海角大神

If Republicans are going to bounce back in 2014, the tea party thinks it has the answer: the New Fair Deal.

A dozen House lawmakers and Sen. Mike Lee (R) of Utah 鈥� backed by swarms of activists affiliated with the group FreedomWorks 鈥� are offering up a package of about a dozen proposals on Monday that are the tea party鈥檚 contribution to how the party should go forward.

While the Republican Party proposed a host of structural and strategic changes in its Growth and Opportunity report, the party committees don鈥檛 do policy. Instead, it鈥檚 up to lawmakers and energetic outside groups like FreedomWorks to fill the void.

鈥淭he thing that鈥檚 been missing is a reform agenda that excites people and gets them in the streets, that they believe can happen,鈥� says Dean Clancy, vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks and a chief organizer of the New Fair Deal package. 鈥淲hat can we do to help the guys that we helped get elected in 2010 actually restore credibility for this movement.鈥�

What鈥檚 to get the party faithful fired up? The New Fair Deal consists of 10 bills, which will include:

• Cuts to a wide array of subsidies, with alternative energy companies, sugar growers, and high-speed rail all to get the ax.
• A conservative alternative to Obamacare.
• A 鈥渇lat tax鈥� system.
• A private savings option for Social Security.
• Tax reform to broaden the tax base.

(There鈥檚 a rich irony in the name. President Truman offered the original Fair Deal in the late 1940s, a program that not only looks like a mid-20th century version of President Obama鈥檚 current agenda but is widely credited with launching the long-running liberal drive to universal health care, opposition to which inspired FreedomWorks and the tea party movement to begin with in the summer of 2009.)听

Largely, the policies are mostly echoes of longstanding conservative rallying cries, although there are some new wrinkles such as a minimum 1 percent income tax (a nod to the 47 percent of Americans, made famous by Mitt Romney, who don鈥檛 pay federal income taxes) alongside two tax brackets around 10 percent and 25 percent.

What鈥檚 different is the language these tea party activists are using to describe it.

The problem the New Fair Deal aims to treat is also straight out of Mr. Obama鈥檚 2012 playbook: fairness and ending the influence of special interests in Washington.

鈥淭ea party meets Occupy on Main Street,鈥� Mr. Clancy calls it. 鈥淲e disagree with the Occupyers on a lot of the solutions, but we agree with them on the diagnosis of the problem.鈥�

The starting point for a dialogue with potential supporters is: 鈥� 鈥榊eah, I鈥檓 frustrated that it matters so much who has the best lobbyist in Washington,' " says FreedomWorks spokesperson Jackie Bodnar. "That鈥檚 something that hurts everybody. It鈥檚 not a red or blue issue."

"This gets the ball rolling,鈥� Ms. Bodnar says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 our common ground.鈥�

Still, it's a big sell. But FreedomWorks and tea party lawmakers are counting on an appeal to fairness to convince Americans to sign on to a plan that imposes a minimum 1 percent income tax on everyone, including poor Americans who now receive income tax refunds from the government, while potentially eliminating the corporate income tax altogether.

鈥淎 lot of people don鈥檛 know what they are paying now, that鈥檚 part of the problem, no transparency,鈥� Clancy says. 鈥淭his system would be more transparent. I actually don鈥檛 believe everybody votes purely on self-interest. People are willing to sacrifice for the larger good, for a system that is fairer than what we have now."

The political perils of adopting such a plan are evident to, among others, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R) of Michigan, who at a recent Monitor breakfast noted that it would be politically untenable to do more reforms on the corporate tax code than on the individual side. 听

"What Mr. Camp is responding to is optics,鈥� says Clancy, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 not unreasonable to care about optics, but the group feels that [corporations are], in fact, paying, they鈥檙e paying through鈥� individual income taxes, which the New Fair Deal could collapse to two rates at roughly 10 percent and 25 percent.

Another issue of optics: While the GOP鈥檚 post-election report emphasizes the need to reach out to new demographic groups, all of the11 House lawmakers involved in the measure are white men, including prominent conservatives such as Rep. Tom Price (R) of Georgia and Rep. Jim Jordan (R) of Ohio.

FreedomWorks thinks the 2010 election shows that no matter which lawmakers are originally associated with a policy, the power of ideas will generate support from diverse groups.

In 2010, 鈥渨e repopulated the Republican Party in the House and Senate with an incredibly young and diverse new generation of fiscal conservatives,鈥� says Bodnar, citing the example of Sens. Marco Rubio (R) of Florida and then-Rep. Tim Scott (R) of South Carolina, an African-American who is now serving out the term of former Sen. Jim DeMint, who retired.

鈥淭hese weren鈥檛 people who were selected from the top-down in some sort of politically correct attempt to diversify the party. They were selected from the ground up based on the ideas they believed in,鈥� she says.

鈥淭im Scott,鈥� Clancy says, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 supposed to exist. There鈥檚 not supposed to be a black tea partier who speaks positively and believes certain American values.鈥�

For all the talk of renewal, however, there are still some long-standing problems that some of Congress's top conservative standard-bearers and听one of the movement鈥檚 most resolute organizations have yet to solve.

The party wants to privatize Social Security, allowing Americans to opt into private savings accounts 鈥� but pushing for changes to the popular program, even among conservatives, is so politically explosive that the group still doesn鈥檛 have a congressional sponsor for the Social Security reform legislation.

And a willingness to flatten the tax code does have some limits: The venerated deduction for mortgage interest would be phased out over 30 years in the New Fair Deal.

Doing anything else would 鈥渄isrupt a lot of people鈥檚 financial situation ... and their house is their single largest investment,鈥� Clancy says.

It turns out that, even at their most provocative, tea partiers still have mortgages.