by Lance T. Izumi, Fellow in California Studies
Pacific Research Institute
November 17, 1998

Announcer lead: Time for Perspectives. Lance Izumi says that social conservatives aren't to blame for Republican election setbacks.

For the past couple weeks, moderates in the Republican party have had a field day blaming the social conservative wing of the GOP for the party's setbacks in this year's elections. According to the moderates' spin, Republicans fared worse than expected because the party's candidates failed to emphasize economic issues, especially the importance of tax cuts.

Although it's true that Republicans, for the most part, failed to focus on pocketbook issues such as taxes, this failure was certainly not the fault of social conservatives in the party. Take, for example, this year's federal budget agreement. One of the glaring flaws in the budget deal was the absence of any significant tax cut. Despite a potential trillion-dollar budget surplus over the next five years, Republicans in the U.S. Senate couldn't even agree to pass a paltry five-year $80 billion tax cut. Instead, congressional Republicans agreed to President Clinton's big-spending status quo budget.

Who was responsible for Republicans taking a dive on tax cuts in the budget deal? The reality is that it was moderates in the party's economic wing, led by Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici, who actually fought against big tax cuts. In contrast, one of the few heroes in the tax cut battle was Missouri Republican Sen. John Ashcroft, one of the Senate's leading social conservatives. Sen. Ashcroft tried unsuccessfully to get a large tax cut included in the Senate's budget proposal. Indeed, before Labor Day Sen. Ashcroft issued a bold, innovative and comprehensive tax cut plan that would flatten tax rates, eliminate certain taxes, and reduce the tax burden on taxpayers by $1.7 trillion over five years.

Finally, it should be noted that social conservative organizations pushed very hard for tax cuts. Groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council were part of a broad coalition that in September called on Congress to pass a tax cut.

There is no question that Republicans shot themselves in the foot by not having a coherent policy agenda. It wasn't social conservatives, however, who pulled the trigger.

With a perspective, I'm Lance Izumi.