Make No More Faustian Pacts With The Left
The new-style, newly empowered Republicans in Congress should follow the advice given by Winston Churchill in 1941 to the graduating class of the Harrow School:
"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Superb legislators like soon-to-be Speaker of the House John Boehner have no reason to make Faustian bargains with Barack Obama and the menagerie of union-made pols whose destructive policies so thoroughly still dominate the Democratic Party. Neither do Republican wise men in the Senate like Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch.
Republicans do not need the approval of gauzy-minded pundits at the Washington Post and the New York Times who are stuck in a 1932-65 time warp. The left-wing think tanks that once dominated thought in Washington are now intellectually bankrupt. Why listen to the architects of a failed federal government now so large, dumb and clumsy that it does more harm than good?
Ultra-bright young Republicans in the House and Senate — such as Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan — must not sacrifice the clarity of their new ideas on the phony altar of "bipartisan" compromise. They and their pro-individual, pro-prosperity, small-government policies are what the voters want and America needs. Why not have the best, instead of some diluted version?
These young Republican leaders are by intellect and character far better equipped to be president of the United States than the present incumbent. They are at the cutting edge of a reawakening in America that demands intellectual competence and moral integrity in public affairs.
Ryan, the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, fully understands the arcanities of economics. He knows the detailed differences between fiscal and monetary policies that make us better off, and those that do harm. Unlike President Obama, he does not need to be held by the hand and guided along by staffers who keep making the same dumb mistakes all over again. And Ryan tells the truth.
End The Oppression
Congressman Dave Camp, soon-to-be chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, understand taxes. He and Ryan know that the present tax code — largely designed and built by Democrats — does at least $2 of damage to the private economy for every $1 of tax revenue collected. And they know that raising job-killing taxes, stifling business capital investment and running up the debt are not the ways to restore prosperity to America.
A new era of American exceptionalism is in the offing. It will be a time of renewal and common sense. Taxes will be lowered, money will be spent wisely and for value received, freedom will replace regulation, the economy will grow while the government shrinks, dependency will give way to work and dignity — and in Washington, smart will replace dumb.
The Constitution will be restored and the borders protected. America's history and culture will be respected and its strength in the world re-established.
Before any of that can happen, the Obama blitzkrieg must be stopped and the iron grip of the federal government on America's throat must be broken. The recent citizen-led midterm election victory that installed a Republican majority in the House was a cry of anguish by an oppressed people, a desperate last stand that slowed the left's destructive advance and kept hope alive. Two more years of Nancy Pelosi in control of the House would have been fatal.
It is now time for a counteroffensive. To save America, a new alliance of Republicans, independents, Tea Partyers and Reagan Democrats, armed with ballots instead of pitchforks, must start marching forward to 2012 and elect a new-style Republican to the White House and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.
In the meantime, every Republican in Congress must stand fast, through a combination of superior skill and true grit preventing Obama from doing further harm between now and the next election. ObamaCare must be stopped. And America must be pulled back from the precipice of financial disaster.
Even though they face the awesome power of the White House and the daily danger of Obama's veto pen, Republicans must heed John F. Kennedy's exhortation to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty" and to preserve, protect and defend America.
• Christian, an attorney, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Ford administration.• Robbins, an economist, served at the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration.