Kevin McCarthy, Republican Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, is going to present a legislative agenda for the next two years under the name "Commitment to America." The goal of the proposals is to unify Republican candidates' messages and get Americans to actually vote for them and not just against the Democratic Party.
These voters proposals come at a time when the Republican Party's ability to regain control of both Houses of Congress, or even one of them, is in question. A clear GOP victory in the House of Representatives was expected months ago, but all analysts see the Democratic Party making a speedy recovery.
An economic program
Axios, which has accessed the document, reports that the proposals are encompassed in four chapters. The first of these is entitled "A strong economy." The first problem they want to tackle is inflation. New York Fed President John Williams acknowledges that it will take years to return to 2% inflation.
Republicans believe that increased government spending under Joe Biden's term ($9 trillion since January 2021) is mainly responsible for the rise in inflation, which is at 8.5%.
To counter inflation, they want to end demand-side policies, such as the Build Back Better program which has allocated $1.7 trillion to various policies, such as infrastructure, environment or employment. They also want to replace them with supply-side policies, such as tax cuts. They also encourage working from home.
Energy
The other major economic issue is energy. Republicans criticize Joe Biden's policies:
America was the largest energy producer in the world – and gas was affordable. The Biden administration then halted new energy projects, shut down pipeline construction, and took every step to discourage American oil and gas production. Americans shouldn’t have to choose between driving to work and putting food on the table.
That is why they want to turn Joe Biden's energy policies around, focus on domestic energy production and strengthen the electricity system. They also propose a policy regarding Chinese import substitutions.
The southern border
Regarding security, republicans propose to adopt measures to get the southern border under control and prevent the permanent entry of illegal immigrants and toxic substances, such as fentanyl. In August alone 181,000 illegal immigrants entered the country. On the other hand, also in August, Border Patrol seized enough fentanyl to kill the entire country's population.
They propose to finish building the wall to separate Mexico from the United States, to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program, and require documentation proving legal status in order to work.
In foreign policy, they want to strengthen the alliance with Israel against Iran, confront China's "aggressive policy" in the world, increase military spending, depoliticize the Justice Department, and hold Joe Biden responsible for abandoning Afghanistan and its consequences.
A free education
There are three other areas of public policy that Republican representatives encompass under the name A future that's free. One of them is education, where they propose expanding parents' control over their children's education. They will do so by passing a Parents' Bill of Rights, allowing them to know what their children are being taught, and what schools are spending money on. They also want to strengthen their role in educational management, and expand the freedom of school choice.
In healthcare, they plan to modernize and personalize service, increase competition to improve quality, reduce the enormous cost of healthcare services, and promote remote care.
Big tech
One of the dilemmas facing Republicans is what to do about Big Tech which, in their view, censors conservative voices:
The age of social media promised to connect us with new people and ideas. Instead, Big Tech has tipped the scales to silence conservatives. Worse than crystallizing an ideological echo chamber, it has intentionally addicted our kids to a culture of looking at their phones rather than looking out to the world.
The question for them is whether they should stick to defending free enterprise, which implies respecting the enormous size those companies have come to be or resort to antitrust laws. They propose to resort to this legislation and put an end to Section 230 as it currently stands.
The objective is to force big technology companies to decide whether they are platforms and therefore have to respect any type of content, or if they moderate it and then as editors be subjected to legislation that affects the media.
The last block includes several initiatives that have to do with its legislative and administrative work, such as the controlling the Administration's actions, or proposing measures to ensure "safe and free elections."
