Almost three years ago, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam penned "The Party of Sam's Club" for The Weekly Standard. In that article Douthat and Salam argue that the key to success for the Republican Party is targeting the needs of the decent, thrifty working class, the kinds of people who shop at Sam's Club. To do this, the GOP should adopt a series of proposals such as higher tax credits for families with children, promote a subsidy for parents who forgo work to care for children at home, offer wage subsidies for the working poor, and subsidizing private acquisition of health insurance (as opposed to state provided health insurance). The authors provided in this essay a bold set of policy proposals that are government funded but relatively non-bureaucratic. The goal is to ease the insecurity felt by the working class by providing them with the means to meet their needs without the bureaucracy that micromanages their lives.
Douthat and Salam have expanded this article into a book, Grand New Party. I am sorry to say that
the book does not offer much that one cannot get in the article. As is often the case when a widely read article becomes a book, there is too much filler and not enough substance to make the book worthwhile. Grand New Party might be a fine paperback purchase, but save your money on the hard back and read the article linked above.
Slightly over half of Grand New Party is a basic political history of the post New Deal America, especially concentrating on the collapse of the New Deal Democratic coalition in the late 1960s and the failure of Republicans to ever put together a persistent governing majority. The authors concentrate in this history on the ways in which the political parties responded to the working class. While the information in this part of the book is nicely presented, students of American politics will find little here that is new. Interestingly, though, Douthat and Salam agree with Prof. Blanchard's often stated belief that Bill Clinton was about as good of a Democratic president as Republicans could have ever hoped for.
In an addition in the book from the article, Douthat and Salam argue that family breakdown has hit the working class much harder than the upper class. While wealthy liberals often talk up "sexual liberation" and the virtues of divorce, they tend to live relatively conservatively, meaning they raise their children in stable homes with all of the benefits of two parents and sound income. Family breakdown amongst the working class, though, opens them up to greater incidence of all sorts of social pathologies. Controlling for all other factors, including income, children of single parents are more likely to commit crimes, use drugs, end up in jail, have children out of wedlock, suffer from depression and attempt suicide, drop out of school...you get the point. Thus to help the working class, argue the authors, policy should concentrate on strengthening the working class family (thus all the tax breaks to kids). While they seem to be on solid ground here, Douthat and Salam essentially replicate the argument put forth better and more thoroughly by Kay Hymowitz in Marriage and Caste in America, a fine book that is summed up in this City Journal article.
It is only in the last 60 pages or so that the authors offer any policy proposals and these are largely (but not exclusively) found in the Weekly Standard article. Conservatives will balk at the number of government programs advocated by Douthat and Salam, but in truth most of their proposals are meant to empower individuals at the expense of bureaucracies. One wishes they would have pondered more the fiscal impact of their program, namely taking the time to think about how much money their program would cost versus how much it would save. Government debt is one of the biggest issues facing our country, but the authors don't address the budget impact of their menu of proposals. Also, they do discuss many education reforms, but they seem oblivious to the fact that most of their education program would have to be passed state by state, if not school district by school district. For example, they believe budgets should be cut for large flagship state universities and spent on small universities with specific missions. Well, that must be done state by state. They think that we should re-introduce vocational training in high schools. Again, that must be done state by state, or even district by district.
Most controversially they advocate universal health care, but not statist health care. They are fond of Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan that mandated health insurance, but provided the money for the purchase of private insurance. They also think it'd be best if we actually paid more for health insurance out of our pockets as a way to fight overconsumption. But the government should step in to help with extraordinary expenses (say, hospital bills over $50,000).
If one desires a take on post-WWII American political history, a fine presentation of the crisis of the working class family, and some policy prescriptions to address that crisis this book is for you. I happen to think one can find much of what they offer elsewhere, put just as well if not better and, frankly, without paying for the book. One reason to buy the book, though, is that it may give some insight into the views of Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, the man who coined the term "Sam's Club Republicans." He may become John McCain's running mate, so that makes Grand New Party slightly more relevant than it otherwise would be.
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