Romney And Gingrich Were For Obama’s Policies Before They Were Against Them

by Stuart Shapiro

News on Republican flip-flopping is not really news anymore.  But Ezra Klein has an excellent synthesis about how much of the Republican Party has supported cap and trade, individual mandates, and tax increases.

Health-care plans including an individual mandate have been proposed or co-sponsored by Bob Dole, the Heritage Foundation, Phil Gramm, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Judd Gregg, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jesse Helms, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Mike Crapo, and Strom Thurmond — and that’s only a partial list. In 2008, Jim DeMint endorsed Mitt Romney for president, and specifically mentioned his health-care plan as one of Romney’s qualifications…

A similar case can be made on cap-and-trade. The 2008 McCain-Palin ticket had a cap-and-trade plan. In fact, the first cap-and-trade plan considered by the Senate was introduced by McCain in 2003 — and McCain, of course, went on to become the Republican Party’s nominee for president.

So, Romney and Gingrich are actually in the Republican mainstream when they supported solutions that were eventually endorsed by President Obama.  Of course, once he supported them, then they were no longer good ideas.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.