Cameron's Budget: More Radical Than Reagan
American conservatives often dismiss David Cameron's rebranding of the Conservative party. But, as my latest column for The Week points out, it was Cameron's decision to expand the Tory base that has allowed him to propose radical budget cuts that go far beyond what any Republican is offering.
Most of my Republican friends dismiss today's British Conservatives as weak-willed squishes, their morale crushed by 13 years of defeat. The British Conservatives' repeated invocations of "fairness" and "equality" grate on the ears of many Republicans. Conservative championing of the National Health Service, of environmentalism and of cultural tolerance seems alien at best, deeply unprincipled at worst.
But now hear this: The Liberal-Conservative coalition government headed by David Cameron will unveil during the next few weeks a program of budget reduction undreamt of by any Republican administration since Ronald Reagan's in 1981, and very likely more radical even than that.
The Liberal-Conservative coalition is delivering these draconian budget cuts just as resurgent congressional Republicans have released a "pledge to America" making it clear that they will oppose any spending cuts to approximately 80 percent of the U.S. federal budget. And England's dramatic retrenching is happening just as the most supposedly libertarian candidate in the race, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, has released a new television ad renouncing his previous support for higher deductibles in Medicare.
Who's the squish?
Republicans are trapped between their ideology (which celebrates limited government in the abstract) and their voting base (which depends heavily on Social Security and Medicare). When push comes to shove, the voting base wins.
The British Conservatives resolved this problem by expanding their voting base: reaching out to younger voters, better-educated voters, urban voters. Precisely because of their willingness to adapt to those voters' cultural concerns, they were able to win those voters' support for their economic program.
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