ConservativeHome's Platform

Mike Pence's 5 point S.T.A.R.T plan to spur economic growth in America

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence represents Indiana's 6th district. He was elected House Republican Conference Chairman by his colleagues in 2008. Frequently named by political commentators as a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, he delivered the following address on a growth agenda for the U.S. economy earlier today to the Detroit Economic Club. The speech has been distributed by the House Republican Conference. 

In the speech, Pence argues:

• We need to restore American exceptionalism by rejecting Keynsian stimulus spending and restoring free market economics.
  
• We should enact a constitutional amendment that caps federal spending at 20 percent of GDP.
• We should end the Federal Reserve's dual mandate - price stability and full employment - and return it to its original purpose of price stability only. 
• We need to recognize that simplicity and certainty in the tax code are related to positive growth and institute a flat tax that eliminates most loopholes, exemptions, and deductions.
• America needs an "all-of-the-above" energy policy that involves conservation, alternative fuels, and more nuclear power.
• Any new regulation that will have an economic impact of $100 million or more should be subjected to an extensive review and subject to re-certification every ten years - instead of being eternally on the books, as is the case now.
• We need to reject protectionism and broker more free trade agreements that get more of the world "buying American."
• We need to understand as a nation that, ultimately, our economic strength is driven by our public virtue, which in turn is rooted in our culture, families, and faith.

Thank you, L. Brooks Patterson, for that kind introduction and heartfelt thanks to Beth Chappell and all the members of the Detroit Economic Club for hosting me. For 75 years, the Detroit Economic Club has been a premier venue for leaders interested in saying something significant about our economy and I am genuinely grateful to be able to join the ranks of those who had the privilege to “say it here.”

And it's great to be in Detroit- home to Motown, the Lions (you know who this Colts fan was cheering for on Thanksgiving!) and the "Car Capital of the World.”

My father ran a chain of gas stations so, like most Americans, I have had a life long love affair with the automobile. Try to imagine America without the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Corvette, or the Dodge Charger.

Being from Indiana, I am especially proud of the role that Hoosiers have played and continue to play in this unique American industry. And it all started here in Detroit.  America owes a debt to the ingenuity and entrepreneurism of this great city. You helped define the character of a nation.

But Detroit and America have seen better days and I come to this storied podium to say after years of runaway federal spending, borrowing and bailouts by both political parties, that there is a better way, a way we can renew American exceptionalism by returning to the principles and practices that built this great city and this great country and can build it again.

We live in no ordinary times. Our economy is struggling in the city and on the farm. Unemployment is at a heartbreaking 9.6 percent nationally and nearly 13 percent in Michigan.  Nearly 42 million Americans on food stamps.  A housing crisis and dismal GDP growth.

And it seems that those in authority have no idea what to do about it. Some in the administration call it the “new normal.” (like we haven’t heard that before) In the 70’s they called it a national “malaise.”

With more than 15 million people still looking for work, President Obama and Democrats in Congress have tried to borrow and spend the country back to prosperity resulting in trillion dollar plus annual deficits and a nearly $14 trillion national debt. To this runaway federal spending they added a government takeover of health care, attempted a national energy tax and approved one bailout after another.

Kori Shake: Looking for reasonable cuts in the defense budget makes sense given the times we're in

Kori Schake is a Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an Associate Professor of International Security Studies at the United States Military Academy.

Both advocates of cutting defense spending and those who seek to preserve or increase current levels are making exaggerated claims.  The current defense program could be significantly pared back without real danger to our ability to fight and win the nation’s wars.  In particular, military personnel costs – health care and retirement – should be carefully reviewed.  Such cuts are the most difficult kind for the Executive to recommend and for the Congress to enact, but they are the kinds most needed to keep our military strong.  Spending is not a proxy for supporting our military, and we conservatives should not make it so.  We should instead bring the same tough-minded cheapness and accountability to defense that we bring to other endeavors of government.

I agree with Tom Donnelly, Gary Schmidt and others who argue that our current defense spending of around 4% of GDP for the baseline budget is economically sustainable; in fact, it is significantly lower as a proportion of GDP than Cold War spending levels.  Current levels of spending are also supportable on the basis of the activity in which our military is, and likely will remain, engaged.  That is, our spending for defense aligns with our strategy for shaping the international order and the military forces the Pentagon judges necessary. 

The current program, however, is not the only way to manage the threats and opportunities; nor is it a particularly cost-effective way to address them.  Cost has been no object for our defense since 9/11, and we are well-positioned to accept some near-term risk in order to solve the much bigger national security vulnerability of our federal debt.

It would be a terrible mistake for budget hawks to advocate cuts to defense spending on the basis of “shared sacrifice.”  This is an affront to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and their families who have been at war for the past nine years with almost no shared sacrifice from our broader society.  To suggest they now need to do their part is morally repugnant. 

But that does not mean defense spending should not be cut.  Our military understands the grave danger to our nation of our enormous indebtedness.  The most recent Joint Operating Environment (the assessment by Joint Forces Command that begins the military’s planning cycle) identified our national debt as the central threat to our military dominance, because unless the debt is reduced, interest paid on it will crowd out discretionary spending for defense.  By 2018, our government will be spending more on debt service than on national defense.

And the DOD budget is not as lean or efficient as its defenders would have us believe.  Secretary Gates has pulled off one of the great slights of hand of our time by complaining loudly about defense cuts while not producing any. Just after the 2008 presidential election, Secretary Gates published a National Defense Strategy endorsing the current program and allowed the Services to publish cost unconstrained spending programs, ensuring that any budget proposed by the new Administration would be considered a cut.  DOD’s FY 2010 budget actually encompassed a 7.5% increase in defense spending amidst Secretary Gates talking as though he had taken a meat axe to the program.  His proposal to cut $100 billion across five years merely shifts spending within DOD’s topline. It produces no savings.  In fact, his FYDP (DOD’s 5 year budget outlook) is built on an annual 2% real increase in spending.

But in recent days Secretary Gates has hurt his own case by overstating the effect relatively minor cuts to defense will have.  Gates described the $100 billion cut across five years recommended by the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction commission as “catastrophic.”  It is difficult to see how a cut of less than 3% in annual spending would actually be catastrophic. 

Gates dismisses their recommended cuts as “math, not strategy.”  And he’s right that outsiders should not cherry pick programs to cut, but instead give DOD a topline figure and allow it to develop a comprehensive force structure.  But strategy is amenable to risk and choices, whereas arithmetic is unyielding.  We have a crippling problem of debt that we must solve; if cuts to defense spending are necessary to gain political acceptance for other, larger cuts to federal spending, we are well-positioned to absorb that near-term risk.

The Pentagon and defense industry ought to be very careful about wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming any cut is heresy, especially since our military – and particularly the ground forces – have been upgrading equipment as it has been replaced across the past decade.  We are nowhere near a hollow force, and nowhere near catastrophe if modest cuts are made. 

Where DOD’s budget does contain a potential catastrophe is in the growth of medical and retirement benefits.  The DOD budget contains in microcosm the same rise in costs for health care and retirement that dominate federal spending.  As Todd Harrison points out, “since FY 2000, the total military personnel and healthcare cost per active-duty troop has risen 73 percent in real terms.”  Unless changes are made to military entitlements, they will crowd out spending for weapons, training, and even personnel.  The military services have long been willing to raise co-pays for military medical care; it is Congress that has refused.  While Congress’ advocacy for Servicemembers and their families is admirable, it is misplaced in this instance.  It would be a reasonable place to start looking for savings.

If GOP 2012 hopefuls want to emulate Reagan, they need to reverse American declinism, not just repeat well-known policy slogans

Mason Herron is a freelance political writer living in New York City and a contributor to FrumForum.

As the contest to be 2012’s Republican nominee for president continues to heat up, there is a name that all candidates will undoubtedly go out of their way to mention: Ronald Reagan.

They will try to promote themselves as the next Gipper, the true heir to his ideas and legacy, and the only nominee who can reinvigorate the Reagan Revolution. Their attempted emulation of our 40^th president will more than likely focus on his policies, ideology, and legacy. While these will be helpful in establishing their conservative credentials, mimicking these traits can only take someone so far in a field of candidates all aspiring to be the same man.

Instead, when the potential nominees look to Reagan, they should attempt to harness his message, his optimism, and his ability to communicate. These qualities are what made Reagan a great leader.

When Reagan announced his candidacy for president in 1979, he did so in the midst of what was—at that time—the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. They had endured an assassination, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. They had hoped Jimmy Carter was the answer, but his presidency had fallen far below expectations.

And then Ronald Reagan ran on a platform of American greatness. In his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination, he professed that “they say that the United States has had its day in the sun; that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.”

He felt that Americans no longer believed in themselves, and that the inner glow that had driven American achievement in the past had faded. Americans had to be proud once again of their greatness, and proud of their country’s power. He didn’t want Americans to trust him; he wanted them to trust themselves. Limited government and a stronger national defense were simply the logical extension of this worldview.

When we trusted our current leaders to pull out us of a crisis they instead spent billions of dollars on wasteful stimulus pet projects while enacting a health care reform bill against the will of the American people. In response, the country elected a wave of Republicans, who, if they are wise, will not lead with policies that corrode American self-reliance, but policies that allow it to flourish.

Today, Americans find themselves feeling lower than they did in 1979. Talk of American decline in the face of rising powers continues to reverberate and capture proponents, our leaders have expanded the role of the federal government more so than any other in recent memory, and the economic crisis we face is the worst in eight decades.

The winner of the 2012 Republican nomination will be the candidate who is best able to convince the country that it isn’t up to our leaders to change America—it’s up to Americans. He or she cannot simply repeat tired phrases that merely strike patriotic chords or assert a conservative mindset. Rather, our next president will provoke Americans to look inside themselves and find what it is that has made the American dream possible.

Standing in the shadow of President Obama’s cautiously pessimistic inaugural address should make this easier. Furthermore, they must run a campaign based not on the message of what it is that they can do for America—as Obama did—but rather what it is that America can do for itself. As Reagan said, “’Trust me’ government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us.” The optimism of Obama’s campaign was misdirected—it shined on him, not on Americans.

In that sense, the Republican nominee must be the anti-Obama. There will be significant negative campaigning against the Obama platform in the early stages of the primary campaign, but eventually one of the nominees must separate themselves from the rest. It is here that they must display the ability to communicate with not only the American people, but also the American spirit.

Conservatives can reclaim choice, federalism, and results in education

Jennifer A. Marshall is director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, www.heritage.org. 

Education policy has often stumped or scared conservatives. It shouldn’t—we’ve long sided with children and parents against special interests—and especially not now. 

Federal education policy has all the defects that fueled activists’ ire this election season: skyrocketing spending, bureaucratic meddling and overreach into states’ constitutional authority. And it still leaves American children behind their potential.

Washington first ventured into local school policy with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The 31-page, $1 billion Great Society project redistributed wealth to low-income districts, aiming to close the achievement gap between needy students and their peers.

Forty-five years later, the gap remains, educational performance has generally stagnated, and graduation rates haven’t improved.

What has changed is the federal role. ESEA has grown into a 600-page bureaucratic labyrinth known as the No Child Left Behind Act, with a mandate for everyone to hate. The annual price tag to taxpayers: $25 billion.

Conservatives can set a bold new course on education, beginning with these three priorities for federal reform:

• Stop the Spending Spree: Federal K-12 education spending has increased 116% since 1980. In 2009, the U.S. Education Department saw a one-time windfall from the Obama “stimulus” package that instantly (and, thankfully, temporarily) doubled its budget. The administration has since called for a nearly 10 percent increase in FY 2011. It's time to return to the more sober spending levels of FY 2008, while asking tough questions about federal programs’ cost-effectiveness overall.
• Restore Federalism: Federal intervention has failed to improve American education, and Washington should get out of the way and send dollars and decision-making back to those closest to the child. That’s the argument conservatives will make in the looming debate over reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. Their alternative is the A-PLUS Act, sponsored by Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas). The plan would allow state leaders to consolidate funding from dozens of federal K-12 education programs and direct it to the most pressing education needs in their states without all the federal red tape.
• Promote Parental Choice in Education: Every child should be free to attend a safe and effective school. Parents should have the power to choose such a school, with money that follows the child. In Washington, D.C., vouchers currently permit 1,200 students to escape the failing and often violent public schools. But congressional opponents, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), have tried to kill school choice. The Obama administration even revoked the scholarships of 216 students promised a spot in the program last year. Speaker-elect John Boehner (R-Ohio), a strong voucher proponent, met with scholarship families last Monday on his first day back in the office after elections, signaling his priority of restoring and expanding parental choice in our nation’s capital.

 Education reform should begin but not end in Washington. For all its spending, the federal government remains only a 10 percent stakeholder in local education. The most potent reforms come from state capitals and, after historic Republican gains in legislatures and key gubernatorial wins, the broken status quo could face significant overhaul. For enduring impact, state reforms should:

• Tackle the Pension Problem: In many states, teacher pension plans have helped make state budgets unsustainable. The Manhattan Institute estimates that teacher pension plans’ unfunded liabilities collectively amount to roughly $933 billion. Less than a quarter of that is due to the stock market’s recent poor performance; most of the deficit comes from poorly planned defined benefit plans and chronic under funding. State leaders cannot afford to postpone dealing with the pension crisis. Delay will only make a bad situation even worse. Shifting to defined contribution plans is one place to start.
• Promote State Systemic Education Reform: State leaders should focus on results rather than inputs, and empower parents and teachers based on those results. For decades, teachers unions and their allies have clamored for more funding with little to show for it. Now states like Florida have set the pace by shifting to results-oriented policy that rewards achievement and gives students better opportunities when schools fail. Gov. Jeb Bush’s systemic reform has made impressive strides where federal policy has perennially failed. Black students in Florida have made academic gains at twice the rate of their peers nationwide in the past decade. Hispanic students match or outperform statewide averages in 31 states. Other states should follow suit by adopting the key ingredients of systemic reform: authentic accountability to parents and taxpayers, parental choice in education, and performance-based rewards for teachers.

 Whether in Washington, D.C. or state capitals, midterm momentum offers conservatives a wide field for education reform where liberals have failed. Seizing the initiative could be one of the most important steps toward the goal of ensuring freedom and prosperity that animated this election cycle.

Silence over the imminent execution of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran is inexcusable

Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute and author of the book Decline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction Publishers).

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is a name unknown to most Americans. Yet her imminent execution in Iran has elicited protests across the globe. Ms. Ashtiani has been found guilty of adultery; tortured by women-hating barbarians and has become a symbol of Sharia inspired laws that mistreat women.

Ironically and poignantly Iran is on the United Nations Committee for Women’s Rights and will soon join the Executive Committee for the Asian region. Yet remarkably Ambassador Susan Rice has not uttered a word in behalf of Ms. Ashtiani, nor has she said anything about Iran’s representation on the UN committee, a silence that is deafening.

It is simply outrageous that Iran is in a position to negotiate women’s rights when the government routinely violates those rights. This is a condition comparable to having Nazis investigate the human rights violations of Jews. But to make matters worse, the Obama administration through its conspicuous silence is seemingly complicit in the crime against fundamental rights.

Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have covered the story. Mina Ahadi, a spokesman for the International Committee Against Stoning and Execution, has been engaged in non-stop demonstrations against the Iranian government and its perverse judicial decision.

Yet remarkably Ms. Ashtiani probably hasn’t any idea there is vocal support for her cause. Iranian mullahs do not react to appeals of reason and fairness. Only when their positions are watched and challenged, only when nations to whom they wish to appeal respond with condemnation, do the mullahs pay attention.

That explains why the United States’ official inattention to this matter is tragic. Since we have not offered a diplomatic protest and have not uttered a word, to my knowledge, about Iran’s role on the Committee for Women’s Rights, the United States has abandoned its moral leadership in matters affecting all women.

Where is our leadership on this matter? Alas where are the feminists who should be at the barricades over this issue?

This isn’t the first time, and probably will not be the last time, hypocrisy is on display. But it is morally repugnant for a nation that is willing to consider stoning for an alleged legal infraction is in the position of defining rights for women.

If anything, this bizarre set of conditions demonstrates an Iran and its byzantine policies on the ascendency and the United States in decline. If this description is accurate, this can only mean turning the clock back several centuries when women did not have legal rights and were considered “half a man” in a court of justice.

My suspicion is if former Ambassador John Bolton were representing American interests at the United Nations a protest voice would be heard. Unfortunately Ms. Rice, his successor, and President Obama have chosen appeasement as their strategy believing that if we offend the Iranian mullahs, negotiation with them on nuclear weapons and other matters would be impossible.

As I see it, this is a fool’s errand. Our silence on human rights matters is interpreted as acceptance. Every gesture of compliance is a victory for barbarism.

Iranian feminists know what the Obama administration doesn’t: a global campaign against the imminent execution of Sakineh Ashtiani can make a difference. It can cause the mullahs to pause and it can raise questions about the strategy adopted by the U.S. government. It is time to let the world know Iran’s policies belong in the ash heap of history.

Nick Schulz: If the GOP doesn't come up with more of a growth strategy than tax cuts and fiscal discipline, their gains will be short-lived

Nick Schulz is the Editor-in-Chief of American.com and the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

If Republicans don’t embrace a genuine growth agenda, they are unlikely to see their gains in the 2010 mid-terms translate into lasting political advantage.

After all, while Obama’s overreach and his failure to focus adequately on growth cost Democrats dearly, don’t expect smart Democrats to sit still.

Former Congressman and current DLC Chair Harold Ford has an interesting piece in Fortune magazine outlining a growth agenda for Democrats. A Democratic Party chastened by defeat and newly energized around economic growth is a GOP nightmare.

So what should the GOP do? They could start by absorbing some of the lessons in Joel Kotkin’s recent essay at American.com, “Toward a Continental Growth Strategy.” Joel’s a Democrat, but Republicans have more to learn from him than they do from most GOP thinkers and strategists.

Too often discussions of growth are overly abstract or narrow.  They tend to focus on a few policy prescriptions such as tax cuts or trade or education. These are important. But the discussion about growth is strangely detached from the particular and unique characteristics of the United States. Any serious growth strategy should acknowledge and leverage America’s attributes and advantages.

Message to House GOP leadership: avoid petty politics and make sure Fred Upton heads Energy and Commerce

Gary Andres is Vice Chairman of Public Policy and Research at Dutko Worldwide and a weekly columnist for the Weekly Standard.  

Intra-party fights for political spoils are one of the dark sides of legislative politics. 

These battles are divisive and unproductive. They destroy party morale, political efficacy and even lifelong friendships.  Fortunately, the incoming Republican House majority kept most of these internal squabbles to a minimum when it came to selecting their new leadership team.

The incoming House majority, however, will face some challenges when it comes to picking the leaders for key committees and other organizational decisions.

This is a time for the party to follow its leaders.

There will be numerous opportunities for lawmakers – new and old -- to show their independence in the months ahead.  But during these first critical days of organization, the smart move is for all Republicans to rally around their leadership team’s recommendations on these committee leadership questions.

This isn’t a call for blind faith.  The transition process has been transparent and inclusive.

But failure to follow on these first critical decisions will set the team off on the wrong foot and jeopardize success on the all important work of creating jobs, shrinking the government and cutting spending.

Four years ago Speaker Nancy Pelosi began her tenure with some unforced errors dividing the political spoils. She worked behind the scenes to block senior Michigan Rep. John Dingell from becoming the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Instead Pelosi – with liberal interest groups serving as her amen chorus – ousted Dingell and replaced him with Rep. Henry Waxman of California.

The politics of the Dingell/Waxman fight were ugly but at least made sense at one level. Dingell was perceived as too close to the auto industry.  His preferences for a more balanced approach to environmental regulation bothered the fiery eyed elements of the Democratic Caucus that saw the election as the dawning of a new progressive era where liberals authoritatively ran the show.

There was no place for anything but strict ideological orthodoxy with this group. Those exhibiting even the slightest degree of non-conformity were banished.  

Fortunately incoming Speaker John Boehner doesn’t play those games.  But others do.

Consider the case of Congressman Fred Upton from Michigan.  He is next in line to become the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee – an important panel with jurisdiction over parts of health care, energy and communications. Despite Upton’s long tenure  on the committee – even stints as a subcommittee chair while Republicans were in the majority --  some are blistering him as “not being conservative enough” to chair the Committee.

I don’t get it.

In over 20 years in Congress, Upton has no doubt cast some votes that might diverge from the strictest definition of conservative orthodoxy.  But the selective attacks  are unfair and do not reflect the conservative lawmaker I’ve know from when I was on the White House staff for President George H.W. Bush and he was a Congressman.

From 1989-1993, Upton was an active and effective member of Newt Gingrich’s House Republican Whip team.  I worked with him daily.  In that job he was responsible for helping corral GOP votes on every issue – from spending cuts to tax cuts to protecting pro-life positions.  There was no more reliable conservative in the group.  He worked tirelessly – often advocating conservative positions that might not be that popular in his district – to help us pull the party together.

We actually won votes  -- while Republicans were in the minority – on tax cuts and spending restraint by holding all the Republicans together and mustering enough conservative Democrats.  Upton was key to the party’s success on all those issues.

We also sustained over thirty presidential vetoes with his help – fighting labor unions, big spenders and a very aggressive pro-choice lobby.  He helped make that happened as well.

More recently his ideology has not shifted.  Just to mention some highlights.  He wants to lead the charge to repeal Obamacare;  he supports a host of new initiatives to cut federal spending; and, he advocates codification of pro-life language to ensure the federal government doesn’t pay for abortions.

Upton also coauthored an essay last week on spending restraint strategy with conservative activist Grover Norquist.

The House Republican Steering Committee will meet the week after Thanksgiving to make its recommendations to the full GOP conference on committee chairs.  Many believe Upton will get the nod from Boehner and the leadership team. 

Former Chairman and current ranking Republican member Joe Barton is also a possible contender, but needs a waiver from the GOP conference term limit rules(he previously served six years as either chair or ranking minority member).  Barton was an effective chairman and committee leader, but it doesn’t look like the Steering Committee will grant his waiver request.

The only thing that could derail Upton’s chairmanship would be if some of his colleagues try to organize an ill conceived public rebuke of the Steering Committee’s recommendation when the full Republican Conference ratifies these choices in December.

That would be a mistake for a number of reasons.  Denying a veteran and effective lawmaker this position, based on a handful of cherry picked votes he cast over two decades, is a needless distraction from the real work that lies ahead.  Republicans and conservatives should stay focused on the simple tasks at hand – shrink government, cut taxes, reduce spending and protect life.  Don’t get distracted by the dark side of petty political gamesmanship that so many Americans hate about this city.

Will the revolutionary GOPers be as dedicated as the revolutionary Iranians?

Joe Loconte is an assistant professor of history at the King’s College in New York City. He writes widely about religion and international politics.

Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1980, a very strange thing happened in one of the Soviet Union’s satellite states: workers in Poland, supposedly dutiful members of the “United Workers’ Party,” staged a spontaneous revolution. Led by Lech Walesa, they demanded the right to form an independent trade union. The communist regime, acting on orders from Moscow, declared martial law. Strikes broke out. A violent crackdown ensued.

Writing in his diary, Ronald Reagan grasped the significance of the moment: “We can’t let this revolution against communism fail without our offering a hand. We may never have an opportunity like this in our lifetime.”

The cadre of Republicans elected to Congress in the mid-term election understandably focused their campaigns on domestic concerns: federal spending, unemployment, the national debt. Yet they should take a cue from Reagan who, upon assuming office, also faced a dire economic downturn at home. Nevertheless, Reagan understood that the United States could not ignore national security threats or struggles for political freedom abroad.

Reagan quickly approved a top-secret directive authorizing a mix of diplomatic, economic, and covert methods to destabilize the Polish regime. He established a close personal relationship with the Polish Pope, John Paul II, whose influence among his native Poles provided the moral ballast for their democratic campaign. In December, two days before Christmas, Reagan addressed the American people about the crisis in Poland: “For a thousand years, Christmas has been celebrated in Poland, a land of deep religious faith, but this Christmas brings little joy to the courageous Polish people. They have been betrayed by their own government.” The president asked all Americans to light a candle in support of freedom in Poland.

After the fall of communism, Lech Walesa explained that without this support from the United States, the Solidarity movement probably would have been strangled in its crib.

Compare Reagan’s example of leadership and moral vision to that of President Barack Obama during the “Green Revolution” launched in the summer of 2009 in Iran. When tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to contest a rigged election, Team Obama instinctively sought to avoid even the appearance of “meddling” in Iranian affairs. Then the bloodletting began, as the theocratic thugs cracked down on peaceful protestors. If President Obama wrote anything in his diary that summer, it probably was along these lines: “America’s hands are soiled by its misdeeds in the Middle East, so whatever unpleasantness occurs on the streets of Tehran, we can’t be seen as taking sides.”

Think of it: Ordinary Iranians risk their lives for a principle enshrined in the American political order—government by consent—and the American president remains a spectator of events. No symbolic acts to identify with the democratic resistance. No hint of meaningful support for their cause. Over the last 16 months, the voluble Obama has failed to even articulate the nature of the struggle in Iran. Thus, even Slate magazine, a repository of Obama boosterism, admits that the people of Iran “feel abandoned not only by their own leaders but also by the United States.”

Here is where a new Congress can make a difference. The democracy movement in Iran represents not only the possibility of regime change, but the best hope for keeping the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons. Members of Congress do not direct U.S. foreign policy—that’s the role of the president. But Congress can influence foreign policy priorities, underwrite covert assistance, and help frame a national debate about the prospects of political change in Iran. It can identify and support emerging leaders. The vital thing is to move beyond merely criticizing human rights abuses and actively promote political reform.

Some believe that Iran’s democracy movement has come and gone; others say it was dead on arrival. Yet revolutions, like the people who lead them, have a way of intruding upon the regime du jour and shattering our assumptions about what’s possible in politics.

Conservatives claim to have elected a new crop of leaders who fancy themselves in this revolutionary mode. Let’s see if they mean it.

This is our chance: Saul Anuzis on why he's right to lead the RNC

Saul Anuzis is a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is currently a member of the Republican National Committee from Michigan, where he previously served as chairman of the state's Republican Party.

After a hard-fought election that just 18 months ago looked potentially disastrous for Republicans, grassroots activists from across the country came together to win back majority in the House of Representatives, make serious gains in the Senate and sweep an impressive number of governor's offices and state legislature seats.

This is truly an exciting time to be a Republican. But this is also an opportunity; it's a second chance from the American people. It's an opportunity full of huge responsibilities and challenges that culminates in 2012 with the presidential election. But the simple fact is that without dramatic change in the way the Republican National Committee operates, we will not win back the White House.

We cannot be misled by our victories this year.  In 1994 we won the House and Senate yet just two years later Bill Clinton cruised to re-election.  As we’ve seen in the past two years public opinion can change with breathtaking speed.

To help ensure victory, the Republican National Committee leadership must change. Our party deserves an alternative.

We can’t rely on our wins in 2010 to carry us to success in 2012. We also can’t win in 2012 unless the Republican National Committee re-establishes itself as the powerful force that put us over the top in 2000 and 2004.

But to be a force, the Republican National Committee must change and that requires new leadership at the top. I am offering an alternative, a choice, a different approach to the leadership and stewardship of our party.

Chairman Steele’s record speaks for itself.  He has his way of doing things. I have mine.

We will not win in 2012 if the Republican National Committee is not able to provide the financial resources we need to support the organizational efforts and ground games of our state parties.  Without a fully funded victory program we will be overwhelmed by the efforts of the unions, the Obama campaign and all their allies.

This will require a chairman who understands that nuts-and-bolts organizing is more important than being a television pundit or book author. It's about putting together the best possible team to ensure one thing: a Republican victory.

As chairman of the Republican National Committee, my focus will be fundraising. When I was chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, I raised record amounts of money to ensure our party's efforts were funded. I know what it takes and I will devote myself to raising the dollars our party needs.

I will also work with our party's elected leaders and candidates -- not compete with them for airtime -- to give them maximum exposure and guarantee a consistent message that leads us to victory.

Come two years from now, I want to say Republicans knocked on more doors, called more phones, mailed more literature and ran more advertisements than in any previous campaign.

But the first front of the 2012 campaign will occur over the coming months when boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn. I will take advantage of this year's success to create a state of the art nationwide program that focuses on the efforts of state Republican parties and Republican legislative caucuses to win this crucial front.

My agenda is straightforward. I have no interest in running for office. I won’t be writing a book.  It is not my goal to be famous. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who will work harder, more diligently and be more committed to electing Republicans at all levels and all across this great country of ours.

Our party has a proud history, but the Grand Old Party has an even brighter future as the Grand Opportunity Party that leads us into the second decade of the 21st century with innovative solutions based upon our proven conservative principles.

In 2012 one of two things will happen.  We will either win back the Senate and White House and set America on the right pathway forward, or we will squander this opportunity and allow President Obama to continue moving our nation to the left, to an era of unprecedented government growth and intrusion into our lives.

Avoiding the latter requires a new direction for the Republican National Committee.

Fixing the deficit, replacing Obamacare with a smart alternative, and spurring growth through tax reform: Yuval Levin on 3 essays every House GOP member should read

Yuval Levin is the editor of National Affairs. He is also the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a senior editor of The New Atlantis, contributing editor to National Review and a contributing writer to Newsweek, and First Things.

The incoming Republican House majority has a lot on its shoulders, and a lot on its plate. Its members will take power in a moment overflowing with urgent problems, and the stakes could hardly be higher. Even if they will not be able to get much past the president’s veto pen, they will have to propose real solutions, and show the country why the right should be trusted with even more power two years from now.

In a sense, the Republicans’ policy priorities are fairly clear and well known: in order to put the nation back on a track to prosperity, they must restrain the expansion of government (and with it of mounting deficits and debt), begin to address the entitlement crisis, repeal the Democrats’ health-care bill, and create once again the conditions for vibrant economic growth.

Unfortunately, that is a list (and not even a comprehensive list) of what they must do, not of how they might do it. Everyone knows what the problems look like, but what are the solutions? While they have done a fairly good job of laying out the subjects that should be high on the national agenda, Republicans must still do the work of providing the policy particulars.

Fortunately for them, there is a community of wonks in Washington and around the country whose lot in life is to provide such particulars. National Affairs, a new quarterly journal of essays on domestic policy and public life (of which I am the editor), exists to connect those wonks with a broader reading public, including policy makers. And so, with thanks to the editors of ConservativeHome for the invitation to do so, I offer three essays in particular (of the roughly 50 and counting that you can read in our archives) that members of the Republican majority ought to consult as they begin their work.

First, to understand the nature of the complicated fiscal crisis the country confronts, and to see how we might begin to climb out of the hole we have dug for ourselves, the new House majority should read Donald Marron’s essay “America in the Red.” Marron, a former CBO director and Bush White House economist, offers a clear-eyed overview of the size and scope of the problems we face, and lays out a plausible path back to fiscal sanity.

Second, as they contemplate what must come after Obamacare, they should read James C. Capretta’s and Tom Miller’s essay “How to Cover Pre-existing Conditions.” Capretta and Miller explain why the question of insuring Americans with pre-existing health problems has always posed a major problem to conservative health-care reformers, and how the problem could be addressed without a government takeover of health care—and indeed, while encouraging competition that could help lower costs.

Third, looking past the immediate struggles over the budget and health care, Republicans will want to contemplate meaningful tax reform. To that end, they will want to read Robert Stein’s essay “Taxes and the Family,” which offers a recipe for making the tax code ­simpler and more efficient, correcting unfair distortions, helping American families with tangible tax relief, and so once again encouraging growth—an imperative too often overlooked by conservatives and liberals alike these days.

What unites these essays, and what must define the approach of the new House majority, is an empirical approach to public policy combined with a firm belief that America’s principles—our miraculous Constitution, our democratic capitalism, our commitment to equality and liberty—can see us through this troubled time as they have seen us through far worse. With that faith in our country, and with ideas like these in their quiver, Republicans may well be ready to start.