Republicans’ Anti-Government Rhetoric Comes Back to Bite Republican Governments - Ed Kilgore

Anyone who’s lived in metropolitan Atlanta knows its infamously snarled highway traffic. But any Georgian also knows that it would be impossible to raise taxes to do something about it—at least since 2004, when Republicans achieved control of both the legislative and executive branches of state government for the first time since Reconstruction.

Last week’s calamitous defeat of a sales-tax-for-transportation referendum in metro Atlanta and most of the state showed that when push comes to shove, Republican governing can’t survive the Republicans’ anti-governing message. Having spent years demonizing higher taxes and government spending, Georgia Republicans were in a poor position to ask for more of both for any purpose under the sun.

The Georgia experience matters nationally for a simple reason: Since 2008, the GOP and its business allies have energized its movement-conservative base (rechristened as the Tea Party Movement) to savagely fight for radically reduced public spending. Now, when increased public investments and the revenues necessary to pay for them are obviously essential to keep a state economy growing, Republicans can no longer dial back the rhetoric.

If Republicans conquer Washington in November and Republican-controlled state governments derive the bitter harvest of radically reduced federal support for public services, it will be interesting to see if a “governing wing” of the GOP survives at all in state capitals around the country. And it will be equally interesting to see whether business interests are happy with obtaining better tax rates and less regulation in exchange for dysfunctional government from sea to shining sea.

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