Ezra Klein–this is boring, but it’s almost always the case–has yet another smart piece today in which he posits Barack Obama as a moderate Republican from the early 1990s. I don’t know about the label, but the substance is right on target: Obama favored an individual mandate universal health care plan, which–as I’ve insisted here before–was originally a Republican idea (the first version I saw in the early 1990s was Stuart Butler’s Heritage Foundation plan, if you can believe it). Obama favored a cap-and-trade plan to limit carbon emissions; the first Bush Administration passed a (very successful) cap-and-trade plan for acid rain emissions. Obama favors a mix of tax increases and program cuts to melt the deficit, so did George H.W. Bush. (And that worked, too, in large part because Bill Clinton kept Bush’s discretionary spending freeze and added higher rates for the wealthy.) I could also add in Bush the Elder’s successful non-crusading foreign policy, which has been emulated by Obama (with a few exceptions, like Libya, but then Bush had his exceptions, too: Panama). Given the success of all these programs, my thoughts turn not to Obama–but to the Republicans. Why aren’t they moderate Republicans anymore? Seriously, the early 1990s were a fecund time for policy thinking–especially for programs, like those above, that seemed to combine liberal ends with conservative means. There were severe blind spots, to be sure: both Bush the Elder and Clinton were in the thrall of Wall Street greedsters; Clinton, especially, worked overtime to prove his bona fides and eligibility for campaign contributions by joining in the parade of financial deregulation. But there did seem to be a mainstream consensus–or, at least, negotiable differences–on many, if not most, important issues. Now we have this craziness. The Republican party has rejected all of the polices mentioned above, except for financial deregulation. It has gone off the deep end on taxes. It has denied the long-term economic and societal benefits of universal health insurance. It has gone into climate change denial…it is hard for any card-carrying Republican … Continue reading The Republican Crackup