Are Republicans the Party That Helps Business?

Vince Carroll is one of my favorite Denver editorialists.  He has a way of stating the obvious in a way that makes sense.  On rereading that sentence, it sounds like a put down.  It isn’t intended to be one.  Too many writers, including yours truly, can’t always reach that level of clarity.

Yesterday, he wrote about businesses always having to play defense.  He thought it would be smarter for them to put their money up front to help politicians who would help them.

When their interests are directly threatened, in other words, industries readily jump into the political fray to defend themselves. Meanwhile, ironically, political candidates who are interested in promoting economic activity in this state rather than merely taxing and regulating it are now routinely outspent when they run for the legislature.

Just imagine what effect business people could have if they chose to spend more of their money on the front end of the political process instead of waiting until the next grenade is lobbed into their tent.

There is a problem with that logic.  Republicans have very little interest in helping business.  Nearly all of the issues that Republicans have fought hard for in recent years, both at the state and national level, are anti-business.  Some of it is viciously anti-business.

I recently visited with my former business partner of six years. When he and I were partners, our political views were closely matched, but not any more.

His name had appeared on a Tim Gill paid for “Republicans for…” advertisement just before the election.  I was curious to know why.  He said “I’m still a registered Republican but I don’t vote for very many Republicans any more.”  Barack Obama and Mark Udall got his vote.

When I mentioned the power to appoint judges, he said “The only judges that Republicans talk about as being bad judges are those who favor abortion.” 

I had to be elsewhere, so our conversation ended there.

From the business perspective, we’ve lost the judge issue.  This last spring, when Republicans could have made a stand against an obnoxious judicial performance commission law, or voted against putting a former judge on the Commission on Judicial Discipline, they meekly supported the Democrat position without dissent.

The immigration issue was framed in a way that was never intended to do anything but harm businesses in need of labor.  I doubt that you could do a Lexus-Nexus search and find a single Republican who talked about ensuring that an adequate labor supply was available to businesses that needed it, either at the high education end or the low education end.  Instead of working to provide a legal source of labor, Republicans wanted to put the cost and responsibility for unworkable immigration enforcement on businesses, and punish those who didn’t comply.

Businesses depend on a well educated work force.  When was the last time you heard a Republican say anything positive about public schools?  Anyone who takes an honest look at CSAP knows that its major purpose wasn’t to fairly grade public schools as much as it was to provide a rationale for dismantling them. 

Businesses want good public schools, and they want the public to pay for them.  Republicans spend so much time attacking public education that they are perceived to want the opposite.

The Republican Party claims to be a party of limited government.  At the same time the dominant segment of the Republican Party wants to regulate the lives and lifestyles of certain classes of people in the most intrusive way possible.  Some businessmen, especially those who depend on Colorado having a reputation that draws visitors and business, don’t see that as helpful.

While Vince Carroll would have been right if he were writing about the Republican Party of 20 years ago, the Party has morphed.  It has wandered so far away from fighting for business interests that he appears out of date and out of touch. 

It is a problem that the Republican Party needs to fix, and fix quickly.