The Rebuttal the Republicans Should Give Tomorrow

When the President stands before America Thursday night, on national television, and introduces us to his plan to spend several hundred billion dollars that our children will have to pay off because there’s no way in heck we’ll get to it by the time we pay down the trillions of dollars we already owe, he’ll do so without an answer from the GOP. Mark Knoller reported that Speaker John Boehner will not attempt a rebuttal to the speech but instead will allow his fellow Congressional Republicans to do whatever rebuttal they feel necessary on their own.

And that is how you lead America in a time of economic misery. Who needs a simple unified message to counter the “spend it all and let the Chinese sort it out” plans of the President and the Democratic Party?

I’m no genius, and I certainly don’t have the ear of any member of Congress, but the Speaker will miss a chance to deliver a powerful message that would require only about five minutes of airtime and some setup in advance. The core of the message is simple. The first stimulus was a colossal failure, a payoff to the President’s union donors, and a waste of money that could have gone toward the employment of millions of Americans in businesses all over the country. The Democrats, not content to admit failure and do the right thing for the country, want to do the whole thing again.

Now that’s a pretty standard rebuttal and I’ll wager that a few dozen GOP lawmakers will say those very things in a few dozen boring press releases you’ll never see. However, I had a bit of a different idea for how Republicans should deliver the message.

Here’s the setup. The camera shows a room, like a den or a living room. The football game is on the television (probably the pre-show, but not necessarily, as we’ll see later). There are two guys whose backs are to the camera, wearing gear from the two teams — the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers — playing that night. We can hear them talking football, maybe laughing a little. They’re at ease.

When they turn around, we see the two men are Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Their message is quick. The idea is to be done in five minutes, give or take a minute. The Governors would trade lines and simply talk to America. The idea the GOP should project is one of casual confidence with a very slight undercurrent of irritation from the Governors that they have to interrupt game night to rebut a Presidential speech he could have given at any time in the past several months.

JINDAL: I’m Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and this is my friend and fellow Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. We won’t take up much of your time tonight, because we’re as eager to get to the game as you are. Here’s all we want to say. We’re glad the President finally got around to our jobs situation, but we wish he had come to us first. You see, under the President’s guidance, national unemployment is over 9 percent. In our states, it’s less than 7.5.

WALKER: We created jobs the old-fashioned way. We got government out of the way so all of you use your creativity and skill to do what needed done. That is the right way, the way that works. That is the Republican way.

JINDAL: Obviously, the President thinks he knows better. Again. His plan is the same stimulus junk that has kept so many of you from good jobs.

WALKER: He promised unemployment wouldn’t go higher than 8 percent. He was wrong. His trillion-dollar stimulus failed.

JINDAL: We’re not inclined to waste more of you hard-earned money to give him another chance and we don’t think you want that either.

WALKER: The Republican plan is simple and, as Bobby and I have proven, effective: Get government out of your way so you can do what you do best — create, innovate, prosper, excel.

JINDAL: If you’ll help us, we will get rid of a lot of the regulations that make it so expensive and complicated to start a business, even at home. We’ll make the tax code simpler, flatter, and easier.

WALKER: We’ll be responsible and certain with our proposals so that you’ll know what we’re doing, and how much they’ll cost. We won’t run out a new half-cooked scheme every few months, confident that this time we have the right genius solution.

JINDAL: We’ll make sure Social Security and Medicare are still around in twenty years because it’s important to us that we have a secure and smart safety net for our elderly. We won’t play silly political games while those programs collapse.

WALKER: That’s it. We just want to do what we know works. We hope the President will listen to us. And now, Go Pack!

JINDAL: Wait…Go Saints!

WALKER: Packers!

JINDAL: SAINTS!

[Fade Out]

That’s how I’d do the rebuttal. Now, I understand that the GOP would need to get Governors Walker and Jindal for a few hours. If they couldn’t meet in one place to do this, I’m sure if could be done in two different places, with the Governors on separate monitors, from their “football rooms”.

The GOP could buy a few minutes of commercial time either before the game or, if the President runs close to game-time (which I expect he will), toward the beginning of half-time. Actually, half-time would be a better place for the rebuttal. The Governors could stress a little how inconvenient it is that they have to interrupt football night to rebut an intrusive and unnecessary speech and halftime would make a far better frame for that than a pre-game rebuttal. I’m sure it’ll cost the GOP a few dollars, but the return, I believe, will be worth the cost. It’ll probably be the best message the party delivers all year.

The whole issue is moot, though, thank to Speaker Boehner’s reluctance to mount any sort of rebuttal at all. It’s a shame. It would have been fun to watch.

Other Posts of Interest:

• A Modest Proposal for the GOP: The Roundtable Rebuttal
• Are the Republican Message Masters Asleep at the Wheel?
• The Delivery Presents – The Other Half of the 2012 Plan

Tags: Employment, Republicans

Category: The Economy and Your Money, The Republican Minority