COMMENTARY: Republicans bet on big government — and lost

After a big loss, there’s always plenty of finger-pointing. Well, get ready because I have eight fingers (and two thumbs) to point.

Republicans who borrowed big-government ideas from the left paid for it on Tuesday. Voters wanted lower costs and an honest government, and conservatives have the better plan for both.

In 1960, Barry Goldwater wrote that he had “little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.” Ronald Reagan carried that message successfully to 44 states in 1980 and 49 in 1984. Principled conservatism wins, and that broad conservative majority still exists.

Republicans who lost on Tuesday deviated from principled conservatism and adopted populism as their calling card. Unfortunately, populism usually leads to a larger government, which leads to corruption.

Corruption was the surprise issue of this campaign. In a Fox News poll last month, 88 percent of voters said they were extremely or very concerned about corruption in government, edging out inflation.

Corruption grows when Washington has more favors to hand out. Every mandate, subsidy and price control creates a lobby to protect it. The surest way to shrink corruption is to shrink the government.

Americans want lower gas prices. But Big Government regulations such as the Renewable Fuel Standard help make gas more expensive for Americans — a key aspect of affordability. Big Government proposals such as data center moratoriums and surveillance pricing may be popular in the short term, but neither idea would cut a single family’s bills.

Republicans should let the market work. Prices fall when sellers compete for customers and new suppliers can enter the market. Data center moratoriums block new investment, and pricing bans tell businesses what they may charge. Broad surveillance pricing proposals would deprive consumers of loyalty discounts and promotions. Both put government where competition should be.

Populists in the Republican Party argue that, in certain cases, it is justified to use government for their own purposes, just as Democrats do. While there may be truth to that, as a rule, the Democrats’ mantra of more bread and circuses is no panacea for the affordability crisis millions of Americans are facing today. Tuesday’s election outcomes make that clear.

Using the federal government to suppress competition through price controls and investment moratoriums will ultimately do nothing to make life more affordable for Americans. These may seem like simple solutions, but their grievous mistake is that they will limit economic growth while making things more expensive for all Americans.

Instead of making life more affordable, populists may have inadvertently taken options away from Americans and, with them, the individual freedom to use their credit cards when and where they want.

Republicans can and should start in the lame-duck session by getting back to basics — less government regulation and more free markets. Loosening onerous permitting restrictions and cutting regulations on American energy production by eliminating the RFS are good places to start. At the same time, Republicans need to avoid populist proposals that would cripple the economy. That agenda delivers the lower costs and honest government voters demanded.

Jared Whitley has worked in the Senate, the Bush White House and the military industry. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.