The Handout Party - Don't be surprised that the GOP has become a year-round Santa Claus

In the first 100 days of Jimmy Carter's administration, one of the first proposals it made was a rebate plan of $50 to be given to each taxpayer.

The plan went nowhere, largely because members of the administration could not agree amongst themselves on whether they should go forward with the plan and because Congress loaded it up with so much pork barrel spending and handout money that it became an embarrassment. It was finally dropped.

You may think to yourself that such a plan would be typical of a Democrat Party used to giving handouts in return for votes and you would be right. Certainly you wouldn't find such ridiculous fiscal policy from Republicans.

Right?

Well, over 30 years later, the GOP, in an effort to alleviate high gas prices (although by rate of inflation they nowhere near match the levels of the 1970s) has come up with a proposal to give a $100 rebate to each taxpayer.

That's the rate of inflation for you.

It seems incomprehensible that a party that set itself up as an opponent of the New Deal, the Great Society and the Welfare State would even cook up such a transparent scheme. Isn't this the party of Taft, Goldwater and Reagan? Isn't this the party of people like my grandfather, who owned a small furniture-making company in Chicago and hated the taxes the government took from his profits, hated the rules they made him follow and the unions he was forced to recognize.

Yes, but that's only one facet of it. The GOP has actually been giving handouts since its founding in 1854 and only those who are its shills writing internet columns screeching against the Democrats (which only shows that they vote Republican only to be against something rather than for something) would fail to recognize it. It's just that now, what was once handouts to business have now become outright pandering to voters.

University of South Carolina history professor and editor of the John C. Calhoun papers Clyde Wilson has stated that the Republican Party is the party of state capitalism. He cites its founding by powerful Northeastern business interests, especially the growing industrial class as the Whigs faded away, to be the one to best advance its economic interests, which back then were high tariffs, an intercontinental railroad, centralized banking and currency trading. Much of the old Whig belief of government-financed internal improvements like canals for example, part of Henry Clay "American System," (which grew out of the Federalist-favored commercial and moneyed classes) stayed a part of the Republican ideology. But they also added handouts too, like those to farmers who settled the Plains with the Homestead Act, or to colleges and universities with Morrill Land Grant Act. And of course the party was synonymous with railroad growth. In Wisconsin for example, a heavily Republican state after the War Between the States, its U.S. Senators at one time were a railroad developer named John C. Spooner and a lumber baron named Philetus Sawyer. The state party maintained a slush fun of $300,000 of monies gained off the interests from government deposits in state banks to make sure the powers that be were taken care of. The GOP was not the party of laissez-faire capitalism because Republican politicians would often interfere in the business world to make sure it got what it wanted, whether by bribe or for honest reason of economic development.

What always tempered or balanced off the GOP's business relationship was its moralistic wing. Both were present at the creation which back in 1854 meant anti-slavery activists. Over time the moralist wing would mean progressives, women suffragists, prohibitionists, the China Lobby, anti-communists, libertarians, Christian moralists and now democracy freaks. They always gave the GOP a higher purpose than just making money or the Democrats machine-desire for votes and public graft and that's what made the GOP a viable party. Throughout the age of the New Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society, the business and moralist wings could be united against big government's taxes and regulations and its cozy relations with labor unions along with being against big government on matters of principal. It all fit rather neatly.

Sadly, by this day and age, the GOP's naked desire to save itself from potential disaster this coming November in the face of high gas prices now has them at Democrat-level promising money for votes on top of the traditional giving tax-breaks and other financial goodies to favored interests like farmers and energy producers. How did this happen? Well, given the fact that many of the Christian moralists happen to be Democrats at one time or another, whether Catholic or Baptist driven from their ancestral party because of its unqualified support of abortion, means that it’s a lot easier philosophically to propose such measures as a $100 handout. The democracy freaks (or neoconservatives by any other name) used to be Dems too (and socialists and communists before that) and now that they are in the GOP as well, they're not going to care if a gimmick like a $100 rebate is being proposed. There's a war going on, a war of their creation and if $100 bribe for every voter in the nation means the GOP stays in power so they can conduct their little war, so be it. It's the price of doing business.

The old Taftian, Goldwater and Reaganite religion in the GOP has long since been abandoned. Some still sing from its hymnbooks but it's mere window dressing for most, rhetoric to cover what they're really all about. Conservatism and libertarianism were ideologies foisted upon the GOP by a faction of its membership. But the party is what is enduring, not the ideology. Keeping the party in power, winning elections, keeping its constituent groups happy, that's what is important. Ideology just gives the politicians something to say while on the campaign trail or in front of the cameras or on the floor of a legislative body. But what goes on behind close doors in the halls of government and what goes on in matters of policy is where a party really stands and the GOP, as it always has, stands for state capitalism pure and simple. Always has, always will.

Look at the immigration issue for example. The moralist wing of the party hates illegal immigration because it violates the law, threatens the integrity of the nation and creates an almost slave-labor class of workers whose families are taken care of by the taxpayer. But the business wings benefits from it. The immigration bill before the House is a reflection of the former and the one before the Senate a reflection of the latter. The business wing thinks putting up a fence and hiring more border patrol agents will satisfy the moralists, just so long as they get their access to cheap labor with the government handout of a "guest worker program." But moralists may very well say no, that the business wing asks for too much this time and hopefully once again provide the balance that seems to be lost within today's GOP. They should be willing to punish the business wing at the polls if necessary. One hopes. If not, then business truly is running the show in the Republican Party and more handouts from the government will be on the way, true to form.

-- Sean Scallon