane.
- aboufade
August 24, 2011 at 2:59pm
The birthers will never go after Rubio. He's ancestry is not African, but more importantly, he's one of their own -- a Republican. ________________________________________________________________ Picking Rubio could cinch the election for the GOP because his Latin bloodlines just may help them drain off the Hispanic vote from the Democrats.
- scrubby
August 24, 2011 at 9:14pm