Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush discusses with National Review Online readers the decisions to be made in the upcoming elections.
There is little doubt that President Obama favors one form of governing, and that is what I call the government of One. One Ideology, One Party, and One Man.
In his first two years in office, with the benefit of supermajorities in Congress, he was able to enact legislation of his choosing and his design. He decided what went in and what didn’t. He delegated to a handful of members of Congress the responsibility to write specific laws — and left other members out.
Now things are different. He no longer enjoys a compliant Congress. Not surprisingly, he has spoken longingly of leading a centralized, planned, command-and-control government.
It is time for the Republican party to offer an alternative. Not just an alternative to President Obama’s agenda of liberal government, which is important to do. We need to present an alternative to his approach to governance in general. An approach that applies to every elected office.
We should be the party of free thinking and free markets. We should be the party of policy experimentation and fresh approaches. We should be the party of competing ideas. We should allow our ideas to be tested and force our ideas to prove their value in practice.
