As November approaches, the Democratic Party’s go-to talking point is calling the Republican Party the “Party of No”. But on every major issue facing America over the short and long term, only the Republican Party has stepped forward with substantive solutions.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed the “Roadmap for America’s Future”. ‘The Roadmap’ would dramatically revise America’s entitlement programs to make them sustainable for the long term, simplify the tax code, cut taxes and balance the budget, all while protecting benefits. As Rep. Ryan has said:
“The Roadmap’s aim is not to back away from the missions of these programs and activities, but to fulfill them—which can only be done through reform.”
Meanwhile, the Republican Study Committee, a group of 117 Conservative Republicans in the House has proposed a budget that would completely balance the budget by 2019. The budget would root out unnecessary government programs and make existing programs more efficient, all while strengthening America’s safety net by protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Many other Republicans have offered their own solutions to America’s problems only to have their legislation blocked or ignored by the Democrat majority.
Given the myriad threats facing America, one would expect our nation’s Democratic leaders to be in overdrive reforming our entitlement programs and getting the budget under control. Instead, House Democrats refused to even submit a budget for an up or down vote. On every issue of crucial long-term importance, the Democrats have been missing in action.
If current policy does not change, America will soon be awash in a sea of red ink and our nation’s entitlement programs will have sank into insolvency, with no hope of keeping their promise to millions of Americans who have paid into them all of their lives. Left unchanged, America will be shoveling hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars out every year just to pay interest on our massive national debt without touching the principal. If left unchanged, current policy will destroy the way of life of every American, and will have successfully transformed our social safety nets into fiscal booby traps.
Republicans in the House and Senate have indeed said ‘no’ to a lot of things: burdensome new regulations on small businesses, higher taxes, crushing debt and a tangled healthcare bureaucracy. However, as our nation’s difficult circumstances have called on our elected leaders to make the tough choices to get our economy and government back on track, only the Republican Party has answered ‘yes’ to that call.
The Republican Party is saying ‘yes’ to individual initiative and entrepreneurialism, ‘yes’ to lower taxes and sustainable spending and ‘yes’ to responsible spending policies that will protect the future of today’s young people. So as Republicans continue to fight for the future of every American, isn’t it the Democrats who have become the “Party of No”?
Zach Howell is the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee.