The Case for Rick Santorum

Barry Goldwater in his manifesto Conscience of a Conservative says how we as conservatives have failed in promoting agenda. He says how in that era (and still today) many so-called conservatives apologize for their conservative values, like how Nixon said he was fiscally conservative but humanly liberal. Goldwater also criticized Republican President Dwight Eisenhower for increasing spending (hmmm does this sound familiar?) and set forth what I think is the most important standard in determining a good candidate: a candidate who will only sign laws that in compliance with the Constitution and whose goal will be not to add more laws but to repeal laws.

These are in my opinion two of the most important things I look for in a candidate. With Michele Bachmann dropping out yesterday, Rick Santorum is easily the best option we have.

After his surprising surge in Iowa last night, Rick Santorum is finally getting the national media attention he deserves. He is a conservative on all the issues, has bold solutions, and most importantly he is unapologetic about it and very substantive.

First, let's take at his economic plan since the economy is the most important issue after all. Fred Lucas on CNSnews.com goes into detail:

Largely ignored has been Santorum’s sweeping income-tax reform proposal and his plan to trim $5 trillion from the federal budget over the next five years.

Santorum says he wants to simplify the income tax code by establishing two rates, 10 percent and 28 percent. He has described such a reform as more achievable than scrapping the entire tax code for a flat tax.

“I mentioned lowering the rates, 10 and 28 percent, two rates. Why 28 percent? It was good enough for Ronald Reagan and congressional Democrats to support in 1986,” Santorum said on Dec. 27, 2011 in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

This is the best tax plan that all of the candidates still in the race has to offer. Romney's plan makes the Bush tax cuts permanent while cutting capital gains taxes for those making $200,000 or less. Not necessarily a bad plan, but it's timid in that it does nothing to fix the endless maze of loopholes and regulations known as the current tax code. Fixing the tax code is crucial- it's compliance costs are expected to rise to $480 billion by 2015.

Now I'm aware that Gingrich and Perry both offer optional-flat taxes, which is good and bold. But the problem is that those flat taxes are optional, meaning that the 47% who don't pay a dime in federal income taxes will choose to stay in the current tax code so they still don't pay anything as well leave open loopholes for tax fraud and companies like GE not to pay any corporate income taxes. Under Santorum's tax plan, the tax code is simplified so none of this happens.

Santorum also is in favor of cutting the corporate tax rate in half, from 35% to 17.5%, while eliminating it altogether for the manufacturing. Some have criticized him for this because he's favoring one sector over another. Sure, it's not perfect, I'd prefer that he just eliminates the corporate tax rate altogether. But it's still good. His corporate tax cut is bigger than Perry's (20%) or Romney's (25%). It may not be as low as Gingrich's (12.5%) but remember Gingrich's flat tax is optional.

On top of that Santorum would eliminate the death tax, alternate minimum tax (AMT), elimate the tax on repatriated corporate income (so the money invested overseas can be come back here without being taxed, giving investors incentive to invest here) while lowering the capital gains tax from 15% to 12%.

What's particularly intriguing about Santorum's tax plan is the deductions that he offers- only five. But John Hayward at Human Events takes a look into what they are:

Unlike some other tax reform proposals, Santorum’s keeps plenty of deduction incentives, compromising economic freedom in the service of a very specific goal: supporting American families.  He offers tripled deductions for children, and eliminates marriage tax penalties.  He would keep the deductions for charity, home mortgage interest, health care, and retirement savings, all of which are of keen interest to families. 

Our media and political culture is rather hostile to the notion of deliberately supporting families through government policy.  This is partly a result of the enormous energy deployed in the quest to re-define marriage – an effort premised on the notion that there is absolutely nothing special about the union of one man and one woman.  Policies deliberately designed to cultivate traditional families are unhelpful to this effort, so they draw accusations of bigotry, theocracy, or at least hopelessly out-of-touch nostalgia.  The defense of marriage and the family is dismissed as the province of unthinking religious zealots.

However, there are eminently practical reasons to support and nurture the traditional family, which have nothing to do with religion.  For starters, there is the simple need to maintain population growth, which requires a large number of families to raise three or more children.  It does not denigrate other family models to point out the simple truth that traditional families are particularly, perhaps uniquely, suited to this task.  Remember, we’re talking about societal trends over a huge population, not asking whether a particular well-heeled single parent or same-sex couple could successfully raise three or four children.

......Our massive government and complex tax system are structured to favor all sorts of things the elites have decided are assets to society, or penalize what they consider poisonous.  Why shouldn’t we explicitly encourage and support intact families, perhaps the most powerful asset in our inventory? (emphasis mine)  We would want to encourage both their formation through marriage, and their endurance through healthy numbers of children.  Far from being a peculiar obsession of religious traditionalists, it seems like an act of irrational prejudice not to weight the benefits of the family logically, and recognize they are far superior to many things the government compels us to spend titanic amounts of money subsidizing. 

Now what's intriguing about this is that here Santorum is blending in solid fiscal conservatism and social conservatism into one. This brings up the point that given Santorum's emphasis on family and faith, he can not only make the theoretical/statistical case for capitalism, but the moral case for capitalism as well. Just listen to how he defends his economic plan. Being able to make the moral case for capitalism is crucial to persuading swing voters as well as prove that he can remain principled and not give into the Left.

Overall, his economic plan, and under his simplified tax code, it would be much easier to pay your taxes and it's clearly the best one in the current field.

On top of all that, Santorum will elimate farm and ethanol subsides (FINALLY!), pass a balanced budget similar to Rick Perry's in that it sets an 18% cap on GDP with a 2/3 majority approval from both houses before taxes can be raised, while cutting $5 trillion in 5 years. He's not afraid to reform entitlements, expressing support in the Ryan plan.

But Santorum's real strength of course lies in social issues and foreign policies. Some say that Santorum's emphasis on the social issues will turn swing voters off to him. But I disagree. One, it's good that he's unapologetic about it and that he's bold enough to do something about the social issues. Two, he does a damn good job at defending it.

I could defend his abortion stance, but abortion itself deserves a whole new blog post. Instead I want to focus on his gay marriage stance. Gay marriage has always been a thorny issue, and Santorum's unwavering and strong opposition to gay marriage has had him labeled as a homophobe.

When the Left labels a conservative as something like a racist or a homophobe, be skeptical because it's a typical Leftist tactic to smear conservatives with those labels since they can't win the argument.

I could explain why Santorum's stance gay marriage doesn't make him a homophobe, but why should I win Santorum explains it much better than I can to Shep Smith?

Of course then this is where Leftists will say, "but what about his statement involving that allowing gay marriage will lead to bestiality and bigamy and what not?" That doesn't make him a homophobe, it just means he has a smart legal mind (Santorum was a lawyer I believe). Just read my blog post on Rick Perry's ad to see how repealing DADT led to bestiality and sodomy being allowed in the military.

Santorum's foreign policy stance is absolute genius. Anytime foreign policy is brought up in the debates, he describes his stance so well and he's very knowledgeable about it. Just watch him kick David Gregory's ass on Meet the Depressed:

Now imagine what Santorum did in these videos against Smith and Gregory. Now imagine him debating with Obama. Santorum would destroy Obama on there. Yes I've heard that criticism that Santorum's too whiny and at first I thought that too but in the last few debates he's gotten better about it and I think he was whiny because he was frustrated that he didn't get much screen time. Now that he's one of the frontrunners we will see a very thoughtful, articulate Santorum.

But most of all, Santorum has a consistent, solid record of conservatism. As John Farrell writes in the nonpartisan National Journal:

He enlisted in the “Gang of Seven,” a group of young firebrands (including, among others, the current speaker, John Boehner) who exploited operational defects in the House bank and post office to insinuate Democratic corruption.

The scandals helped propel Republicans to their historic takeover of the House in 1994, but the restive and ambitious Santorum was not among them. He had moved on, challenging Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford in that fall’s election and claiming a Senate seat.

In his early years in the chamber, Santorum fought vigorously, and ultimately successfully, for a measure to ban so-called "partial birth" abortions. He voted against the handgun controls in the Brady bill, and opposed a ban on assault weapons.

But Santorum is more than a caricature. He helped manage welfare-reform legislation, a landmark bill that became the most notable legacy of President Clinton’s fractious relationship with congressional Republicans.

Santorum also opposed TARP. Now conservatives like Ann Coulter and Erick Erickson claim that Santorum is a "pro-Life statist" because he supported earmarks. First, since when does spending earmarks make you not a conservative? No it's not a good thing but consider the circumstances- being in Congress when everyone's doing it, you need it to survive politically. Jim DeMint did it too. And he, like Santorum, are now strongly in favor of earmark bans.

Coulter's willingness to write-off Santorum because of the earmark issue is befuddling to me, to say the least, especially since she says Romney is a true conservative. Say what? With all due respect Coulter, I just don't understand that argument at all.

Erickson at least brought up some other legitimate complaints- like how Santorum voted for Bush's Medicare expansion bill as well as No Child Left Behind. Lest we forget, a lot of Republicans were heavily pressured into voting for the Medicare bill due to arm twisting by the Bush administration and Karl Rove (not to mention Gingrich's heavy lobbying for the bill). As for other bills like No Child Left Behind, well nobody's perfect.

Conservatives also complain he endorsed Arlen Specter (who switched to being a Democrat and provided a key vote to pass ObamaCare). Santorum's explanation of why he did so actually makes sense. Specter was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee and he said he would approve all of Bush's appointees, at a time when the Democrats were filibustering to prevent any of Bush's nominees from being approved to the Supreme Court. Given the threat of judicial activism (which still exists) I understand Santorum's reasoning, although I do not agree. But it certainly doesn't mean that Santorum's not a conservative.

But most importantly, what really sticks out about Santorum is his honesty. Even if you don't agree with everything he says, you know he speaks his mind and he will follow through on what he says. This is the kind of the thing that sways Independents and Reagan Democrats. That, combined with his willingness to adhere to the Goldwater standard of being unapologetic about being a conservative and willing to scale back government makes him the candidate a solid conservative like me can be excited.

Sure, it's not going to be easy for Santorum to win the nomination from here. But then again he did win in elections as a congressman and as a senator against incumbent Democrats in a light-blue state, both of which he was considered a long shot. Don't count him out, and I am prepared to throw 110% of my support to make sure this guy is the Republican nominee.