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Midweek Edition, Dec. 30-31, 2020
Regulations take
California policies
nationwide
On Saturday,
President-elect Joe Biden
introduced his climate
team at The Queen
Theater in Wilmington,
Delaware.
Biden’s would-be
energy secretary, former
Michigan Gov. Jennifer
Granholm, talked about
U.S. investment of tril
lions for “electric cars,
solar panels, wind tur
bines and energy-effi
cient appliances and
buildings.”
Biden said, “A key
plank of our Build Back
Better economic plan is
building a modern, cli
mate-resilient infrastruc
ture and clean energy
future.”
Biden didn’t take
questions from the press
or respond to shouted
questions. So here’s the
question I did not have a
chance to ask:
Tesla, Oracle and HP
have announced they are
moving operations from
California to Texas
because of the Golden
State’s onerous regula
tions and high tax rates.
Because California has
the regulations you gen
erally support and
employers are fleeing,
why do you think that
your climate-change
gurus and higher taxes
will create jobs and be
good for the U.S. econo
my?
Earlier this month
speaking at the Wall
Street Journal CEO
Council, Tesla chief Elon
Musk confirmed that he
is moving operations and
home from California,
where income and men
tal health taxes shave
13.3% of millionaires’
income, to Texas, which
is a state without person
al income tax.
Musk operates the
only remaining car plant
in California, a state that
used to host more than a
dozen automobile plants.
If Tesla builds more
plants, it won’t be in
California with its high
taxes, excessive regula
tions and high cost of
living for his workforce.
Biden’s campaign
website said the former
vice president “believes
the Green New Deal is a
crucial framework for
meeting the climate chal
lenges we face.”
My fear is that under
Biden’s new climate
warriors, manufacturers
will move more jobs and
even administrative
space overseas.
Because Biden didn’t
take questions Saturday,
I called Chuck DeVore, a
recovering Californian
and now vice president
of the Texas Public
Policy Foundation, to get
his take.
DeVore did not predict
a massive exodus of U.S.
corporations to other
lands with less rule of
law. He sees in the Biden
plan a “smorgasbord of
crony capitalism” and a
return to “the Obama
Solyndra style” — in
reference to a former
California solar energy
DEBRA SAUNDERS
Columnist
firm that received a $535
million federal loan from
the Obama-Biden admin
istration.
It brought me back to
2010 when President
Barack Obama visited
Solyndra’s Fremont plant
and proclaimed, “The
true engine of economic
growth will always be
companies like
Solyndra.”
Obama also called
Solyndra “a testament to
American ingenuity and
dynamism.”
I was at Solyndra
when the president came
to town and rather baf
fled that any White
House would think it a
good idea for a president
to ladle such lavish
praise upon a company
that had not turned a
profit since its founding
in 2005.
Two months earlier,
PricewaterhouseCoopers
released an audit that
questioned Solyndra’s
“ability to continue as a
going concern.” And still
Obama went made a pil
grimage to Solyndra.
The year after
Obama’s visit, Solyndra
filed for bankruptcy.
The thing about
Solyndra is, taxpayers
were furious about the
arrangement. CEOs not
so much.
DeVore said of the
Solyndra model, “From a
macro-economic stand
point, it will hurt the
economy.”
The issue isn’t that the
rare beneficiary goes
belly up, but that
Washington picks win
ners or losers poorly.
As Musk, a beneficiary
himself of generous fed
eral, state and local sub
sidies, told the Journal
confab, he believes the
government should
“incent the outcome” but
“not the path.”
Under the Solyndra
model, there will be
some benefits for big
corporations that are in a
position to take advan
tage of solar and wind
power subsidies. It’s the
independent midland
Texas energy concerns
that will get squeezed,
said DeVore.
And they won’t have
another Texas as safe
harbor. Figure if their
jobs disappear, it won’t
be to another state.
Contact Debra J. Saunders
at dsaunders@reviewjour-
nal.com or 202-662-7391.
Follow @DebraJSaunders
on Twitter.
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Jim Powell for the Forsyth County News
Are ‘Never Trumpers’ the future of the GOP?
Denouncing the $900 billion
COVID-19 relief bill as a parsi
monious “disgrace” and hinting at
an Alamo-style finish on Jan. 6,
when Congress votes to declare
Joe Biden the next president,
Donald Trump is not going to go
quietly.
The anti-Trumpers and “Never
Trumpers” celebrating at
Christmas 2020, in this “dark
winter” of Joe Biden’s depiction,
are assuring each other that
Trumpism and Trump are dead
and gone for good in four weeks.
The future of the GOP, they
suggest, belongs to the
Republicans who resisted and
renounced Trump through the last
five years of his candidacy and
presidency.
As for those cowards and col
laborators who stood by Trump
and refused to repudiate him, they
will, in turn, be repudiated by his
tory and the American electorate
alike.
The wish, here, is very much
the father to the thought.
For if the past is any guide, not
only are the reports of the death of
Trumpism premature, the proba
bility is that Trumpism has put
down roots in our national politics
that are not soon, if ever, going to
be pulled up.
For those of us of a certain age,
a comparable situation arose at
Christmas 1964. Barry Goldwater
had just been crushed in a 44-state
landslide, winning the votes of
only 27 million Americans. The
senator had carried only five
states of the Deep South and his
home state of Arizona.
The establishment saw in the
crushing of Goldwater the defeat
and rout of the “extremist” move
ment that had produced him. “The
Party That Fost Its Head” was the
title of a widely hailed post-elec
tion book by two Ripon Society
Republicans.
The establishment consensus
was that Govs. Nelson
Rockefeller of New York, William
Scranton of Pennsylvania and
George Romney of Michigan
were the future of the party, if it
PATRICK BUCHANAN
Columnist
was to have a future.
What followed?
Richard Nixon, who had stood
by Goldwater when the party’s
liberal elite abandoned him,
would lead the GOP to recapture
47 House seats in 1966, take the
presidency in 1968, and run up a
49 state landslide in 1972.
Thus began a period of GOP
presidential ascendancy, with
Nixon, Reagan and Bush I win
ning five of six elections from
1968 to 1988, until the first baby
boomer president, Bill Clinton,
arrived on the scene.
And while there are differences
between now and then, there are
many similarities.
Do the anti-Trumpers or “Never
Trumpers” represent the future of
the GOP? If so, where is the post
war precedent for this? No
Republican who turned his back
on Goldwater was ever nominated
for president or vice president fol
lowing Goldwater’s defeat.
When President Gerald Ford
put Rockefeller on his ticket after
taking over from President Nixon,
the Kansas City convention of
1976 demanded Rockefeller’s
removal as the price of party
unity.
Rockefeller was sacrificed, as
the right had demanded.
Four years after Ford’s defeat,
Mr. Conservative himself, Ronald
Reagan, Goldwater’s most effec
tive surrogate in 1964, was nomi
nated and won successive land
slides in 1980 and 1984.
Other factors and forces point to
the probability that Trumpism has
a major role in the party’s future.
Where Presidents Truman,
Nixon, and George W. Bush left
office with approval ratings in the
20s, Trump’s approval rating is
still in the 40s, where it has been
for the duration of his presidency.
Second, the issues that pro
pelled Trump to the nomination
and the Oval Office still resonate
with the American people.
Among them are mass migra
tion, insecure borders and depen
dency upon foreign imports for
the necessities of our national life.
Moreover, there is shrinking
support for a foreign policy that
has us tied down militarily in
Europe, East Asia and the Middle
East, to fight if need be, in the
defense of scores of nations, few
of which have a direct bearing on
the national security of the United
States.
Another issue Trump elevated
and exploited that is more acute
now than in 2016, is a distrust of
the media, the “deep state” and
the political, cultural and academ
ic establishments that have alien
ated the 74 million who voted for
Trump.
And if the past is prologue, the
Republican Party will make a
major comeback in 2022.
Consider. Two years after his
smashing victory over Goldwater,
FBJ and his party lost 47 House
seats. Ronald Reagan, after his
landslide in 1980, lost 26 House
seats in 1982. After routing Bush I
in 1992, Bill Clinton lost 54
House seats and the Senate. Two
years after winning the presiden
cy, Barack Obama lost both the
House and Senate in 2014.
Is it likely Joe Biden will be
celebrating his 80th birthday after
making history by leading his
party to control of Congress in
2022?
For Republicans, the nomina
tion of 2024 is a prize to be
sought.
However, if one has spent the
last four years trashing Trump, it
may be as out of reach as it was
for Rocky.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of
"Nixon's White House Wars: The
Battles That Made and Broke a
President and Divided America
Forever."