The Republican Policy Gap
THE REPUBLICAN POLICY GAP....Tyler Cowen takes a look at John McCain's health plan and is perplexed:
Trade aside, so far I've yet to see many actual policy proposals from the McCain camp. Mostly I've seen attempts to signal that they won't do anything too offensive to the party's right wing. Very few of these trial balloons seem to be ideas that McCain had expressed much previous loyalty to. I don't even think we should be analyzing these statements as policy proposals. We should be wondering why the Republican Party has given up on the idea of policy proposals.Well, look, not to get too cynical and echo-chambery here, but isn't the answer pretty obvious? At this point, Republicans just don't have many policies to offer that people like. Healthcare? The GOP basically wants to make it less secure. Jobs? Um, free trade, anyone? Taxes? That's always a crowd pleaser, but the only taxes left to cut are those aimed at corporations and the rich. Housing? The free market will take care of things. The war? Iraq forever!
So that leaves trivia like gas tax holidays and culture war attacks on Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. The more they talk about anything else, the less popular they get. So tell me: outside of the usual cultural warhorse issues (which McCain isn't very good at exploiting anyway), can you name a single major area of public concern today in which the Republican position is also popular with the public? Anybody?