Campaign 2016 will generate years of scholarly analysis, as most expert pundits missed their mark by a wide margin. Few foresaw the advent of a Trump “movement,” the long-rumored but never quite completed realignment of the white working class, or the stunning demise of the vaulted Clinton Money Machine. This race was more a WWE grudge match than a political campaign – no surprise to millions of wrestling fans who watched the future president of the United States forcibly shave the head of Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania 23.
But “leader of the free world” is not a scripted production. The Oval Office now replaces the rectangular ring. Here, the challenges are quite real. And the bad guys enter not with masks and chairs but with cyber attacks and ballistic missiles.
On the domestic front, the novice politician/businessman faces a difficult yet opportunity-laden challenge: how to marry traditional Republican philosophy (and constituencies) with the non-traditional views of the Trump coalition – and sustain the marriage in the face of a media and cultural elite fully invested in its failure.
The upside lies in a rare opportunity to jumpstart an economy suffering from slow growth and working class distress — much of it directly related to our overly complex tax code. Both parties recognize that the 73,954 pages of federal tax law acts as a serious drag on economic growth. That it includes a world record high corporate tax rate of 35 percent makes matters worse. Even Mr. Obama recognized the halting impact of such a high business rate — but refused to do anything about it unless the GOP Congress went along with new social spending. No relief for either side was the unsurprising result.
But minority status tends to sharpen one’s focus.
Congressional Democrats could choose to participate by exchanging demands for more social spending with another Democratic priority – infrastructure spending. Interestingly, such a strategy may not be a killer for Republicans who have real infrastructure needs at home. The GOP view would not be a function of a Keynesian predicate, however: A low unemployment environment and the recent memory of Obama’s failed $1.2 trillion stimulus (with all those not quite “shovel ready” projects) is not a formula for GOP enthusiasm, but rather, a realization that aging roads, bridges, tunnels, and airports require periodic repairs and upgrades.
Another potential element concerns a bipartisan desire to “bring the dollars home.” Approximately $2.1 trillion in corporate profits is presently parked off-shore. Numerous high-profile corporate inversions have in turn occurred – to the detriment of the U. S. Treasury. The Obama administration’s delusory response was to activate the Treasury’s regulatory power to punish rather than work with congressional Republicans to fix the problem.
A business savvy Trump Administration possesses the wherewithal (and votes) to bring it all together: real reform with fewer brackets and preferences; infrastructure revitalization that meets cost-benefit analysis; a lower corporate tax rate; and a tax holiday whereby repatriated profits would be subject to a reduced rate.
The last comprehensive tax overhaul occurred in 1986 wherein a conservative president, Ronald Reagan, struck a historic deal with the liberal Speaker Tip O’Neil. Senior players such as Jim Baker, Jack Kemp, and Dan Rostenkowski kept the bill on track — especially when the “losing” economic players to the deal screamed bloody murder. Today’s political landscape is more complicated. Partisanship is front and center at all times. And social media makes discreet negotiations far more difficult to conduct. One thing has not changed, however: strong presidential leadership is essential to getting to “yes.” It’s all about the art of the deal — so to speak.
The proliferation of safe House seats on both sides of the aisle has given rise to a hyper-partisan Capitol Hill. Today, any enthusiasm to negotiate with the other side is muted by the likelihood of provoking a primary challenge for the offense of “weakness,” “softness,” or (on the GOP side) “RINO-ness.” Accordingly, big ticket items tend to get accomplished only when the same party controls the House, Senate, and presidency.
With said monopoly power only guaranteed for the next two years, Republican power players would be wise to make its likely once-in-a-generation big ticket deal as balanced, impactful, and bipartisan as possible.
Recent experience is instructive. A Democratic wave propelled Barack Obama into the presidency and Democrats into control of both Houses of Congress in 2008. Two big ticket – but poorly produced – bills were shoved through a deeply divided Congress: the aforementioned stimulus (0 GOP House votes, 3 Senate) and the unnatural disaster popularly known as “Obamacare” (0 GOP votes in either House or Senate).
The respective failure of each initiative contributed mightily to the Republican romp of 2010 – and to a realignment that has cost Democrats 63 House seats, 10 Senate seats, and 900 state legislative seats over the last six years.
Moral of the story: big ticket things can get accomplished under monopoly control, but better things get done (and last longer) when there is buy-in from the other side of the aisle.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich is a Washington Examiner columnist, partner at King & Spalding and author of three books, including the recently released Turning Point. He was governor of Maryland from 2003 – 2007.
