Thank you Jason White for the boost to my withering hope that good government conservatives may one day lift Mississippi off the bottom.
If you have not read the Speaker’s April 8th interview with Mississippi Today writers Taylor Vance and Geoff Pender you should. In it, as conservative Republican White lays out his rationale for supporting Medicaid expansion, he reveals his good government conservatism. Here are some examples:
“My Republicans think that is the smart, common sense, business-minded thing to do,” White said, explaining that federal dollars would fully fund the first four years of expansion. “I’ll admit this. Most of my Republicans don’t get there because of compassion. They get there when they look at dollars and cents.”
Efficient, frugal government run like a business is a core tenet of good government conservatism.
“We see an unhealthy population that’s uncovered (by insurance),” White continued, pointing to input from business owners, hospitals and doctors. “I’m convinced, and health care professionals have convinced me, that this population, this is the way to cover these individuals. Nothing else really makes sense.”
Effective government is another core tenet of good government conservatism.
“Now, if you come for the savings and stay for the compassion,” White said, “I think that’s all the more better, you know, to give these people a chance at some decent health care, some regular preventive health care that might prevent some of the problems that we end up – guess what – paying for anyway.”
Moral government is third core tenet.
“I’ve never been hung up on the names and the terminology,” said White, addressing political slams on Medicaid expansion for the past decade.
Decision-making driven by facts and research, not polemics, comprises another key trait of good government conservatism.
Some background: During his campaigns for governor in the 1970s Gil Carmichael advocated good government conservatism – constrained government operating efficiently and effectively like a business plus moral government providing citizens good education and economic opportunity along with a fiscally responsible safety net for the poor and elderly.
Years later, Haley Barbour practiced his pragmatic version of Gil’s good government conservatism during his two terms as governor. Relevant to the Speaker’s comments, Haley, at his 2004 inaugural address to the legislature, said, “If any area or any group of people is left out, it holds back the rest of the state.” (For more on this topic see my upcoming book A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives to be published by the University Press of Mississippi.)
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.