Ripon Forum


Vol. 52, No. 6

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In this edition

In this edition of the Forum, we reached out to GOP leaders around the country and asked them a simple question: “What would you like to see from Washington in the coming year?”

Profiles and Perspectives: President Bush Responds

To mark the President George H.W. Bush’s passing on November 30th at the age of 94, the Forum has decided to reprint our interview conducted with him in 1990.

Govern Within Your Means: A Unifying Goal in Divided Times

The greatest contribution President Trump and Congress could make in 2019 is to follow the lead of cities across America and balance their budget.

Diversity is Key to Election Security

As we look to modernize as a nation, Washington needs to ensure the administration of elections stays under state and local control as required by the 10th amendment of the Constitution.

With Divided Federal Government, a Silver Lining Could Emerge

At a time when our federal government continues to expand and the national debt continues to grow, there can be virtue in gridlock.

People Matter, and it’s Time for Washington to Lead

As the New Year begins, I urge Congress and the President to hit reset and begin giving their constituents the leadership America deserves.

It’s Time to Return Common Sense to Washington

We strive to give small businesses the service they need, when they need it. That is the way the federal government needs to work.

Forget Term Limits. How about Time Limits?

They say work expands to fill the time allotted. Maybe a deadline would help move work along.

The Party of Results in the Age of Rhetoric

Voters know that America is moving in the right direction with a booming economy, lower taxes for hardworking families and respect for our great nation around the globe.

Healthcare and Immigration: Our Most Salient Issues Are Longstanding Problems

As long as both Republicans and Democrats come to the table and agree not to dig in their heels, I am hopeful.

A Message from the States

The federal government has usurped power from the states and our individual liberties have eroded resulting in a bloated national bureaucracy.

Voters Deserve to Know Their Votes will Count

In a recent Gallup poll, a full one-third of Americans were not confident that their votes are accurately counted.

Empower, Don’t Impede, the Pioneering Spirit of the States

Nothing is given without strings attached, and the guidelines and regulations that come along with federal grants hinder progress.

Election Security: An Ongoing Responsibility

A core strength of American elections is the decentralized process. No one entity has oversight over all ballot counting, which means there’s no single point for a bad actor to attack.

Govern Within Your Means: A Unifying Goal in Divided Times

After every national election, in the wake of partisan rancor reaching a fever pitch, most Americans revert to the same old hope: hope that those elected can put the fight behind them and work together in our best interest.

The greatest contribution President Trump and Congress could make in 2019 is to follow the lead of cities across America and balance their budget. Neither political party can claim innocence in digging the hole, but both could leave a better future for coming generations by relieving the debt with which those Americans are being saddled.

City government is in a vanguard at the moment. There has never been a time when more resources have been focused on developing best practices for these laboratories of democracy. There has arguably never been more expectation for the quality of life cities are to deliver.

Yet in the midst of all this, whether liberal cities on the coasts or conservative cities in the plains, the common bond shared by nearly all cities is the mandate to work within a balanced budget. This has forced difficult decisions around pensions, staffing, service delivery, and infrastructure maintenance. But those decisions occur, and future debt is avoided, because a balanced budget is required.

The federal government all too often avoids those open discussions around priorities and thereby pawns the challenges of leadership off on generations not yet born.

It is important to remember this is a relatively new phenomenon. Less than 100 years ago, President Calvin Coolidge grappled in his annual budget with how to maximize the surplus in order to pay down war debt. Presidents known for the expansion of entitlements, like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, challenged their subordinates to minimize deficit spending and made politically difficult decisions in line with those challenges.

The greatest contribution President Trump and Congress could make in 2019 is to follow the lead of cities across America and balance their budget.

Yet today, the American people are alerted to the dangers of the deficit mostly when a stand-off occurs around the debt ceiling. After that crisis inevitably passes, so too does any national discussion about how to climb out of our shared fiscal hole.

A focus on balancing the budget would also provide federal leaders with the same opportunity that local leaders in cities across America enjoy every day: the chance to work together in solving a practical problem, together as Americans rather than as Republicans or Democrats.

There is an accepted conventional wisdom in America today that local leaders can work across party lines because their issues are logistical, while those faced by federal leaders are more difficult to address due to partisan philosophical differences. This lets federal leaders off the hook and does a disservice to the hard work of local communities.

While the old axiom that “there’s no such thing as a Democrat or Republican pothole” is true, the reality is that funding for fixing potholes within a balanced budget comes at the expense of public safety staffing, public employee pensions, abandoned home remediation – or any number of other worthy causes. Any budgetary discussion is necessarily a prioritization of values, whether they are local, national, or international.

The difference arises because local leaders have the luxury of dealing with problems that are generally more concrete (a street paving project being more tangible to voters than a budget deficit), and therefore constituents have a more immediate indicator of success or failure. So they recognize the obvious – that neither Republicans nor Democrats have the market cornered on good ideas – and bring people together to solve their tangible problems.

The budget deficit is not a tangible problem today, but it will be soon if it is not brought in line. Like lead pipes left to fester in a local water utility, the problem is out of sight until one day when it becomes a catastrophe.

For my generation, the only time we’ve seen Republicans and Democrats in DC set aside partisanship for the greater good has been in fleeting moments of tragedy or war.

So this generation of federal leaders can either spend the next two years fighting over who gets to be in charge when that catastrophe presents itself, or they can more nobly serve the American people by preventing it.

Addressing the budget deficit will not be easy. If it were, someone would have already done it. But it is a specific problem with smart people on both sides of the aisle who can offer ideas for an overall solution.

For my generation, the only time we’ve seen Republicans and Democrats in DC set aside partisanship for the greater good has been in fleeting moments of tragedy or war. Yet the national debt presents as great a challenge to our shared security and future opportunity as any armed opponent. The first step in addressing that debt, in putting future generations in a safer position, is to balance the federal budget.

For the good of our country’s security and prosperity – both today and tomorrow – President Trump and the 116th Congress should lead that challenging national discussion around priorities and use the bipartisan genius of Americans to balance the federal budget.

G.T. Bynum is the Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma.